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41 August 2024 F E A T U R E S T O R Y August 2024 ยป held that despite the terms of the declara- tion, Fendee's claim of a "super lien" fails. Interestingly, the court's reasoning was an association lien, perfected or not, could not have existed until September 10, 2019, at the earliest because that is when the first assessment payment was due. Therefore, since the mortgage was recorded and assigned prior to September 10, 2019, the mortgage had priority over the association lien under the first in time, first in right priority standard. Following this reason- ing, the court inserted a short paragraph, hinting that NDHFA's lien was superior be- cause Fendee's lien was not perfected until 2021 and 2023 when it recorded its notice of lien, but there was minimal analysis on this concept. Seemingly holding that despite language in the recorded govern- ing documents attempting to automati- cally create a perfected lien for ongoing assessments, the association's lien was not perfected until the individual claim was properly recorded. Thus, since the mort- gage was recorded and perfected in 2019, prior to the 2021 and 2023 perfection date of the association's lien against Gould, the lien of NDFHA was superior and NDFHA had the right to foreclose as the senior lien. While this is a singular North Dakota case analyzing specific language from an individual community association, it highlights a continuing issue and the argu- ments being made by community associ- ations nationwide to try and obtain senior priority status over mortgage holders. As shown in Gould, the battle for lien priority between community associations and mortgage companies is ongoing as associations continue to employ creative ways to achieve a super lien priority status. The Gould decision illustrates the impor- tance of immediately recording the mort- gage and perfecting the lien when lending for the purchase of a property in a com- munity association development. Had the association in Gould been able to record and perfect its lien when it became eligible on September 10, 2019, prior to NDFHA's perfection of its mortgage lien, NDFHA could have potentially lost its senior priority status, having huge ramifications on its foreclosure. It will be interesting to monitor what actions community associ- ations take in response to this decision, as there is ambiguity in what an association can preemptively do to achieve super priority status. As community association law continues to progress and evolve, it is important to keep an eye on its impact with mortgages and the intricacies of this powerful "super priority" status given to an association's lien.