Hawaii: Judgment Lien Duration & Renewal Requirements
The short answer
In Hawaii, every judgment is presumed paid and discharged 10 years after it's rendered, unless the creditor gets a court-granted extension (Haw. Rev. Stat. § 657-5). A recorded real-property lien lasts only as long as that underlying judgment is still in force, there's no separate lien-only number (§ 636-3). To keep collecting, the creditor must ask the court to extend the judgment before the running 10-year period ends; extensions are capped, though, no judgment can ever be extended beyond 20 years from the date of the ORIGINAL judgment, no matter how many extensions are granted. One real exception: judgments for child support are enforceable until fully paid, with no time limit at all.
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This is the general rule in Hawaii. Ezel applies current Hawaii law to your specific facts and answers with citations to the statutes.
| Governing law | Haw. Rev. Stat. § 636-3 (creates the real-property lien by recording with the Bureau of Conveyances; ties its duration directly to the underlying judgment's own enforceability, and covers satisfaction); § 657-5 (the 10-year presumed-paid rule for the judgment itself, the extension procedure, and the absolute 20-year ceiling); § 657-5.5 (exempts child-support judgments from § 657-5 entirely) |
|---|---|
| How long the judgment itself lasts | Every judgment is 'presumed to be paid and discharged' 10 years after it was rendered, unless the creditor gets a court-granted extension (§ 657-5). No action to enforce the judgment can be commenced after that 10-year mark (or after an extension's own 10-year period) runs out. Hawaii courts treat this as a conclusive presumption once it applies: the judgment, and everything that comes with it, is legally dead, not just harder to collect (Fisher v. Fisher, 82 Haw. 197, 921 P.2d 117 (1996)). One major carve-out: judgments for child support, including arrears, are enforceable until paid in full, with NO 10-year or 20-year limit at all (§ 657-5.5) |
| How long a recorded lien lasts | No separate number: the lien's life is expressly tied to the underlying judgment's own enforceability: 'No such lien shall continue beyond the length of time the underlying judgment, order, or decree is in force' (§ 636-3). So the lien lasts exactly as long as the judgment does under § 657-5's 10-year (or extended) window, and dies automatically the instant the judgment itself lapses, with no separate lien-specific filing or expiration event |
| How to renew | A court motion to extend the judgment, not a self-executing affidavit or a separate lien-renewal filing. The creditor files either a non-hearing motion or a hearing motion asking the court to extend the life of the judgment or decree, and Hawaii courts require the debtor be given notice of that motion before an extension can be granted, even a defaulted or non-appearing debtor is entitled to notice under § 657-5, which controls over the general civil-procedure notice rules (Enos v. Pacific Transfer & Warehouse, 120 Haw. 1, 200 P.3d 370 (2008)). There's no separate act needed to renew the real-property lien itself, because the lien's life is defined entirely by reference to the judgment's own life under § 636-3, extending the judgment automatically extends the lien too |
| Renewal window | An extension may be sought any time, but 'No extension of a judgment or decree shall be granted unless the extension is sought within ten years of the date the original judgment or decree was rendered' (§ 657-5), so the motion has to be filed before the running 10-year window (from the ORIGINAL judgment, not the most recent extension) closes. There is a hard outer ceiling regardless of how many extensions are sought: 'A court shall not extend any judgment or decree beyond twenty years from the date of the original judgment or decree.' Hawaii courts have held that where a judgment is later amended, the extension clock runs from whichever version of the judgment actually 'created the rights' being extended, a materially amended judgment restarts the calculation, but a merely technical or non-substantive amendment does not (Fujimoto v. Au, 121 Haw. 59, 214 P.3d 598 (2009)) |
| Recent changes or debt-type limits | One debt-type carve-out is already built into current law, and it's a significant one: child-support judgments, including judgments for reimbursement or other arrears, are exempt from § 657-5 entirely and remain enforceable until paid in full, with no 10-year or 20-year cutoff (§ 657-5.5, added 1997 and amended 2021). No bill affecting §§ 636-3, 657-5, or 657-5.5 was found pending in a live legislative bill search |
| What ends the lien early | Satisfaction: once a judgment, order, or decree is fully paid, the creditor (or the creditor's attorney of record) must, at the debtor's expense, 'execute, acknowledge, and deliver to the debtor a satisfaction thereof,' which the debtor can then record with the Bureau of Conveyances (§ 636-3). Beyond satisfaction, the lien simply expires on its own the moment the underlying judgment's own enforceability period runs out under § 657-5: letting the 10-year (or extended, up to the 20-year ceiling) window close ends the lien automatically, with no separate release needed to make that happen |
| Recording in more than one county | No, and Hawaii is a genuine outlier here because it doesn't have county-by-county real-property recording at all for this purpose. A judgment lien is created by recording a certified copy of the judgment with the state's single, centralized Bureau of Conveyances (§ 636-3), one statewide recording covers the debtor's real property everywhere in Hawaii, unlike the county-recorder systems most other states use. A separate, narrower rule applies only to land registered in the Torrens-style Land Court system: recording there follows chapter 501's own registration procedure (§§ 501-241 to 501-248) rather than the Bureau of Conveyances process, but it's still a single statewide system, not a per-county one |
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Requirements one by one
Governing law
Three sections work together. Section 636-3 is what actually creates the lien, by recording a certified copy of the judgment with the state's Bureau of Conveyances, and it expressly ties the lien's life to the underlying judgment's own enforceability, plus covers what happens once it's paid off. Section 657-5 sets the judgment's own 10-year presumed-paid rule, the extension procedure, and the hard 20-year ceiling. Section 657-5.5 carves child-support judgments out of all of that.
How long the judgment itself lasts
10 years from the date it was rendered, unless the creditor gets an extension. After that, Hawaii law presumes the judgment paid and discharged, and Hawaii courts have called this a CONCLUSIVE presumption, meaning the judgment and everything that comes with it is legally over, not just harder to enforce. The one major exception is child support: judgments for child support, including judgments for reimbursement or arrears, are enforceable until fully paid, with no time limit at all.
How long a recorded lien lasts
There's no separate lien-only number. The statute creating the lien says plainly that it can never "continue beyond the length of time the underlying judgment... is in force", so the lien simply rides on the judgment's own 10-year (or extended) life under section 657-5, and expires automatically the instant the judgment does.
How to renew
Renewal here means asking the court to extend the judgment, there's no separate affidavit or self-executing filing. The creditor files either a non-hearing motion or a hearing motion asking the court to extend the judgment's life, and the debtor has to be given notice of that motion before an extension can be granted. Hawaii courts have held this notice requirement applies even to a debtor who never appeared or is in default, it overrides the general rule that a defaulted party doesn't need to be served with routine filings. Because the real-property lien's life is defined entirely by reference to the judgment's own life, there's no separate step needed to renew the lien itself, extending the judgment automatically extends the lien along with it.
Renewal window
An extension motion can be filed at any point, but it has to be sought within 10 years of the date the ORIGINAL judgment was rendered, not 10 years from the most recent extension. There's also a hard outer ceiling: no judgment can ever be extended beyond 20 years from the date of the original judgment, however many extensions are sought along the way. Hawaii courts have clarified that if a judgment is later amended, the 10-year extension clock runs from whichever version of the judgment actually created the rights being extended, a materially different amended judgment restarts the calculation, but a purely technical correction doesn't.
Recent changes or debt-type limits
The clearest carve-out already built into current law is child support: those judgments are exempt from the 10-year/20-year scheme entirely and stay enforceable until paid in full. No bill touching the judgment-lien or judgment-extension statutes is currently pending in the Hawaii legislature.
What ends the lien early
Once a judgment is fully paid, the creditor (or the creditor's attorney) has to prepare and deliver a satisfaction to the debtor, at the debtor's expense, and the debtor can then record that satisfaction with the Bureau of Conveyances to clear the lien of record. Beyond satisfaction, the lien also simply expires on its own the moment the underlying judgment's own life runs out, no separate release is needed to make that happen; letting the judgment's 10-year (or extended) window close ends the lien automatically.
Recording in more than one county
This isn't really a Hawaii concept the way it is in most states. There's no county-by-county recording system for judgment liens here, a certified copy of the judgment is recorded once with the state's single, centralized Bureau of Conveyances, and that one recording covers the debtor's real property everywhere in Hawaii. A separate, narrower system applies only to land registered in the Torrens-style Land Court, which uses its own statewide registration process instead of the Bureau of Conveyances, but it's still one statewide system either way, not a per-county filing requirement.
What trips people up
The 20-year absolute ceiling is easy to miss: creditors sometimes assume that as long as they keep filing extension motions on time, the judgment can run indefinitely, it can't. No matter how diligent the creditor is about extending on time, the judgment (and its lien) dies for good 20 years after the ORIGINAL judgment date. A second trap is assuming a defaulted debtor doesn't need to be notified of an extension motion, Hawaii courts require notice regardless, and skipping it is a real, if sometimes harmless, error.
Common questions
Can I keep extending my Hawaii judgment forever if I stay on top of the deadlines? No. Extensions are capped at 20 years total from the date of the original judgment, no matter how many times you extend it along the way.
Does my Hawaii judgment lien expire separately from my judgment? No. The lien has no life of its own, it automatically ends the instant the underlying judgment's own enforceability period runs out, whether that's the original 10 years or an extended term.
Is a child-support judgment subject to the same 10-year deadline? No. Child-support judgments, including arrears, are enforceable until paid in full, there's no 10-year or 20-year limit at all.
Statutes and sources
- Haw. Rev. Stat. § 636-3, "Any money judgment, order, or decree... shall be a lien upon real property when a copy thereof, certified as correct by a clerk of the court where it is entered, is recorded in the bureau of conveyances. No such lien shall continue beyond the length of time the underlying judgment, order, or decree is in force... When any judgment, order, or decree is fully paid, the creditor or the creditor's attorney of record... shall execute, acknowledge, and deliver to the debtor a satisfaction thereof..." https://law.justia.com/codes/hawaii/title-34/chapter-636/section-636-3/ (accessed 2026-07-09)
- Haw. Rev. Stat. § 657-5, "Unless an extension is granted, every judgment and decree of any court of the State shall be presumed to be paid and discharged at the expiration of ten years after the judgment or decree was rendered... No extension of a judgment or decree shall be granted unless the extension is sought within ten years of the date the original judgment or decree was rendered. A court shall not extend any judgment or decree beyond twenty years from the date of the original judgment or decree." https://law.justia.com/codes/hawaii/title-36/chapter-657/section-657-5/ (accessed 2026-07-09)
- Haw. Rev. Stat. § 657-5.5, "Notwithstanding section 657-5 and any other law to the contrary, every judgment for child support, including a judgment for reimbursement or other arrears, shall be enforceable until paid in full." https://law.justia.com/codes/hawaii/title-36/chapter-657/section-657-5-5/ (accessed 2026-07-09)
- Fisher v. Fisher, 82 Haw. 197, 921 P.2d 117 (1996), under § 657-5, a judgment and all rights and remedies appurtenant to it "are conclusively presumed paid and discharged after ten years unless timely renewed." Cited in law.justia.com's own case notes to § 657-5 (accessed 2026-07-09)
- Fujimoto v. Au, 121 Haw. 59, 214 P.3d 598 (2009), the "original judgment" for extension-deadline purposes is whichever judgment actually created the rights being extended; a materially amended judgment restarts the clock, a non-substantive amendment does not. Cited in law.justia.com's own case notes to § 657-5 (accessed 2026-07-09)
Source links
Every statute quoted above, linked, with the date we checked it.
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