Robert A. Zienkowski, T. C. Memo. 2024-39, filed 4/8/24, says (inter alia, as my already-on-their-second-Grey-Goose-Gibson colleagues would say), that his PA principal residence wasn’t in Montgomery County, with whose prothonotary IRS filed the NFTL which RAZ wants removed; rather, said dwelling was in “the portion of Bryn Mawr situated in Delaware County.” T. C. Memo. 2024-39, at p. 3, wherein IRS filed a NFTL when the RA in Collections noticed the anomaly during review of one of RAZ’s OIC requests.

Judge Albert G. (“Scholar Al”) Lauber can’t find that RAZ requested a CDP on that NFTL, but mox nix.

“Petitioner advanced this argument for the first time in his Response to the Motion for Summary Judgment, urging that the NFTL be withdrawn because it was filed in the wrong county. Not only was this issue raised too late; as previously discussed, filing an NFTL in a county other than that in which the taxpayer resides does not invalidate the NFTL.” T. C. Memo. 2024-39, at pp. 9-10. (Citation omitted).

A NFTL has to state name, tax liability giving rise to the lien, and date of assessment. Filing in the wrong jurisdiction may give IRS problems in foreclosing the lien, and let a bona fide purchaser take free of the lien (as apparently happened when RAZ sold the house), but the lien remains. And the NFTL is valid, despite Section “6323(f)(1)(A)(i), which provides that an NFTL shall be filed ‘in one office within the State (or the county, or other governmental subdivision), as designated by the laws of such State, in which the property subject to the lien is situated.’”.  T. C. Memo. 2024-39, at p. 7.

So, as the Immortal Duo sang it, “it’s the same old story, everywhere I go.”