Nebraska HOA Foreclosure

Overview

Nebraska runs two foreclosure tracks, and the document behind the debt decides which one applies. The Nebraska Trust Deeds Act drives most residential cases: a trustee sells the property without going to court, the trustee's deed hands the buyer title with no right of redemption, and even a judicial foreclosure sets no fixed redemption window after the sale, because the right to redeem closes the moment the court confirms it.^1,2,3 Condominiums split on a single date. The Nebraska Condominium Act, at Neb. Rev. Stat. § 76-825 and following, governs condominiums created on or after January 1, 1984; the older Condominium Property Act, at § 76-801 and following, still governs those created before it.^4,5 Nebraska has no comprehensive planned-community statute, so a non-condominium homeowners' association draws its power from its recorded declaration, the Nebraska Nonprofit Corporation Act, and a dedicated statutory assessment lien at § 52-2001.^6,7 The sequence is straightforward: the association records a notice of its lien, demands payment, then forecloses in the manner of a mortgage in district court, and the case ends with a sale and confirmation.⁸ Federal rules sit on top of all of it — the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act as the Supreme Court read it in Obduskey v. McCarthy & Holthus LLP, the Servicemembers Civil Relief Act, and the bankruptcy automatic stay.⁹ What you get is a document-driven, court-supervised system with sharp asymmetries that boards and counsel have to track by community type.

The statutory framework

The Nebraska Condominium Act and Condominium Property Act

The Nebraska Condominium Act, Neb. Rev. Stat. § 76-825 to § 76-894, is the state's adaptation of the Uniform Common Interest Ownership Act, and it governs every condominium created in Nebraska after January 1, 1984.^4,5 Condominiums created before that date answer to the Condominium Property Act, § 76-801 to § 76-823 — though a handful of Condominium Act sections, the lien provision among them, still reach pre-1984 condominiums for anything that happens after January 1, 1984.⁵ The Nebraska Supreme Court spelled out that overlap in Twin Towers Condo. Ass'n v. Bel Fury Investment Group, holding that a court tests an assessment lien under § 76-874 when the relevant events fall after January 1, 1984, even when the condominium itself is older.¹⁰

The condominium assessment lien lives in § 76-874. The statute says the association "has a lien on a unit for any assessment levied against that unit from the time the assessment becomes due and a notice containing the dollar amount of such lien is recorded in the office where mortgages are recorded," and that the lien "may be foreclosed in like manner as a mortgage on real estate," so long as the association gives reasonable notice to every lienholder whose interest the action would affect.¹¹ A prevailing association recovers its costs and reasonable attorney's fees — the award is mandatory, not discretionary.¹¹ The official annotation states the Twin Towers rule plainly: an association can foreclose a § 76-874 lien for unpaid assessments without first winning a personal judgment for the underlying debt.^11,10 One thing Nebraska pointedly did not do: it never adopted UCIOA's six-month super-priority. Section 76-874 contains nothing that lifts a slice of the association's lien ahead of a prior first mortgage, and the planned-community statute makes the same limit explicit — under § 52-2001 the association lien stays junior to a first mortgage or deed of trust recorded before the association recorded its notice, and a declaration cannot rewrite that order through relation-back.^11,7 Boards should not assume any priority over a first mortgage that was already on record.

Planned communities work without a comprehensive statute of their own. Nebraska has no planned-community act, so a non-condominium homeowners' association takes its authority from its recorded declaration and covenants, usually organizes under the Nebraska Nonprofit Corporation Act, § 21-1901 and following, and enforces unpaid assessments through the statutory lien at § 52-2001 — a lien it forecloses in the manner of a mortgage and loses unless it starts enforcement within three years.^6,7 That statute expressly leaves out condominium associations organized under either condominium act, which confirms the split structure.⁷

Nebraska Trust Deeds Act non-judicial trustee's sale

The Nebraska Trust Deeds Act, Neb. Rev. Stat. § 76-1001 to § 76-1018, authorizes a power of sale in a deed of trust, and it is the workhorse of residential enforcement in Nebraska.¹ Section 76-1005 lays out two routes: the trustee's non-judicial power of sale, or, if the beneficiary prefers, a judicial foreclosure in the manner of a mortgage.¹ The non-judicial road starts when the trustee records a notice of default that identifies the trust deed, states the breach, and elects to sell; from there the trustor gets at least one month to cure and reinstate, or two months on agricultural property.¹² Once the cure period runs out, the trustee publishes notice of the sale five times, once a week for five straight weeks, with the last notice landing at least ten but no more than thirty days before the sale, in a newspaper of general circulation in every county where the property sits.¹³ The trustee also mails the notice of default within ten days of recording it, and mails the notice of sale at least twenty days ahead to anyone who recorded a request for notice.¹⁴ The sale itself is a public auction, held between 9 a.m. and 5 p.m. at a location the statute designates.¹³

A non-judicial trustee's sale leaves no right of redemption afterward. Section 76-1010 says the trustee's deed conveys title to the buyer "without right of redemption," and every interest the trustor held ends when the trustee accepts the highest bid.² The Nebraska Supreme Court has acknowledged that the Act gives a borrower no statutory remedy for a botched sale, but a trustor can still sue in equity to set the sale aside, where courts sort the defects into three buckets — void, voidable, or inconsequential.¹⁵

Judicial foreclosure, redemption, and federal overlays

A judicial foreclosure of a mortgage goes to the district court in the county where the property sits, under Neb. Rev. Stat. § 25-2137, and that same body of mortgage law governs whenever a beneficiary elects to foreclose a deed of trust through the courts.^16,1 An association enforcing its § 76-874 or § 52-2001 lien takes this judicial route unless its recorded instrument is built as a deed of trust carrying a power of sale.^11,7

Redemption in Nebraska is narrower than people often assume. Section 25-1530 lets the owner of foreclosed real estate redeem "at any time before the sale of the same shall be confirmed by a court of competent jurisdiction," by paying the decree, interest, and costs.³ There is no fixed nine-month window after the sale; the right to redeem simply ends when the court confirms the sale under § 25-1531.^3,17 Put that next to § 76-1010's bar on redemption after a trustee's sale, and the practical rule is the same on both tracks: Nebraska offers no post-sale statutory redemption at all, and a borrower's chance to redeem closes either when the trustee accepts the bid or when the court confirms the judicial sale.^2,3

Federal law overlays both tracks. Under the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act, 15 U.S.C. § 1692 and following, the Supreme Court held in Obduskey v. McCarthy & Holthus LLP that "a business engaged in no more than nonjudicial foreclosure proceedings is not a 'debt collector' under the FDCPA, except for the limited purpose of § 1692f(6)" — a safe harbor that covers conduct kept strictly inside Nebraska's Trust Deeds Act procedure, while anything beyond that can pull a collector into full FDCPA exposure.^9,18 The Servicemembers Civil Relief Act, 50 U.S.C. § 3901 and following, supplies stays and protections for active-duty servicemembers, and the bankruptcy automatic stay under 11 U.S.C. § 362 freezes foreclosure the moment a debtor files.¹⁹

The Nebraska HOA foreclosure procedural sequence

A. Lien establishment and recording

For post-1984 condominiums, the § 76-874 lien arises the moment an assessment comes due, and the association perfects it by recording a notice that states the dollar amount in the office where mortgages are recorded.¹¹ The same section reaches pre-1984 condominiums for assessment events after January 1, 1984, as Twin Towers confirms.^10,5 Planned communities follow the same record-the-notice mechanism under § 52-2001.⁷ Recording mostly settles priority, and the news is not good for associations: under § 52-2001 the lien falls behind encumbrances recorded before the declaration, behind a first mortgage or deed of trust recorded before the association's notice, and behind real estate tax liens — and the declaration cannot manufacture relation-back priority to climb past them.⁷ Section 76-874 grants condominiums no super-priority either.¹¹ Nebraska sets no minimum dollar threshold before an association may record or enforce its lien.^11,7

B. Pre-foreclosure notice and demand

Both lien statutes require the association, when an owner asks in writing, to hand over a recordable statement of unpaid assessments within ten business days, and that statement binds the association and its members.^11,7 In practice this is the demand-and-disclosure step that comes before enforcement, and it applies to post-1984 condominiums under § 76-874 and to planned communities under § 52-2001.^11,7 When a third-party collector or law firm handles the pre-foreclosure dunning, that work is debt collection under the FDCPA — though the Obduskey safe harbor applies as long as the activity stays inside the Trust Deeds Act procedure.⁹ An association that enforces its lien judicially, in the manner of a mortgage, also has to give reasonable notice to every lienholder whose interest the action would affect, a requirement both § 76-874 and § 52-2001 state outright.^11,7

C. Non-judicial trustee's sale or judicial foreclosure

The instrument decides the track. Where the recorded instrument is a deed of trust with a power of sale, the foreclosure can run non-judicially under the Trust Deeds Act — notice of default and a one-month cure period under § 76-1006 (two months for agricultural property), notice of sale published five straight weeks under § 76-1007, mailed notice under § 76-1008, and a public trustee's auction.^12,13,14 But association declarations are rarely written as deeds of trust, so the usual path for a condominium or planned-community assessment lien is a judicial foreclosure "in like manner as a mortgage" under § 76-874 and § 52-2001, filed in district court under § 25-2137.^11,7,16 A condominium association can foreclose its lien without first winning a personal judgment, under Twin Towers, and a prevailing association collects mandatory costs and attorney's fees.^10,11 Foreclosing a lien against a single unit does not by itself dissolve the condominium regime under § 76-855.²⁰ Trial-level disputes move through the Nebraska district courts, with appeals to the Nebraska Court of Appeals and discretionary review by the Nebraska Supreme Court.¹⁶

D. Post-sale rights and redemption

After a non-judicial trustee's sale, there is no redemption — the trustee's deed conveys title free of the trustor's interest under § 76-1010.² After a judicial foreclosure sale, the owner can redeem only up until the court confirms the sale under § 25-1530, and again there is no fixed post-sale period.^3,17 Any surplus left after the debt and superior liens are paid belongs to the former owner. Deficiency exposure is where the two tracks part ways. After a trustee's sale, § 76-1013 makes the lender bring any deficiency action within three months and caps what a court can award, directing that "before rendering judgment, the court shall find the fair market value at the date of sale of the property sold," and that the court "shall not render judgment for more than the amount by which the amount of the indebtedness with interest and the costs and expenses of sale, including trustee's fees, exceeds the fair market value of the property."²¹ The Nebraska Supreme Court applied that statute in American Exchange Bank v. Topp, holding that the antideficiency limit reaches guarantors whenever a trust deed secures the obligation and a trustee sale takes place, and that a waiver of the fair-market-value defense is unenforceable as a matter of public policy.²² As the court put it, "Section 76-1013 is inapplicable to judicial foreclosure. Had AEB desired to circumvent § 76-1013, it could have done so by electing to proceed via judicial foreclosure. However, by choosing to proceed via trustee sale, it was required to follow the prescribed procedures."²² A buyer who takes title still has to go to court to evict an occupant who won't leave on their own.²

Recent legislative and judicial activity

A. Recent bills

No bill passed in the 2024 or 2025 sessions touched the condominium assessment lien at § 76-874, the planned-community lien at § 52-2001, the Nebraska Condominium Act, the Condominium Property Act, or the Trust Deeds Act — the most recent amendment to § 76-874 and § 52-2001 still dates to Laws 2013, LB442.^11,7 The one recent measure that brushes up against residential foreclosure is LB474, an omnibus banking-and-finance bill.

B. Recent appellate rulings

Two Nebraska Supreme Court decisions anchor this area — one recent, one a decade old but still controlling.

C. Active legislative debates

No bill in the 109th Legislature proposes a condominium or planned-community super-priority lien, or a comprehensive planned-community act, so Nebraska's document-driven framework stays intact. In the foreclosure space, lawmakers have spent their attention on technical banking-and-finance updates rather than on association-lien priority.

National positioning and related coverage

Nebraska sits in a distinct middle position. It is UCIOA-derivative for post-1984 condominiums only, so it borrows the model act's structure for newer condominiums while turning down UCIOA's signature six-month super-priority lien — unlike full-UCIOA states that hand associations a priority slice ahead of first mortgages. For planned communities, Nebraska looks more like a CC&R-primary state, with no comprehensive planned-community statute, yet it still supplies a dedicated statutory assessment lien at § 52-2001 that many purely covenant-based states lack. On foreclosure, its dual-track design and lopsided redemption rules — no redemption after a non-judicial trustee's sale, and redemption only until confirmation in a judicial case — put it among the faster, creditor-oriented states rather than the long-redemption ones. The mix rewards associations that document and record carefully, but it hands them no shortcut around a first lender.

Because a single misstep in recording or notice can sink a foreclosure, associations should pin down which statute governs a given property, follow the notice sequence exactly, and treat the condominium and planned-community tracks as separate workflows.

1. Neb. Rev. Stat. § 76-1005 (Nebraska Trust Deeds Act; trustee's power of sale or, at the beneficiary's option, judicial foreclosure in the manner of a mortgage) ↩
2. Neb. Rev. Stat. § 76-1010 (trustee's deed conveys title without right of redemption; trustor's interest terminates on acceptance of the bid) ↩
3. Neb. Rev. Stat. § 25-1530 (redemption of foreclosed real estate at any time before the court confirms the sale) ↩
4. Neb. Rev. Stat. § 76-825 (Nebraska Condominium Act; UCIOA derivative governing condominiums created on or after January 1, 1984) ↩
5. Neb. Rev. Stat. § 76-826 (applicability; pre-1984 condominiums and events occurring after January 1, 1984) ↩
6. Neb. Rev. Stat. § 21-1901 (Nebraska Nonprofit Corporation Act) ↩
7. Neb. Rev. Stat. § 52-2001 (planned-community assessment lien; junior to a first mortgage or deed of trust recorded before the association's notice; three-year enforcement limit; condominium associations excluded) ↩
8. Neb. Rev. Stat. § 76-874 (condominium assessment lien; recording, foreclosure in like manner as a mortgage, and notice to lienholders) ↩
9. Obduskey v. McCarthy & Holthus LLP, 586 U.S. 466 (2019) (a business engaged in no more than nonjudicial foreclosure is not a "debt collector" under the FDCPA, except for the limited purpose of 15 U.S.C. § 1692f(6)) ↩
10. Twin Towers Condo. Ass'n v. Bel Fury Investment Group, 290 Neb. 329, 860 N.W.2d 147 (2015) (assessment-lien validity tested under § 76-874 for events after January 1, 1984; foreclosure available without a personal judgment; mandatory prevailing-party fees) ↩
11. Neb. Rev. Stat. § 76-874 (condominium assessment lien; mandatory prevailing-party costs and attorney's fees; no UCIOA six-month super-priority; Twin Towers annotation) ↩
12. Neb. Rev. Stat. § 76-1006 (notice of default; one-month cure period, two months for agricultural property) ↩
13. Neb. Rev. Stat. § 76-1007 (notice of sale; publication five consecutive weeks; public auction between 9 a.m. and 5 p.m.) ↩
14. Neb. Rev. Stat. § 76-1008 (mailed notice of default within ten days of recording; mailed notice of sale at least twenty days before the sale) ↩
15. Neb. Rev. Stat. § 76-1005, annot. (Gilroy v. Ryberg, 266 Neb. 617 (2003)) (equity action to set aside a defective trustee's sale; defects classified as void, voidable, or inconsequential) ↩
16. Neb. Rev. Stat. § 25-2137 (judicial foreclosure of a mortgage filed in the district court where the premises are situated) ↩
17. Neb. Rev. Stat. § 25-1531 (right to redeem ends at confirmation of the sale) ↩
18. Obduskey v. McCarthy & Holthus LLP, 586 U.S. 466 (2019) (FDCPA safe harbor limited to § 1692f(6) for conduct confined to nonjudicial foreclosure) ↩
19. 11 U.S.C. § 362 (automatic stay upon a bankruptcy filing); 50 U.S.C. § 3901 et seq. (Servicemembers Civil Relief Act; stays and protections for active-duty servicemembers) ↩
20. Neb. Rev. Stat. § 76-855 (foreclosure of a lien against an individual unit does not of itself terminate the condominium regime) ↩
21. Neb. Rev. Stat. § 76-1013 (deficiency action within three months after a trustee's sale; fair-market-value cap on the judgment) ↩
22. American Exchange Bank v. Topp, 321 Neb. 409, No. S-25-290 (2026) (§ 76-1013 antideficiency cap reaches guarantors on a trust-deed obligation; waiver of the fair-market-value defense unenforceable as against public policy; § 76-1013 inapplicable to judicial foreclosure) ↩
23. LB 474, 109th Leg. (2025) (omnibus banking-and-finance act; § 109 amends a definition in the Nebraska Foreclosure Protection Act, Chapter 76, Article 27; operative October 1, 2025) ↩