ATTACK The INTENSIFIES BY NENA GROSKIND CAI RAMPING UP EFFORTS TO DEFEND THE SUPERLIEN C hallenges to the condominium priority lien are becoming more intense and potentially more widespread. The focal point thus far has been in Nevada, where a Federal District Court Judge has ruled in three related cases that a federal law governing secondary-market giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac preempts the Nevada Superlien statute, which gives community associations the right to foreclose on owners' units in order to collect delinquent payments. In all three cases, Chief Judge Gloria Navarro accepted the argument advanced by the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA)-primary regulator for Fannie and Freddie-that the Federal Housing and Economic Recovery Act, which put the two entities into conservatorship, requires them to approve a foreclosure or any other action that would threaten their security interest in the mortgages they have purchased. Navarro's ruling rejected a Nevada Supreme Court decision upholding the priority lien and affirming that an HOA foreclosure would extinguish a first mortgage lien. A pending appeal in one of these decisions (LDVG vs. U.S. Bank) has raised a broader and (for the superlien) potentially more threatening question: whether the priority lien is unconstitutional. 24 CONDOMEDIA