North Carolina 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.

Which county is the property in?Property addressTax parcel ID — if it is on the lienRecord owner of the property

File or case number the office gave your lien

Date the lien was recorded

This instrument says the debt is paid.

N.C. Gen. Stat. § 44A-16(a)(2) 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.

The debt secured by this lien has been paid in full.

Where this gets filed: Clerk of Superior Court. The same office the claim of lien was filed in — the Clerk of Superior Court of the county where the property sits (§ 44A-12(a)). Not the register of deeds. If the property straddles two counties, the lien was filed in each and the cancellation has to be filed in each.

Chapter 44A does not put a deadline on cancelling a satisfied claim of lien, and does not attach a penalty to leaving one on record. That is not a reason to leave it — a stale lien surfaces at the owner's next sale or refinance — but we are not going to tell you a statute says something it does not.