Judgment Lien Duration & Renewal Requirements in Ohio

At a glance

Requirements one by one

Governing law

The lien itself is created by R.C. 2329.02: filing a certificate of judgment with a county's clerk of courts. Whether that lien keeps working turns on R.C. 2329.07's dormancy rules. If it lapses anyway, R.C. 2325.15, 2325.17, and 2325.18 govern the separate court process to revive a dormant judgment.

How long the judgment itself lasts

There's no flat expiration date written into Ohio law. Instead, a judgment "is dormant and shall not operate as a lien against the estate of the judgment debtor unless" one of four things happens "within five years from the date of the judgment or any renewal of the judgment, whichever is later" (§ 2329.07(B)(1)). Once dormant, the judgment isn't erased, the creditor can still sue to revive it, but only "within ten years from the time it became dormant" (§ 2325.18(A)). Put together, a creditor who keeps taking a qualifying action every five years can, in principle, keep an Ohio judgment alive far longer than in states with one fixed outer-limit year count like 20.

How long a recorded lien lasts

This is where Ohio genuinely differs from most states in this survey: there's no separate, shorter clock just for the recorded lien. The certificate of judgment creates the lien (§ 2329.02), and that lien runs on exactly the same 5-year dormancy schedule that governs the judgment's own continued enforceability (§ 2329.07(B)(1)), one clock, not two.

How to renew

Before dormancy sets in, any one of four acts resets the 5-year clock: "an execution on a judgment is issued," "a certificate of judgment ... is issued and filed," "an order of garnishment is issued or is continuing," or "a proceeding in aid of execution is commenced or is continuing" (§ 2329.07(A), (B)(1)). If the judgment has already gone dormant, none of those work anymore, the creditor instead has to file a formal revivor action "in the manner prescribed for reviving actions before judgment, or by action in the court in which such judgment was rendered" (§ 2325.15). Once the court grants it, "the judgment ... shall stand revived, and thereafter may be made to operate as a lien" again (§ 2325.17).

Renewal window

For a judgment that hasn't yet lapsed, any qualifying § 2329.07(B) action taken within 5 years of the judgment (or its last renewal) works, Ohio doesn't set a separate early-filing window before that. For a judgment that HAS already gone dormant, the creditor gets a considerably longer grace period to fix it: a revivor action can be brought any time "within ten years from the time it became dormant" (§ 2325.18(A)), though that 10-year window is only available once dormancy has already happened, not as an alternative to the routine 5-year cycle.

Recent changes or debt-type limits

Ohio's most significant carve-out isn't about the type of debt but about who the creditor is. A judgment "in favor of the state" gets a much longer leash: dormancy is avoided with a qualifying act "within ten years from the date of the judgment ... or within fifteen years from the date of the issuance of the last execution thereon, whichever is later" (§ 2329.07(B)(2)), and that 15-year period explicitly "applies to executions issued and certificates of judgments issued and filed before, on, or after March 29, 2007." No dollar-amount or natural-person consumer-debt cap comparable to Illinois's 2026 reform was found in Ohio law.

What ends the lien early

Two ways. First, simple non-renewal: the lien "shall not operate ... unless" a qualifying act happens within the 5-year window, so it lapses on its own with no separate paperwork required (§ 2329.07(B)(1)). Second, once the judgment is actually paid, Ohio's county clerks of courts, implementing the certificate-of-judgment system created by § 2329.02, describe the practice as the debtor obtaining a certified "Entry of Satisfaction" from the court that rendered the judgment and filing it to release the lien.

Recording in more than one county

A certificate of judgment only creates a lien in the county where it's filed (§ 2329.02). To reach a debtor's property somewhere else in Ohio, a certificate has to be filed there too, and each county then runs its own independent 5-year (or, for the state, 15-year) dormancy clock: the judgment "shall cease to operate as a lien upon lands and tenements of the judgment debtor within that county" unless a qualifying renewal act is taken specifically in that county in time (§ 2329.07(C)).

What trips people up

Because Ohio fuses the judgment's own life and the lien's life into one 5-year dormancy clock, creditors sometimes assume a single renewal action protects them everywhere, it doesn't. Renewal has to happen separately in every county where a certificate was filed, on that county's own 5-year schedule. And because dormancy isn't the end of the road (a 10-year revivor window exists after the fact), some creditors let the 5-year mark slip assuming they can always revive later, true, but reviving after dormancy requires a full court action, not the simple filing that would have kept the lien current in the first place, and there's a real gap in enforceability while the judgment sits dormant.

Common questions

My Ohio judgment lien just hit 5 years old. Is it gone? Not necessarily. If you took a qualifying action (execution, garnishment, aid-in-execution proceeding, or re-filing a certificate of judgment) at any point within those 5 years, the clock simply restarted. If you didn't, the judgment is now dormant, but you can still file a formal action to revive it within 10 years of the dormancy date.

Does Ohio give my lien a separate, shorter deadline than my judgment, like some states do? No. Ohio ties them together, the recorded lien runs on the exact same 5-year dormancy schedule as the underlying judgment's own enforceability.

I have a lien in one Ohio county. Does renewing it there protect my lien in a different county too? No. Each county where you've filed a certificate of judgment runs its own independent dormancy clock. Renewing in one county does nothing for a certificate filed in another.

Statutes and sources

• R.C. 2329.02, "Any judgment or decree rendered by any court of general jurisdiction ... shall be a lien upon lands and tenements of each judgment debtor within any county of this state from the time there is filed in the office of the clerk of the court of common pleas of such county a certificate of such judgment ...." https://codes.ohio.gov/ohio-revised-code/section-2329.02 (accessed 2026-07-09)
• R.C. 2329.07, "(B)(1) A judgment that is not in favor of the state is dormant and shall not operate as a lien against the estate of the judgment debtor unless one of the following occurs within five years from the date of the judgment or any renewal of the judgment, whichever is later: (a) An execution on a judgment is issued. (b) A certificate of judgment ... is issued and filed .... (2) ... a judgment in favor of the state[] is dormant ... unless one of the following occurs within ten years ... or within fifteen years from the date of the issuance of the last execution thereon, whichever is later .... (C) If, in any county other than that in which a judgment was rendered, the judgment has become a lien ..., the judgment shall cease to operate as a lien upon lands and tenements of the judgment debtor within that county, unless one of the following occurs within five years or, if the judgment is in favor of the state, within fifteen years ...." https://codes.ohio.gov/ohio-revised-code/section-2329.07 (accessed 2026-07-09)
• R.C. 2325.15, "When a judgment ... is dormant ... such judgment may be revived ... in the manner prescribed for reviving actions before judgment, or by action in the court in which such judgment was rendered or finding made, or in which transcript of judgment was filed." https://codes.ohio.gov/ohio-revised-code/chapter-2325 (accessed 2026-07-09)
• R.C. 2325.17, "If sufficient cause is not shown to the contrary, the judgment or finding mentioned in section 2325.15 of the Revised Code shall stand revived, and thereafter may be made to operate as a lien upon the lands and tenements of each judgment debtor ...." https://codes.ohio.gov/ohio-revised-code/chapter-2325 (accessed 2026-07-09)
• R.C. 2325.18, "(A) An action to revive a judgment can only be brought within ten years from the time it became dormant, unless the party entitled to bring that action, at the time the judgment became dormant, was within the age of minority, of unsound mind, or imprisoned, in which cases the action may be brought within ten years after the disability is removed." https://codes.ohio.gov/ohio-revised-code/section-2325.18 (accessed 2026-07-09)
• Butler County, Ohio Clerk of Courts, Releasing Liens, "When a judgment lien is filed with the Clerk of Courts, it becomes a 'Certificate of Judgment' that may be executed upon by the creditor. To release a judgment/civil lien, the debtor must satisfy and obtain a certified copy of the Entry of Satisfaction from the original court of jurisdiction." https://clerkofcourts.bcohio.gov/legal_division/releasing_liens.php (accessed 2026-07-09)