A lien is a hold or charge which one person has upon the property of another as a security for some debt or charge, and in its broad sense would cover all burdens, charges or incumbrances placed on land, including mortgages, judgments, taxes, etc., as well as common law and statutory liens, and liens arising by implication of law. In its more restricted signification it is used to denote certain preferred or privileged claims given by statute or arising by implication of law, and indicates a mere right to hold the property until the claim has been satisfied. Even in this latter sense, as it is now employed in conveyancing and the compilation of abstracts, its popular meaning confines it to certain classes enumerated by statute; as the lien of mechanics and material men, attachment, etc., and to liens arising by operation of law, as decedent's debts, purchase money liens, etc.

Liens upon lands are created by the statute, to secure the payment of taxes, and other public debts; to protect estates raised out of or incident to the marriage relation; to effectuate the judgments of courts by allowing the land of the defendant to be taken in execution as well as to anticipate such judgments by way of attachment and lis pendens; to secure the payment of the debts of deceased persons, and to secure the wages of laborers and mechanics. They are also created by the direct act of the parties, as by leases, mortgages, etc., and arise in a number of cases by operation of law, as to secure unpaid purchase money, etc., these latter being known as equitable liens. Intending purchasers are chargeable with notice of all statutory liens, the provisions of the statute having been substantially complied with, but will take the land, where the sale is made in good faith and for value, freed from the burden of equitable liens of which they had no notice.

In the preparation of abstracts of title, liens, charges and incumbrances of every kind, with but one exception, are shown, not in the regular course of title, but in appendices to same, and, for better convenience, under classified heads. The exception is in the case of mortgages, which, following the custom which prevailed when such instruments were regarded as conveyances of the legal estate, are shown in regular chronological order in the chain.