Under §16.1-69.55 and §16.1-94.1 Code of VA, District Court records, dockets, and indices in civil cases are only required to be retained for 10 years, and District Court judgments are only enforceable for 10 years UNLESS the Plaintiff pays the filing fees to have the judgment docketed in the Circuit Court records (making the judgment a 20 lien). Under § 6.1-69.57, after the 10 year period the clerk is required to destroy the records.
If the District Court judgment is not docketed in the Circuit Court records, it is not a lien on real property, UNLESS Attachment is issued, at which point the case is removed to a court of record (the Circuit Court) for further proceedings (enforcement of the Attachment) (See §16.1-105).
So, while the District Court looks at it as a 10 year judgment, you only found it because it was docketed in the Circuit Court records, which made it a lien on real property for 20 years.
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