2026-09-15 · Mississippi · Compliance

A recorded Mississippi condominium assessment lien dies one year after it is recorded unless the association extends it, and the extension buys exactly one more year. After that the lien is gone. That two-year absolute ceiling is unusual among the states, and it sits in a statute that has barely been touched since 1964.¹

What Section 89-9-21 says

A reasonable assessment made under a declaration recorded per § 89-9-17 “shall be a debt of the owner thereof at the time the assessment is made.” It becomes “a lien upon the condominium assessed when the management body causes to be recorded… a notice of assessment” stating the amount, the description and the record owner, signed and verified.

Three features of that sentence matter:

The lien does not exist until recording. The debt arises on assessment; the lien arises on recording a notice. An association that never records has a contract claim, not a lien.

Priority runs from the recording date, not from the assessment date. The statute makes the lien “prior to all other liens recorded subsequent to the recordation of said notice of assessment.” There is no super-priority over a prior mortgage — nothing resembling the six-month priority window many states give associations — and the declaration may subordinate it further.

It expires. “Unless sooner satisfied and released, or the enforcement thereof initiated as hereafter provided, such lien shall expire and be of no further force or effect one year from the date of recordation of said notice of assessment; provided, however, that said one-year period may be extended by the management body for a time not to exceed one (1) additional year by recording a written extension thereof.”

1. Miss. Code Ann. Section 89-9-21, lien for assessments (Mississippi Condominium Law) ↩
2. Miss. Code Ann. Section 89-1-55, sale of land under deed of trust or mortgage ↩