I had a similar problem w/ a judgement of >10K. I assumed that having the judgement recorded in the chain of title would insure that the house could not be sold or refi'ed. WRONG. It when thru a couple in family transfers and refi's without my lien being detected.

As I approached the statute of limitation for renewing the lien, I manually checked the chain of title, as I wanted my money. However, since I was not a "named insured" on the title insurance policy I had no standing to file a claim. My only option was to try and negotiate (ha ha) with the holder of the 1st or to judicially foreclose. The cost of a judicial forclosure made it not worth it.

The lender was one of the sub-prime lender that got crushed.