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Liens Information - Setting Up, Searching, Viewing

Last Revised:March 4, 2016

 

Table of Contents

Liens are those handled for entities that collect fees such as those for demolition. Specialized screens, reports, and statements exist to support the business practices related to these liens.  Unpaid liens are assessed interest of 10% per year and are subject to additional collection penalties. Accounts may have more than one lien and more than one set of contacts. Delinquency and attorney dates are set to the first of the month following the File Date. If the File Date is the first of a month, the delinquency dates and attorney dates will be the same as the File Date.

"Pre-liens" can also be managed in this system. By this, we mean the processes that must be taken and notices that must be sent before a lien can actually be assessed. For more information on managing pre-liens, see Managing Pre-Liens.

For lien documentation fees, the Unit Type in the Tax Unit Maintenance screen must be LIENDOCF.

The following definitions may be useful:

Work Date: the date the work or situation that prompted the lien was done. For preliens, this would be the date a call came in about the property.

File Date: a filing date provided by the tax office after the Notice of Lien is sent to them.

Suit Date - a date usually provided by the law firm.  Adding this date causes a 33.07 date to be populated on the lien receivable and a  20% collection penalty will be assessed as of that date.

Erroneous Lien - a lien filed on the wrong account.

Canceled Lien - if the lien has no file date, it can be canceled if it was entered by mistake. Once it is canceled, no other changes can be made.  The lien amount is zeroed out.

Released Lien - a lien can be released if it has been paid in full. Once it is released, the lien cannot be updated. Additional copies of the release notice cost $73.40. The Release Fee tax unit for the account is updated with this amount.

Sale Date/Extinguished Lien  - a lien that exists prior to the sale of the property can have an Extinguished status if it is not fully paid, but otherwise it is treated similarly to a released lien.  Any amounts due remain in the system unless the client preference CANCEL_LIEN_ON_SALE is set to Y. Entering a Sale Date causes a lien to become extinguished.

Amended Lien- a lien that has been changed.

Judgment -If a lien is taken to court, the release fee cannot be assessed. Users should print the Judgment statement in these cases.

ClosedUser Entitlements

The following user entitlements must be set for each user who needs access to the Special Liens screens. They are part of the Update Special Liens task. Other tasks available to liens users are: Make Full Transfer Payment, Make Manual Refund, Make Owner Detail Account Master Changers, Make Receivable Changes, Make Reveral Payment, Manage All Deposits, Manage Fees, Manage Notes, Manage Refunds, Print Receipts, Print Statements, Run Special Liens Batch Processes, Take Full Advanced Payment, Take Special Payment, and View Only Special Liens.

Only users having the Liens Users job can view or make changes to this screen. See Tasks, Entitlements, and Jobs for more information.

BATCHMENU - See the Batch Menu screen

BATCHREQUEST - See and use the Batch Request screen

LIEN_ALLOW_RELEASE_ON_CANCELED: Check the box to allow users to update project no., batch no., film no., film code, file date, legal description and release date on canceled liens on the Lien Detail screen. The entitlement SPECIAL_LIENS_UPDATE must also be set.

LIEN_MASTER: Grants users access to the Lien screens.

SPECIAL_LIENS_CANCEL: Grants user permission to cancel liens.

SPECIAL_LIENS_PRELIEN_UPDATE: Grants users permission to enter pre-lien expire dates on the Lien Detail Info screen.

SPECIAL_LIENS_RELEASE: Grants users permission to release liens.

SPECIAL_LIENS_RELEASE_UPDATE: Grants users permission to update released liens (must also have SPECIAL_LIENS_UPDATE)

SPECIAL_LIENS_INSERT: Grants users permission to add new liens.

SPECIAL_LIENS_UPDATE: Grants users permission to update existing liens.

SPECIAL_LIENS_UPDATE_ACTIVATE: Grants users permission to update the Activation Date  on the Lien Master screen.

SPECIAL_LIENS_INACTIVATE: If granted, the Inactivate/Activate button will be enabled on the Lien Detail screen

NOTES_INSERT: Grants users permission to add notes in the Liens Notes screen. Notes will still be generated when statements and notices are printed, even though this entitlement may not be granted.

NOTES_DELETE: Grants users permission to delete notes in the Liens Notes screen

NOTES_QUERY: Grants users permission to view notes in the Liens Notes screen

NOTES_UPDATE: Grants users permission to change notes in the Liens Notes screen

UPDATE_NOTES_NEW_CERT_YEAR: Manage notes for new certified data that is not yet the current tax year. This is dependent on the NOTES_QUERY, NOTES_INSERT, NOTES_UDPATE, NOTES_DELETE, and DELETE_OWN_NOTES entitlements being set for authorized users.

LIEN_SYNCH_UPDATE: Allow users to update liens and liens payments for synching to a different Client ID.

Other entitlements related to taking payments and printing receipts are:

ACT8001, CLOSE_DEPOSITS_ANYDAY, NEEDS_BEG_CASH_AUTH, SHOW_DEPCTL_TOTALS_ROLE, REOPEN_DEPOSIT_ANY_DAY, ADVANCED_DEPOSIT, AUTH_VOIDS_SAME_USER, CHANGE_DEPDATE, CHANGE_PAIDDATE

(v1 user security) Roles:

The SPECIAL_LIENS role must be checked in the User Administration screen to use any of the screens or reports for special liens.

 

ClosedClient Preferences :

Some client preferences must be set by ACT. These include the LIEN_TYPE codes for the different types of liens offered by each tax office (for ex., demolition, health) (Technical note: these have a type_code of LIEN_TYPE). Interest rates are controlled by the preference having a LIEN_INTEREST type code. (For accounts with a 0% interest rate, due dates are set to 12/31/2099.)

LIEN_ADMIN_FEE: Enter the amount of the lien administration fee. If it is a percentage of the lien, expire this preference.

LIEN_RELEASE_FEE: Enter the fee amount for liens. The default is 36.70

LIEN_RELEASE_FEE_TAXUNIT: Enter the tax unit for storing the fee. It must be in the 9000 range. The default is 9010.

LIEN_MAILING_ADDRESS1, LIEN_MAILING_ADDRESS2, LIEN_MAILING_ADDRESS3, LIEN_MAILING_ADDRESS4, LIEN_MAILING_ADDRESS5:Enter the return address for lien releases, notices, and amendments

LIEN_RETURN_ADDRESS1, LIEN_RETURN_ADDRESS2, LIEN_RETURN_ADDRESS3, LIEN_RETURN_ADDRESS4, LIEN_RETURN_ADDRESS5: Enter the return address for lien statements.

CPA, CPA_NAME_ONLY, CPA_TITLE, JUR_ADDRESS, JUR_ADDRESS1, JUR_ADDRESS2, JUR_ADDRESS3, JUR_ADDRESS4, JUR_PHONE, JUR_PHONE1. Enter the information for receipts and statements of lien amount due. For prelien notices, the CPA_NAME_ONLY and CPA_TITLE preferences are used.

LIEN_PRINT_OBJECT: set this to the object name for lien notices. Currently this is either LIEN_NOTICE_RPT or C_AFFIDAVIT_LIEN_30DAYS. The latter is for the City of Corpus Christi only.

LIEN_SHOW_INACTIVATE_BUTTON: Set to Y to show the Inactivate/Activate button on the Lien Detail screen.

LIEN_TYPE: These definitions of lien type must be set up behind the scenes for each office using the liens system: DM - Code Violation or Demolition, HE - Health, SE - Securing, VB - Visual Blight, UN - Unknown

DEMO_LIENS_USE_ALL_ADDRESSES: Set to Y to use alternate addresses and any addresses in the Contacts screen for batch  menu no. 1538, Create Data File for Lien Statements, for demo liens. A separate line is created in the file for each address per demo lien. If there are no alternate addresses or addresses in the Contacts screen, the certified owner's address is used. Set to N to use only the certified owner's address

LIEN_STMT_IF_NO_ACTIVATED_DATE: If set to N the trigger table sequence populated by batch menu no. 1537, Load Lien Accounts to Trigger Table, and the file created by batch menu no. 1538, Create Data File for Lien Statements will not include liens unless they have an Activation Date. Set to Y (the default) to include such liens. This preference is also on the Lien Print screen for statements.

LIEN_EXTINGUISHED_ON_505/506; This works with the 505/506 reports, batch menu no. 608. Set to Y to include extinguished liens from the file and report. Set to N to exclude the extinguished liens. The default setting is Y.

LIEN_RELEASE_PRIMARY_APPROVAL: Set to the name and title wanted as a primary signature on lien release notices. If expired, no signature and title is printed.

LIEN_RELEASE_ALT_APPROVAL: Set to the name and title to use as an alternate signature (instead of the primary signature) on release notices. If expired, no signature and title is printed. LIEN_SHOW_PRELIEN_BUTTON: Set to Y to allow your tax office to use the pre-lien features. Set to N to prevent this functionality from being used.

LIEN_SHOW_PRELIEN_BUTTON: Set to Y to allow your tax office to use the pre-lien features. Set to N to prevent this functionality from being used.

LIEN_NUM_DAYS_EXPIRE: Set to the number of days to consider when setting the expire date on pre-lien notices.

SHOW_LIEN_VOL_PAGE: Set to Y to show the Volume and Page fields on the Lien Detail screen; set to N (the default) to hide them.

LIEN_DEFAULT_INTEREST_PCT: Set to the interest rate to use as the default in the Lien Master screen. The default is 10. For Fulton County, it will be 0.

CC_LIENS_SUPERVISOR_NAME: Enter the name of the supervisor to put on Corpus Christi's release of lien notices.

CC_LIENS_SUPERVISOR_TITLE: Enter the job title of the supervisor for Corpus Christi's release of lien notices.

LIEN_SYNCH: (El Paso only) Set to Y to allow liens and lien payments to be synched between the County and the City tax office. Other tax offices should leave the default of N.

LIEN_YEAR_FROM_FILE_DATE: Set to Y to use the year of the file date for the lien year or the current year if the file year is greater than the current year. Set to N (default) to always use the current year.

CANCEL_LIEN_ON_SALE: Set to Y to extinguish a lien and zero out any remaining balance (leaving any paid amounts) if a new sale date is entered. Set to N to not do this.

To search for an account or existing lien:

  1. From the Main Menu, select Products, then Special Liens.  The Lien Search screen will appear.

If you know that the account has a lien, you can search for it on the Lien Search screen.  If the account does not have an existing lien, you must search on the Lien Master screen instead or search on the Account Search screen.

  1. To search for an existing lien on the Lien Search screen:
  2. Press F7 (Enter Query).
  3. Enter an account number or lien ID.
  4. Press F8 (Execute Query).
  5. If you receive a message saying no records were found, click OK, then click CTRL + Q to cancel the query.
  6. To search for an account on the Lien Master screen:
  1. To view the amounts owed and amounts paid on a lien, click the Lien Status button. The Lien Balance screen will appear.

The Lien Balance shows the total lien amount (the Total Principal) and the amounts owed, as well as whether the lien is canceled, extinguished or released.  

  1. To include inactive liens, check the Include Inactive box. Inactive liens have a colored background. Payments cannot be taken on inactive liens. Principal levy for inactivated liens includes fee amount. but not interest or attorney fees.  Also, for some offices, due dates for inactivated liens have been moved to 01/01/2090. This allows the Account Status and Lien Status screens to show the same amounts.
  2. To see the amounts due as of a date other than the current date, enter that date in the As Of Date field, then click Search.
  3. Click the Lien Paid tab to see amounts paid to all of the liens on this account. This screen also shows whether the lien is canceled, extinguished, or released.