Oregon Condo Lien Foreclosure: Six-Year Limit and 90-Day Lender Notice (ORS 100.450)

The lien is created by ORS 100.450(1) and attaches to the unit and to its undivided interest in the common elements. It carries more than the base assessment: interest, late charges, attorney fees, costs and other amounts levied under the declaration or bylaws all ride inside it, and ORS 100.450(5) makes fees, late charges, fines and interest imposed under ORS 100.405 (4)(j), (k), (L) and (m) enforceable as assessments unless the declaration or bylaws say otherwise, so a disputed fine can end up secured alongside unpaid dues. The lien outranks a homestead exemption and every other encumbrance except tax and assessment liens and a first mortgage or trust deed of record. The only carve-out from that mortgage priority, in ORS 100.450(1)(b), requires a condominium of fewer than seven units all used for nonresidential purposes plus a recorded lender subordination, so it never reaches a residential building.

Perfection is automatic but the paperwork is not. Under ORS 100.450(2) recording the declaration is itself record notice and perfection. Before a foreclosure suit may proceed, however, the association must record a notice of claim of lien in the deed records of the county where the unit is located, stating the amount due after deducting all just credits and offsets, the name of the owner or reputed owner, the name of the condominium and the unit designation used in the declaration, and a statement that later unpaid assessments keep accumulating with interest without further recording. ORS 100.450(3) requires that notice to be verified by the oath of a person with knowledge of the facts, recorded by the county recording officer and indexed like other liens.

The timing limit is the provision owners most often need. ORS 100.450(4)(a) borrows the construction lien machinery of ORS 87.010 for the foreclosure itself, then overrides the construction lien clock: notwithstanding ORS 87.055, which cuts a construction lien off 120 days after the claim of lien is filed, a condominium assessment lien may be continued in force for up to six years from the date the assessment is due. Where later assessments have piled up under a single recorded notice, each unpaid assessment is treated as levied when it became due, so the six years runs separately for each one and the oldest amounts drop off first. Enforcement runs through a suit, not a trustee’s sale: the statute speaks of a suit to foreclose, ORS 100.460 contemplates a foreclosure sale with a court-appointed receiver, and ORS 100.450(4)(b) lets the board of directors bring that suit on the association’s behalf.

A second limit catches associations that have let their filings lapse. ORS 100.450(4)(d) bars an action to foreclose the lien or to recover a money judgment for unpaid assessments unless the Condominium Information Report and the Annual Report described in ORS 100.250 are designated current under ORS 100.255. Those reports go to the Oregon Real Estate Agency: the Condominium Information Report is due within 90 days after the declaration is recorded and costs $100, the Annual Report is due each year by the anniversary of the Condominium Information Report filing and costs $25, and an amendment reflecting a change in reported information is due within 30 days and costs $75. The agency designates a filing current only if it satisfies ORS 100.260 and all fees are paid. An owner facing collection should check that filing status first, because it is a complete precondition to the suit.

The super-priority route in ORS 100.450(7) is the only way an association gets ahead of a first mortgage, and all six of its conditions must be met. The association must give the lender 90 days prior written notice of the assessment default naming the borrower, the recording date and recording information for the trust deed or mortgage, the condominium, unit owner and unit designation, and the amount unpaid, and that notice must carry a legend in 10-point type warning that the association lien may become prior to the lender’s. The lender must not have started a judicial foreclosure, requested a trustee’s notice of sale or accepted a deed in lieu under ORS 100.465 within those 90 days. The association must also have supplied lien copies and unpaid-assessment statements on request, the borrower must be in default on principal and interest, and a copy of the notice with an affidavit must be recorded.

That deadline is why lenders move quickly. ORS 100.465 provides that unless the declaration or bylaws say otherwise, a deed in lieu of foreclosure accepted by the holder of a first mortgage or beneficiary of a first trust deed extinguishes the association’s assessment lien through the date the deed is recorded, provided the mortgagee first mailed written notice of that intent to the individual authorized to accept service of process for the association, by first class mail with return receipt requested, and the deed is recorded no later than 30 days after that notice is mailed. ORS 100.475(2) then frees a purchaser taking title through the first mortgage foreclosure from assessments that came due earlier, and those amounts become a common expense of all unit owners. Once a suit is filed, ORS 100.460 requires the owner to pay a reasonable rental if the bylaws so provide, entitles the plaintiff to a receiver to collect it, and lets the board bid the unit in at the sale unless the declaration prohibits it. Before any of that, ORS 100.480(8)(a) entitles an owner to a written payoff statement within 10 business days of a written request, itemising unpaid regular and special assessments, fines and other charges, accrued interest, late payment charges, the interest rate applied and the late-charge rate, unless the association has already filed a complaint against that owner.

Planned communities run on a parallel but thinner set of rules, so which act created your community matters. ORS 94.723 provides that a first mortgagee acquiring a lot by foreclosure or deed in lieu is not liable for common expenses that became due earlier, which then become a common expense of all lot owners, and ORS 94.712(4) makes a certificate holder solely liable for assessments falling due during the redemption period after an execution sale under ORS 18.860 to 18.993. The condominium equivalents are ORS 100.475(2) and (5).

Nonpayment is enforced by the association, not by any state agency; the Oregon Real Estate Agency files the reports but does not adjudicate assessment disputes. 010 lien foreclosure procedure, and it may add interest, late charges, attorney fees and costs to the secured amount. 450(4)(c) without waiving the lien. 450(4)(d) requires, and whether any assessment sued on fell due more than six years earlier. 470 the prevailing party recovers reasonable attorney fees at trial and on appeal, so a losing owner pays the association’s legal bill and a successful one can recover their own.