Iowa Code Title IV. Public Health [Chs. 123-158] § 124C.4. Claim of state

1. An amount for which a person having control over a clandestine laboratory is liable to the state shall constitute a lien in favor of the state upon all property and rights to property, real and personal, belonging to that person. This lien shall attach at the time the charges set out in section 124C.3 become due and payable and shall continue for ten years from the time the lien attaches unless sooner released or otherwise discharged. The lien may be extended, within ten years from the date the lien attaches, by filing a notice with the appropriate county official of the appropriate county and from the time of filing the lien shall be extended as to the property in that county for ten years, unless sooner released or otherwise discharged, with no limit on the number of extensions.

2. In order to preserve the lien against subsequent mortgagees, purchasers, or judgment creditors for value and without notice of the lien, the commissioner shall file with the recorder of the county in which the property is located a notice of the lien. A laboratory cleanup lien shall be recorded in the index of income tax liens in the county.

3. Each notice of lien shall be endorsed with the day, hour, and minute when the notice was filed for recording and the document reference number, and the notice shall be preserved, indexed, and recorded in the manner provided for recording real estate mortgages. The lien is effective from the time of its indexing. The department shall pay recording fees as provided by section 331.604 for the recording of the lien or for its satisfaction.

4. Upon payment of a charge for which the commissioner has filed a notice of lien with a county, the commissioner shall immediately file with the county a satisfaction of the charge and the satisfaction of the charge shall be indicated on the index.

5. The attorney general, upon the request of the commissioner, shall bring an action at law or in equity, without bond, to enforce payment of any charges or penalties, and in such action the attorney general shall have the assistance of the county attorney of the county in which the action is pending.

6. The remedies available to the state in this chapter shall be cumulative and no action taken by the commissioner or attorney general shall be construed to be an election on the part of the state to pursue any remedy to the exclusion of any other remedy provided by law.