Why Every Residential Contractor Needs a Written Contract
The Cromeens Law Firm
June 4, 2026
Last Updated: May 21, 2026
To file a contractor lien on a commercial construction project in Texas, the process depends on your role on the project.
If you are the original contractor (you contracted directly with the property owner), you file a lien affidavit with the county clerk by the statutory deadline and send a copy to the owner within five days of filing.
If you are a subcontractor or supplier, you have one additional step. You must first send a pre-lien notice to both the owner and the original contractor by the statutory deadline. Then file the lien affidavit by your deadline. Then send a copy of the filed affidavit to both the owner and the original contractor within five days of filing.
Miss any required step, and your lien is invalid.
If you are working on a public project (a school, a city building, a state highway, or any other government-owned property), you cannot file a lien. You will need to file a payment bond claim under Texas Government Code Chapter 2253 instead. We cover that process in Bond Claims Explained: How to Get Paid on Public Projects.
If you are a residential contractor working on a house that someone lives in, please read my previous blog post about how to file a lien on a homestead.
The information below reflects the current Texas law, including the major 2022 overhaul (HB 2237) and the 2025 clarification (SB 929).
On a commercial construction project in Texas, you have until the 15th day of the fourth month after your work was completed to file the lien affidavit with the county clerk. If you are a subcontractor or supplier, you must also send a pre-lien notice by the 15th day of the third month after each month you went unpaid. Within five days of filing, every claimant must send a copy of the filed affidavit to the owner.
The clock for each deadline runs from the end of the relevant month, not from the day you stopped working.
Here are all three deadlines for a commercial project:
| Who You Are | Pre-Lien Notice | File Lien Affidavit | Send Copy of Filed Affidavit |
| Original Contractor | Not required | 15th day of the 4th month after work was completed, terminated, or abandoned | Within 5 days of filing, sent to the owner |
| Subcontractor or Supplier | 15th day of the 3rd month after each month with unpaid amounts, sent to BOTH the owner and the original contractor | 15th day of the 4th month after the month you last provided labor or materials | Within 5 days of filing, sent to BOTH the owner and the original contractor |
Counting the months with examples:
Weekend and holiday rule. If a deadline falls on a Saturday, Sunday, or legal holiday, the deadline extends to the next business day. The Texas Legislature confirmed this with Senate Bill 929 in May 2025.
Miss any of these deadlines and your lien rights expire before they can help you.
If you are a subcontractor or supplier on a commercial project in Texas, the pre-lien notice is the step that turns your unpaid invoice into a real lien claim. Without it, you have no lien rights against the property.
What this notice does for you. Once the property owner gets the notice, they are allowed to hold back money from the original contractor to cover what you are owed. They usually do. If the owner pays the original contractor anyway and you later file a valid lien, you can collect that money directly from the owner. We call this fund-trapping, and it is the leverage that makes the lien system work.
How to serve a pre-lien notice. Texas Property Code Section 53.003(b) allows three methods:
If you use certified mail, sending the notice in the U.S. Mail in the required form is enough to count as compliance under Section 53.003(c). Actual receipt by the recipient is not required.
What the notice must contain. Texas Property Code Section 53.056 requires you to use a specific statutory form. The form must:
We strongly advise you to use the statutory form. Do not draft your own. Texas courts have invalidated notices that materially deviate from what the statute requires.
After the pre-lien notice goes out (or right at the start if you are an original contractor), take your lien affidavit to the county clerk’s office in the county where the property is located. The clerk records and indexes it. Once recorded, the lien is on the property.
Unlike the pre-lien notice, the affidavit does not have a single statutory form. But Texas Property Code Section 53.054 lists eight pieces of information that must appear in the affidavit. Leave any of them out, and your lien can be invalidated.
What the affidavit must contain. Under Section 53.054, the affidavit must be sworn and must include:
Texas applies a “substantial compliance” standard, which means you do not have to be perfect on every detail, but the important elements have to be right. Courts have thrown out liens for inadequate property descriptions or missing elements.
Where to file it. File the original affidavit with the county clerk in the county where the property is located. The clerk will record it under the names of the claimant, the original contractor, and the property owner. If the clerk records it incorrectly or indexes it under the wrong name, that does not invalidate your lien.
Recording fees vary. Each county sets its own fees. Check the Texas county clerk’s current fee schedule before you go.
After you file your affidavit with the county clerk, you have five days to send a copy to the property owner. If you are a subcontractor or supplier, you must also send a copy to the original contractor within that same five-day window. This is required by Texas Property Code Section 53.055.
When the clock starts. The five days run from the date the clerk accepts your affidavit for filing. For most county clerks, this happens the same day you bring it in.
How to send the copy. Use any of the same three methods allowed for the pre-lien notice: in person, certified mail, or traceable private delivery (FedEx, UPS, and similar carriers). Send the copy to the owner’s last known business or residence address.
If you are a subcontractor or supplier, send a copy to the original contractor’s last known address as well.
A practical tip. Most Texas construction lawyers send the copy on the same day the affidavit is filed. Doing so eliminates the risk of missing the five-day window.
Miss this step and your lien rights can be invalidated. The filed affidavit is not enough by itself.
Filing the lien is not the end of the process. Under Texas Property Code Section 53.158, you have one year from the last day you could have filed your lien affidavit to bring a lawsuit to foreclose the lien. Miss that deadline and the lien expires, even if you filed everything correctly.
The clock runs from your filing deadline, not from the date you actually filed. This trips up a lot of contractors. If you were an original contractor with a commercial filing deadline of July 15, 2026, your one-year window to foreclose runs until July 15, 2027. The clock does not start the day you walk into the county clerk’s office.
The lien is only leverage, it’s not payment. The lien puts pressure on the owner, but the money still has to come from somewhere, which means either a settlement or a foreclosure lawsuit. If the owner refuses to settle, you sue. The court can then order the property sold to satisfy your judgment.
You can extend the deadline by agreement. You can extend the one-year deadline to two years by signing a written extension agreement with the current owner of the property and recording that agreement in the same county where you filed the lien. This has to be done before the one-year period expires, not after.
The most common late-stage mistake. Contractors file the lien, send the demand letter, and then sit on it for months hoping the owner will pay. They miss the one-year deadline without ever filing suit. The lien expires, and the leverage is gone. If a sale or settlement is not on the horizon as you approach the one-year mark, talk to an attorney about either suing or getting that written extension recorded.
Texas lien law has more moving pieces than most states. You have a notice deadline. A filing deadline. A five-day post-filing notice deadline. A one-year deadline to foreclose. Each one can quietly kill your lien if you miss it.
If you are filing your own lien, the most important thing you can do is calendar every deadline the moment you realize you have not been paid. The second most important thing is to use the statutory forms. Do not draft your own.
If you would rather not handle it yourself, we file liens for contractors every week. At The Cromeens Law Firm, lien filing is part of our Lien and Collection Subscription Plan, and we handle the entire process from notice through foreclosure. You can also book a free consultation or call us at 713-715-7334.
Yes. In Texas, “contractor lien,” “mechanic’s lien,” “materialman’s lien,” and “construction lien” all refer to the same legal tool. The formal statutory name is “mechanic’s, contractor’s, or materialman’s lien,” and it is governed by Chapter 53 of the Texas Property Code. The filing process is the same regardless of the name used.
No, the law does not require an attorney. You can file the affidavit yourself at the county clerk’s office. That said, a single missed deadline or omitted statutory element can invalidate your lien, and the dollar amounts at stake are usually significant. Most Texas construction lawyers will file a lien for a flat fee, which often costs less than the value of getting it wrong.
Recording fees vary by county. Most county clerks charge between $20 and $30 for the first page of the affidavit and a few dollars for each additional page. The clerk where the property is located will publish their current fee schedule on their website.
You lose the ability to file a lien against the property. You still have other options for collecting the money you are owed, including a breach of contract claim against the party who hired you. We cover that path in our post on what to do when you have missed your lien deadline.
The most common ones, in roughly the order we see them: missing the pre-lien notice deadline, sending the notice to only the owner or only the original contractor instead of both, filing the affidavit in the wrong county, using an inadequate property description, and missing the one-year deadline to file suit to foreclose. Each one is avoidable with two habits: calendar every deadline the moment you realize you have not been paid, and use the statutory form for the pre-lien notice.
Karalynn Cromeens is the Owner and Managing Partner of The Cromeens Law Firm, PLLC, with over 17 years of experience in construction, real estate, and business law. A published author and passionate advocate for contractors, she has dedicated her career to protecting the businesses her clients have built. Karalynn is on a mission to educate subcontractors on their legal rights, which inspired her books Quit Getting Screwed and Quit Getting Stiffed, as well as her podcast and The Subcontractor Institute.
