Child Support Liens

Presented by Kay M. Creasman | VP & Virginia State Counsel

Q: We have a child support lien from 1999 against our seller. Has the statute of limitations expired?

A: Child Support liens are a horse of a different color, so to speak.

Technically, some title underwriters believed they had a 20-year statute of limitations and some believed they had no statute of limitations at all. In 2011, the Virginia Supreme Court in Adcock v. Commonwealth of Virginia, Department of Social Services, Division of Child Support Enforcement, 282 Va. 383 (2011) resolved the matter. The Court held, in 2011, that the 20-year statute of limitations in §8.01-251 (A) applies to all judgments, but Child Support judgments function a bit differently. “Child support payments, required by an order or decree, become vested as they accrue, and the court is without authority to make any change as to past due installments.” Further, “twenty-year statute of limitations for enforcement of judgments does not apply to future payments required by an ongoing child support order, because such prospective payments are not judgments but rather may be modified going forward.”

This means a new 20-year statute of limitations applies every month a payment is missed or not made. When the statute of limitations was reduced to 10 years in 2021, an exception was made for Child
Support judgments, which kept a 20- year statute of limitations. So, for our 1999 judgment situation, if no payments were ever made, then, as of August 2025, the statute of limitation would have run for all payments through July 2005. But, the debt due for payments from August 2005 through the anniversary of the judgment in 2019 continues to be open. Not until 2039 would the statute of limitation run on the full debt.

Keep in mind that none of us have ever seen a Child Support lien released of record nor have we ever seen the Department try to collect the lien by forcing real estate be sold to pay the debt. Regardless, unless the debtor is protected by tenancy by the entirety ownership, the lien attaches and should be paid and released of record.