Other things being equal, different liens upon the same property have priority according to the time of their creation, except in cases of bottomry and respondentia.
Cal. Civ. Code § 2897
Priority of Liens
Applied in 56 court decisions — leading case 30 Cal. 3d 528 - Cetenko v. United California Bank (1982)
Most recently applied in MTC Fin., Inc. v. Nationstar Mortg. (January 2018)
Enacted 1872.
How often courts cite this section
Court decisions citing this, by year. The dip in the last several years is a data-coverage gap, not a real trend — our corpus holds fewer opinions from the most recent years, so recent citations are undercounted.
Official source: California Legislative Information. Reproduced from public-domain California statutes; confirm against the official source for the current text. Not legal advice.