AI-assisted research summary: A cotenant who pays delinquent taxes and related additions on jointly owned land can get a lien if they record a sworn notice within 90 days; the registrar must index the lien, and the lien can later be satisfied and enforced in equity.
LIENS, FORECLOSURE (a) If a cotenancy exists and within the period of a tax lien, all of the taxes, interest, penalties, and other additions to the tax, due and delinquent at the time of payment, are paid by a cotenant, the cotenant shall have a lien in an amount equal to the amount paid by the cotenant on the interest of any noncontributing cotenant upon recording in the bureau of conveyances, within ninety days after the cotenant's payment, a sworn notice setting forth the amount claimed, a brief description of the land affected by tax key or otherwise, sufficient to identify the land, the taxes paid and the name of the cotenant upon whose interest the lien is asserted. When a notice of the tax lien is recorded by a cotenant, the registrar shall cause the tax lien to be indexed in the general indexes of the bureau of conveyances. If the land affected is registered in the land court the notice shall also contain a reference to the number of the certificate of title of the land and shall be filed and registered in the office of the assistant registrar of the land court, and the registrar, in the registrar's capacity as assistant registrar of the land court, shall make a notation of the filing thereof on each land court certificate of title so specified. The cotenant's lien shall have the same priority as the lien or liens of the State for the taxes paid by the cotenant, and may be enforced by an action in the nature of a suit in equity. The lien shall continue for three years after recording or registering, or until termination of the proceedings for enforcement thereof if such proceedings are begun and notice of the pendency thereof is recorded or filed and registered as provided by law, within the period. (b) The director or the director's subordinate, in case of a state tax lien, and the creditor cotenant, in case of a cotenant's lien, at the expense of the debtor, upon payment of the amount of the lien, shall execute and deliver to the debtor a sworn satisfaction thereof, including a reference to the name of the person assessed or cotenant affected as shown in the original notice, the date of filing of the original notice, a description of the land involved, and the number of the certificate of title of the land if registered in the land court. When recorded in the bureau of conveyances or filed and registered in the office of the assistant registrar of the land court, in the case of a cotenant's lien, which contains the reference to the book and page of the original lien, the sworn satisfaction shall be entered in the general indexes of the bureau of conveyances, and if a notation of the original notice was made on any land court certificate of title the filing of the satisfaction shall also be noted on the certificate. This section as to cotenancy shall apply, as well, in any case of ownership by more than one assessable person. [L 1989, c 14, pt of §1(1)]