Personal property taxes must be made a lien upon real estate of the tax debtor as follows:

Terms Used In North Dakota Code 57-22-21

  • Lien: A claim against real or personal property in satisfaction of a debt.
  • Personal property: All property that is not real property.
  • Personal property: includes money, goods, chattels, things in action, and evidences of debt. See North Dakota Code 1-01-49
  • Property: includes property, real and personal. See North Dakota Code 1-01-49
  • Real property: Land, and all immovable fixtures erected on, growing on, or affixed to the land.
  • year: means twelve consecutive months. See North Dakota Code 1-01-33

1.    At its January meeting in each year, the board of county commissioners shall declare by resolution that all unpaid and uncanceled personal property taxes, from and after the date of the extension and entry thereof as provided in this chapter, constitute a lien on any real estate owned by the tax debtor, or which the tax debtor thereafter may acquire, and shall make such taxes a specific lien on particular descriptions of real property owned by the tax debtor as of the date of the extension and entry of such lien.

2.    The county auditor shall extend to and enter upon the tax list of real estate then in the hands of the county treasurer, for the year immediately preceding, opposite the descriptions of real estate designated by the board of county commissioners which belong to the personal property tax debtor, the year for which the personal property taxes are uncollected and the amount thereof. Such entry must be made without regard to any prior payment of real estate taxes on said descriptions, and the treasurer is without authority thereafter to issue any receipt in full for said real estate taxes without making collection at the same time of the personal property taxes so extended; a taxpayer holding a specific superior lien on said descriptions ahead of personal property taxes charged thereon is entitled to tax receipts without regard to nonpayment of such inferior personal taxes.

3.    If the tax debtor afterwards acquires any real property in the county, such delinquent personal property taxes may be entered in like manner upon any subsequent tax list, and from the time of such entry is a lien on any real property of the tax debtor against    which they were entered in the same manner and to the same extent as the taxes upon such real property.