Release Of Lien Form Texas: Fill & Download for Free

In Texas, the release of lien is filed at the county where the property is located in order to give the world notice that it’s paid off.

In Texas, when a dealer pays off a loan for a vehicle taken in trade with an e-Title, the lienholder has 10 business days after receipt of payment to release the lien. The lienholder sends an electronic transaction to TxDMV with the name and address of the dealer. TxDMV will remove the lien and mail the paper title to the dealer.I will add this, if you sold the vehicle to the dealership and you received payment, which you can’t do if it has a lien recorded, you are responsible for paying off the lien. By Texas law, you can’t sell a vehicle without having a clear title, free if any type of lien.By law in Texas the dealership may not sell the vehicle without having a clear title and the dealership taking assignment on the title. In most states you can order what is called a “title history”, which is a complete record on the title. I would check with your state agency that deals with titles and registration. Since you didn’t provide the state in which this transaction took place, I can only answer the question with regards to Texas.I was a state investigator for the Texas Department of Motor Vehicle’s for 15 years and investigated motor vehicle dealers.I hope that helps.

In Texas, yes — with conditions. And, those conditions don’t have anything to do with a court order at this level of the discussion. It has to do with whether you have claimed your home to be your homestead. — You could sue in court to get the lien removed if you thought it was placed on your home incorrectly. If, for instance, I placed a lien on your homestead, and you sued me for that, then you’d win by default, because I can’t place a mechanic’s lien on your homestead. If I’d placed a mechanic’s lien on some home or property you have, which is not your declared homestead, then we would have to argue our cases in court, likely.So, let’s say you had two homes: a $150,000 lake house and a $250,000 city house. If you had declared one to be your homestead (exemption), and that was the property for which I (e.g., a general contractor) had a financial reason to place a mechanic’s lien on your home (→ don’t ask me why it’s called a mechanic’s lien; that’s just the legal term for it; and, yes, an auto mechanic can use the same process to place a lien on your vehicle), I wouldn’t be able to do it.I, as a building contractor, could not place a mechanic’s lien on your homestead property. A bank can place a lien on your home if it has a mortgage on it, but the bank is not going to allow you to collateralize your home for other reasons (i.e., to get some other kind of loan) if the home/property you are pledging is your homestead.I’ll give you a couple of examples.I used to run a concrete plant. One of my customers was redoing a driveway for a man in a neighboring city. My terms with the concrete contractor (hereafter, just “contractor”) were COD; once that concrete was all poured out and on the ground, he owed me payment for the concrete.The contractor set up the time of the delivery for near 5pm under the pretense that his customer (i.e., the homeowner) would be writing us a check, and he was unwilling to leave a blank check with the contractor, so the concrete needed to arrive around 5pm, because his customer would not be home until then.That sounded reasonable to me. I mean, people get off work around 5pm.What was really going on was that the contractor knew the homeowner, who was there watching him, would be gone/not at home at 5pm. — He scheduled the concrete delivery for when the homeowner would not be at home.The concrete was poured out. The last driver asked for payment; he told the driver that he’d worked out special arrangements with me (so that he wouldn’t have to pay then), and the driver believed him and drove off. — My driver did not make the best decision right there, but that’s what happened. In the end, it was best that it happened that way, but the driver could not have known that then.The contractor was, in fact, lying to the driver; there was no arrangement. The homeowner had already paid the contractor for the concrete, in cash. — All of this was just deception.When I got to work the next day, I looked for the contractor’s check (i.e., payment), and I couldn’t find it. That’s when the driver told me the story the contractor had told him, so I immediately get on the phone to try to figure out why the contractor had violated the terms of our sale.I could not get the contractor to pick up or return my calls. — That meant I then had to get in touch with the homeowner, because he had 40+ tons of my concrete in his driveway, and it hadn’t been paid for — not to me.If you act as your own general contractor, then you have to be careful to make sure that the people you hire (i.e., your “virtual” subcontractors) take your money and pay their materials and labor bills. Otherwise, if they do not remit your payments to the correct people, and in a timely fashion, those people have recourse right back to you to ask for payment.It doesn’t matter if you’d already paid the concrete contractor, and he had promised to pay the concrete manufacturing and delivering company. — If he doesn’t do that, then you’re in big trouble, financially, because it’s not like a concrete plant can “repossess” the concrete! — It’s all hardened up and has no value anymore.I drove over to the homeowner’s address and spoke with him in person; told him what happened. He said that he would try to contact the concrete contractor and get this sorted out. In the process, I got his phone number and verified I had the right address for where our property (i.e., concrete) was located.I didn’t hear from the man, so I called him again, and he said he’d had no luck getting in touch with the contractor, either. That’s when I told him that I was very sorry, but that he was ultimately responsible for paying for the concrete — that means making sure that the money he outlays gets transmitted, and is received, by the concrete plant. — He was going to have to pay us for the concrete, which we now considered to be his bill, as he was the homeowner.He would then have the option to sue the concrete contractor to recover his losses due to paying for the same concrete twice. — The homeowner was having nothing to do with that assertion. He told me, “I’m not paying for the same thing twice.”Unfortunately, that then meant I had to tell him that I’d be placing a mechanic’s lien on his property, which would remain there until the debt was paid off. He would not be able to sell his house until the lien was removed. And, if he had a mortgage on the house, my lien would be superior to the bank’s lien, which meant the bank would probably consider him to have breached his mortgage covenants, causing the entire amount of his unpaid mortgage balance to come due immediately.All of that is true! — I’m not making things up.Even if he died and passed the home on to his heirs, the heirs would still have to contend with that mechanic’s lien, meaning they could not sell the home without paying it off. — Liens do not just go away; and, no — I do not have to get a court order to place this lien on your property.The homeowner got off the phone and contacted his attorney, who asked him if his property was classified as his homestead; it was. Ergo, his attorney told him to disregard what I was saying.And, his attorney was right. — As soon as I received a response to one of my demand letters for payment from this homeowner, in which he told me this was his homestead property, I checked to verify that was true, and then I knew I was going to have to pursue some other path.I called the homeowner back and told him, just as a courtesy, that I agreed with his attorney; I could not place a lien on his property, and I just wanted to let him know that I would not be trying to do that. — However, I would be seeking to recover the monies owed to us from the contractor he’d used, and if he ever figured out where the guy was, or spoke with him again, we’d be very appreciative if he would contact us to give us this information.It had always been purely business that I had to assert our rights to place a lien on his property. We did, in fact, provide the concrete to his contractor when the contractor wanted it, which was after our normal hours of operation. He was satisfied with the driveway he got out of the transaction, and currently, he was whole; the contractor had been overpaid by several thousands of dollars due to not remitting the monies destined, by him, for the plant to the plant; and, we were out several thousands of dollars, as ready-mix concrete manufacturing and delivery is a very low-margin business.If he had purchased this concrete for delivery to anywhere but his homestead, then he would have a lien on his property. So, the contractor had put him a perilous situation, and the good guys here were him and us. — He agreed to call me if he ever heard from the guy again.I eventually filed charges against the contractor for theft of product by deception, and after getting a plea deal in which he would plead guilty to a felony; pay restitution to us; and, be on felony probation, he absconded; and, when he was found, he was then sentenced to a year in state prison.Another example of how a court order is not needed is a bank loan. — Let’s say that you have a home and quite a bit of land. On that land you would like to build a rental property to get you some passive income coming in.You have a mortgage on your home and this land, and you have declared the home and this land to be your homestead.You have a bank lien on this property by virtue of having the mortgage, unless for some reason you were able to get the mortgage without having to pledge the land and property in order to get it. — All the bank had to do to file this lien was go see the county clerk. They don’t need a court order.Now, when you say that you want to zone part of the land as commercial, and you need a loan to build the commercial property (e.g., a building, office, parking lot, etc.), you are asking the bank to give you a commercial (business) loan.You’re not amending your mortgage. You’re asking for a commercial loan. Now, if you have your mortgage with some other financial institution, then the bank will be seeking to add a lien on the property you want to build, but the land upon which it sits already has a lien against it, by the other financial institution.Plus, all of this is homestead property.They’re not going to do that! — If you file for bankruptcy, sometime in the future, you’ll be able to shield yourself from repayment of the mortgage for your home and the land, and for the new commercial build (because it sits on your homestead property). → The second bank’s lien will not worth the paper it’s written on.So, if you want the loan, you’re going to have to pledge some other type of collateral. Some property or land that is not part of your homestead.Some liens are placed on your property with your consent (like bank liens). Some (a mechanic’s lien being one type, but surely not the only type) are placed by others on our property due to money disputes. They can be placed without your consent, and without a court order. — If you feel that they have been placed illegally, then you can sue the lienholder for release of lien.In real estate, sometimes a lessee of yours will apply for a grant (let’s say, a federal grant). In order for the federal government to approve the grant award to your lessee, you — the lessor — must agree for a special type of lien to be placed on your property, as technically now the federal government has an interest in your property.This is called an NFI (Notice of Federal Interest), if my memory serves me.That doesn’t mean the grant award gave the federal government ownership in your property. Really, it just alters your lease agreement.For instance, if your lessee goes out of business, then you must look for a similar type of tenant to occupy the property; one that operates a substantially similar type of business. You might ask the federal government to help you in that process.If you can’t find a similar tenant, then you will have to ask the federal government to remove the NFI, which is like a lien. It’s like a lien, because you can’t sell the land without first notifying the federal government that you are selling and assuaging them, for instance, that the nonprofit they gave a grant to will be able to stay there, with the new owner/lessor, as if you were still the owner/lessor.—The nature of the NFI, and the reason I bring it up, is because it is like a mechanic’s lien or bank lien — it remains there in perpetuity, theoretically. Once it’s there, you can only get it taken off if the party who placed the NFI/lien agrees with you.You may get a car loan. Once you make your last payment, you’ll likely, pretty soon, get a new car title in the mail, and it’ll list no lienholders. That proves you’re the sole owner, and the property (i.e., the car) has no encumbrances.Land and fixed asset-type properties are, perhaps, somewhat different. You may have weird cross-collateralization of properties written into loan agreements. While, technically, any officer of the bank can sign the title and return the property to you, unencumbered, they tend not to want to do that.Some liens are superior to others. You get to talking about orderings (i.e., if there are multiple lienholders, and if the property is liquidated, who will get paid first?).If you have a bank lien on your home, which is not your homestead, and then I come and put a mechanic’s lien on your home, because you didn’t pay me what we agreed when I remodeled your kitchen, then my lien will be superior to your bank’s lien, which reduces (potentially) the amount of collateralization your bank loan has, and your debt-to-value ratio.The bank is not going to like that, and it likely violates your mortgage/loan agreement(s) with the bank. — They could then terminate your loan and require you to pay the balance within 10 days, or 30 days, unless you could convince them, or someone else, to refinance your house. Which, they will be loathe to do, considering it has a mechanic’s lien against it.Of course, this is why we place mechanic’s liens. → They are persuasive.Good luck getting a lawsuit filed against me; having me served; and getting a verdict, favorable to you — within 10 days, 30 days, or even longer.Of course, if I foolishly filed a lien against your homestead property, then you win by default, and I’m going to have to figure out some other way to recover your debt.