Washington State Department of Social and Health Services

Filing a Child Support Lien or Release in Washington State

If you are a staff person at a child support (Title IV-D) agency and you are interested in filing a child support lien or a release of lien in Washington State, you have come to the right place. Just follow the instructions below:

The Washington State Legislature codified some very strict rules about the format of documents filed with our county auditors. Simply sending the Federal "Notice of Lien" to a Washington auditor will result in a return of your unfiled document.

To help you meet the legal formatting requirements, we are providing you with an Indexing Form.

Complete the Indexing Form, print it, and mail it with the Federal "Notice of Lien" Form, or your own release of lien form, and your filing fee ($5.00 for the first page and $1.00 for every additional page) to the county auditor.

NOTE: You MUST have Adobe Acrobat Reader installed on your PC in order to complete this process. To download the Acrobat Reader, go to Adobe.com

Please read this letter (in Adobe Acrobat PDF format) from the Director of the Division of Child Support to the other IV-D agency directors regarding the Washington State lien and levy process.

For information about interstate referrals and Washington State, see the Washington State Profile provided by the Office of Child Support Enforcement (OCSE).

Print these instructions before you proceed.

1. In the first box shown below, click on the title of the document you wish to file. You can choose either a lien, or a lien release.

   Lien or Release of Lien?

   Lien Release of Lien

2. In the second box shown below, choose the first letter of the town where your obligor holds property.

   First letter of town where obligor holds property?

   A    B    C    D    E    F    G    H    I    J    K    L    M    N    O    P    Q    R    S    T    U    V    W    X    Y    Z   

3. Finally, in the last box, choose the name of the town where your obligor holds property.

   Name of town where obligor holds property?

   Choose town name Aberdeen Aberdeen Junction Acme Acton Adco Addy Adco Adelaide Adkinds Adna Aeneas Aero Agate Bay Agnew Ahtanum Ainsworth Junction Airway Heights Ajlune Aladdin Alameda Albion Alder Alder Grove Alderdale Alderton Alfalfa Alger Algona Allard Allen Allentown Allison Allyn Almira Almota Aloha Alpha Alpine Adco Alpowa Alstown Alto Altoona Amanda Park Amber Amboy American Lake American River Ampere Anacortes Asotin Anderson Island Andron Anglin Ankeny Anson Anywyne Apple Center Appledale Appleton Appleyard Apricot Arch-A-Wat Arctic Arden Ardenvoir Ardian Argo Ariel Arletta Arlington Armstrong Arthurdee Artondale Ash Ashby Ashford Asotin Attalia Atwood Auburn Aukee Austin Avery Avon Ayer Ayers Junction Azwell

4. Follow the instructions on the resulting .PDF (Portable Document Format) file.

   (IMPORTANT: Make sure that the "hand" button in the Adobe Acrobat Reader helper application is pressed, or you won't be able to complete the lien form.)

5. Print the lien, with attachments, and mail the packet to the address of the county auditor as printed on the cover sheet. For a release of lien, use your own agency's form (there is no federal release of lien), and include it with the cover sheet and indexing form you will print out from this .PDF file.

   (IMPORTANT: If you have a PostScript (PS) printer driver installed on your printer, you will have better results if you change to a non-PS driver before printing these forms.)

   (IMPORTANT: Make sure you include on your lien release the volume and page numbers originally assigned by the county auditor, if any.)

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