Why clause (iii) reaches an association

An association assessment lien is a lien on the property. Nebraska gives homeowners associations a lien under Neb. Rev. Stat. § 52-2001² and unit owners associations one under § 76-874 of the Nebraska Condominium Act.³ Neither statute is amended by LB 1135, and neither is mentioned anywhere in it.

That matters, because the interaction is produced entirely by the ranking rule rather than by anything the Legislature said about associations. If the PACE notice is recorded first and the assessment lien is recorded afterward, clause (iii) puts the PACE lien ahead in a distribution. If the assessment lien was already on record when the PACE notice was filed, clause (i) subordinates the PACE lien to it.

So the outcome turns on recording sequence, and on a home carrying PACE financing the PACE notice now goes on record years earlier than it used to. Read that as an inference from the statutory order of priority, not as a legislative statement about HOA liens — because that is what it is.

What a board or manager can check

Ask whether the delinquent property carries a PACE assessment. It will appear in the title work and in the tax statement, because a PACE assessment is collected with property taxes. An association weighing the cost of enforcement against the likely recovery needs to know whether it is standing behind a first mortgage alone or behind a first mortgage and a PACE balance.

Recognise what does not change. Nebraska does not have a super-lien. Section 76-856 of the Condominium Act is explicit that a declaration “may not provide that a lien on a member's unit for any assessment levied against the unit relates back to the date of filing of the declaration or that such lien takes priority over any mortgage or deed of trust on the unit recorded subsequent to the filing of the declaration and prior to the recording by the association of the notice required” by the Act.⁴ Read the qualifier: the prohibition is keyed to a mortgage recorded after the declaration and before the association records its lien notice. An association was already behind the first mortgage. LB 1135 adds a category of encumbrance that can sit between them.

Record promptly. Nebraska associations have historically been relaxed about when an assessment lien goes on record, because the enforcement window measured from when the assessment came due rather than from recording. A priority rule keyed to recording date changes the calculation: the earlier the association's notice is on record, the more of the ladder it sits above.

What to watch next

Watch for a second rule that keys off recording order. LB 1135 is the second time in recent sessions the Legislature has adjusted where a specialty lien sits without touching the association statutes. A separate 2026 bill, LB 1251, would have rewritten the association lien statutes directly — extending the enforcement window and reworking the fee award — and it died on General File when the session adjourned. The result is a Nebraska lien landscape being rearranged around associations rather than with them.