Title Searches For Unrecorded Municipal Liens

04/29/2026 10:21 AM Mark Goodman

Comprehensive title searches are essential for anyone who is considering purchasing commercial property in today’s day and age. Despite the advancement of the internet and improvements in digital recordkeeping, it’s still quite common for municipal liens to exist against a property, and if they aren’t sorted out prior to your purchase, these debts can be yours to settle even though they did not originate with you. You can try to discover these liens on your own, but many will go undiscovered without some thorough digging, so it’s imperative you connect with a title services team to perform the research. Below, we take a closer look at why a title services company is essential in the discovery of municipal liens.

Discovering Unrecorded Municipal Liens

In a perfect world, you’d be able to march down to the county clerk’s office or even search through their website to discover any and all liens associated with a prospective property. However, for a variety of reasons, many liens aren’t recorded here. Perhaps there is still paperwork moving through the courts, maybe the website hasn’t updated, or information never got entered correctly into the system. Whatever the reason, the absence of your ability to discover the lien does not mean that it no longer becomes your problem.

At Commercial Partners, we have a number of different ways to research a property and investigate for the existence of a municipal lien against a property. We can use our own knowledge of the system and connect with different local, state or even federal entities to scour for the existence of liens against a property so that you aren’t on the hook for these debts. Some types of municipal liens we’ll look for include:

Unpaid property taxes
Waste/Garbage disposal fees
Water/Sewer fees
Special assessments
Code violations
Permit violations
Homeowner’s association violations
Locally-relevant municipal and county debts

These municipal liens can be more common in commercial properties, especially those that have sat on the market for a while. Commercial properties tend to have larger sewer, water, and waste bills, and there may be more code requirements with these larger commercial spaces that could lead to violations and fines. You owe it to yourself and your financial future to connect with a firm who specializes in discovering these liens so that they can be solved prior to closing. We can work with the seller or write verbiage into a contract that ensures liens will be rectified by the seller or settled with proceeds from the sale so that you are not on the hook for any liens that are discovered during the due diligence stage of the transaction.

Municipal liens can add up in a hurry, and because they are tied to the property, not the individual who incurred them, they can persist despite one or more sales. Don’t get caught holding the short end of the stick because you purchased property with undiscovered municipal liens attached to it. Connect with the team at Commercial Partners, investigate the property, purchase a title insurance policy and have peace of mind knowing that there will be no unwelcome surprises after you close on the property.

For more information about municipal liens on commercial property, connect with the team at Commercial Partners today at (612) 337-2470.