Tax lien

Unpaid property taxes, water and sewer charges, and certain other municipal charges — emergency-repair bills among them — become liens against the property: recorded claims that accrue interest at statutory rates and take priority ahead of most private interests. The lien is the enforcement mechanism that makes property charges effectively unavoidable; the property itself secures them.

Analytically, accumulating liens are among the most direct distress signals in public records: an owner funding operations by skipping tax and water bills is disclosing a cash position no marketing can conceal. Persistent delinquency exposes liens to the city's sale machinery, where the pressure escalates from interest to foreclosure risk.