15.2-2605 - Collection of rents and charges; liens on real estate; discharge and enforcement of liens.
§ 15.2-2605. Collection of rents and charges; liens on real estate; dischargeand enforcement of liens.
The rates, rents, fees or charges when made for the use of anyrevenue-producing undertaking may be collected by distress, levy,garnishment, attachment or as otherwise provided by law. Any unpaid rate,rent, fee or charge shall become a lien superior to the interest of anyowner, lessee or tenant, and next in succession to taxes, on the realproperty on or for which the use of any such undertaking was made and forwhich the rate, rent, fee or charge was imposed. However, the lien shall notbind or affect a subsequent bona fide purchaser of the real estate forvaluable consideration without actual notice of the lien, until amount of therate, rent, fee or charge is entered in the judgment records kept in theclerk's office where deeds are recorded with respect to the real estateagainst which the lien is asserted. It shall be the duty of the clerk in suchoffice to keep, preserve and hold available for public inspection thejudgment records and to cause entries to be made and indexed in them fromtime to time upon certification by the locality.
The lien on any real estate may be discharged by the payment to the localityof the total amount of the lien, plus interest at the judgment rate ofinterest provided for in § 6.1-330.54 from the date the rate, rent, fee orcharge was due and payable to the date of payment. It shall be the duty ofthe locality to deliver a certificate of payment to the person paying thelien. Upon presentation of the certificate, the clerk having the record ofthe lien shall mark the lien satisfied.
Jurisdiction to enforce any lien shall be in equity, and the court may orderany real estate subject to the lien, or any part of it, sold and the proceedsapplied to the payment of the lien and the interest which may accrue to thedate of payment.
Nothing contained in this section shall be construed to prejudice the rightof the locality to recover the amount of any lien, or of the rate, rent, feeor charge, and the interest which may accrue, by action at law or otherwise.
(Code 1950, § 15-666.18; 1958, c. 640; 1962, c. 623, § 15.1-175; 1986, cc.379, 468; 1991, c. 668, § 15.1-227.7; 1994, cc. 432, 714; 1997, c. 587.)