My house is being foreclosed on. Which payments have priority taxes and assessments or liens?

If your house is being foreclosed on, and there are also liens attached to it, then some significant problems arise in determining lien priority. Liens are essentially holds placed on the property by someone to whom you owe money. The lien ensures that when the property is sold, the money that is made goes to the lien holder so he can get that money back. But, what if there are multiple assessments or liens, and some of them are from the IRS for unpaid taxes?

As a general matter, in such situations:

• Liens usually take priority based on the order in which the lien was placed on the house. In other words, if you failed to pay taxes at a tax assessment and a tax lien was thus placed on your house, that lien will take priority over liens that are placed later. It will not, generally, take priority over liens that have already been placed on your home, since those people who have already placed a lien already have an interest in the home. 
• There are, however, some exceptions to this rule. For example, state taxes that arose from the property's value, such as property taxes, can take precedence over liens placed as a result of federal tax debt, regardless of the time period at which the liens were placed.

Foreclosure is always a complicated process, and it becomes even more complicated when there are tax liens and other liens on your home. To get help understanding what will happen during the foreclosure process, you should strongly consider speaking with an experienced attorney.