Minnesota Lien Release
The Lien You Are Releasing
Pull your stamped copy of the lien — everything on this page is on it. If the details here do not match the instrument on record, the release does not release it, and no one at the counter will catch that for you.
This instrument says the debt is paid.
Minn. Stat. § 514.76 discharges the lien on satisfaction of the debt. Signing it while money is still owed puts a false statement on the public record and gives away the security you filed to protect. If you have been paid part of it, this is not the document you want — talk to a construction attorney about what is.
Where this gets filed: County Recorder, or Registrar of Titles if the land is registered — but the SECRETARY OF STATE for a § 514.04 lien. The same office the lien statement was filed in (§ 514.08 subd. 1) — county recorder for abstract land, registrar of titles for Torrens land. Filing in the wrong one leaves the lien of record. AND THERE IS A THIRD OFFICE: a lien claimed under § 514.04 — for work on railways, telegraph, telephone and electric lines, pipes, conduits or subways — is filed with the SECRETARY OF STATE, and § 514.76 reaches "every lien claimed under any provision of this chapter," so its satisfaction goes there too. A county filing clears nothing.
TEN DAYS FROM PAYMENT OR TENDER — the clock starts on the money, not on a demand (§ 514.76). Refusal makes you liable to any person interested for $25 as liquidated damages where the lien was claimed upon real estate, $10 otherwise (which is the figure that would reach a § 514.04 line-and-conduit lien), plus any further damages suffered. Demand is an alternate trigger only for liens past the enforcement window. Note also that § 514.76 puts the satisfaction "at the expense of the claimant" — the recording fee is yours, which is the opposite of the rule in South Carolina, where § 29-5-430 puts it on the debtor.