§ 9-12-86.Recordation in county where property located prerequisite to lien on land

Subsection (a) defines a term used throughout the rest of the section: "applicable records" means deed books, lis pendens dockets, federal tax lien dockets, general execution dockets, and attachment dockets. That is a broader sweep of records than the general execution docket alone, reaching into the full set of indexes a title examiner would search when checking whether real property is encumbered.

Subsection (b) is the operative rule. No judgment, decree, or order — and no writ of fieri facias issued on one — from a superior court, city court, magistrate court, municipal court, or federal court affects or becomes a lien on title to real property until it is recorded in the office of the clerk of superior court of the county where the property is located, and entered in the indexes to those applicable records. The section places the burden of getting this done, and paying for it, on the plaintiff or defendant or their attorney — it does not happen automatically.

Subsections (c) and (d) round out the picture. The recording and indexing this section requires supplements, rather than replaces, whatever other recording the law requires elsewhere in the article. And the whole requirement applies only going forward from its effective date — judgments, decrees, and orders rendered after March 25, 1958 — leaving older judgments to whatever recording rules applied when they were entered.