2023 West Virginia Code › Chapter 16. Public Health › Article 13B. Community Improvement Act › §16-13B-18. Liens; Recording Notice of Liens; Suit for Enforcement; Priority

The property abutting the portion of the public way located within the assessment district, so improved, in the case of a wastewater or water project, or the property improved or protected by a flood relief project, against which properties an assessment has been laid as herein provided, shall be subject to a lien, from the date of the resolution laying the assessment, for the payment of that portion of the cost of the project assessed against said property. A notice of the liens of said assessments referring to the assessing resolution, and setting forth a list of the property assessed, described respectively as to amounts of assessment and ownership, frontage (solely in case of a wastewater or water project) and location of the property, shall be certified, by the chairman and secretary of the board, to the clerk of the county commission of the county wherein the project is located. The county clerk shall record the notice of such lien in the appropriate trust deed book or other appropriate county lien book and index the same in the name of each owner of property assessed. From the date of an assessment, the holder of the assessment certificate shall have such lien and shall be entitled to enforce the same in its, his or their name to the extent of the amount, including principal and interest and any penalty due for any failure to pay an installment when due, of such assessments and against the property to which the assessment certificate applies, as to any assessment not paid as and when due. Such assessments shall be and constitute liens in the hands of the holders of said certificates upon the respective lots and parcels of land assessed and shall have priority over all other liens except those for land taxes due the state, county and municipality and except any liens for preexisting special assessments provided under this code. If any assessment is revised in accordance with section ten or twenty of this article, the lien created by this section shall extend to the assessment so revised and shall have the same priority as the priority of the lien created upon the laying of the original assessment. Such assessments and interest thereon shall be paid by the owners of the property assessed as and when the installments are due. The holders of any such assessment certificates may enforce the lien thereof in any proper suit, and when default in the payment, as and when due, of any assessment, principal or interest, or installment thereof, shall occur and such default shall have continued for more than sixty days after the receipt by the property owner of written notice of such default from the sheriff of the county in which the assessment district which issued the certificates is located, the holders of any such certificates may declare the whole unpaid balance due and payable and by proper civil action enforce the lien thereof, upon process issued and served according to law upon the owner or owners of the lots or parcels of land subject to said lien at the time such suit may be brought as shown by the records of the clerk of the county commission of the county in which said lots or parcels of land are located. The notice required under this section shall be complete when such notice is mailed by certified mail, return receipt requested, directed to the address shown on the records maintained by the registrar under section fifteen of this article.