Don’t Get Paid Late: A Contractor’s Guide to Kentucky Law
marketing@thecromeenslawfirm.com
July 23, 2026
Last Updated: June 11, 2026
To file a mechanics lien in California, you confirm you have the right to file, serve a 20-day preliminary notice, serve and record your claim of lien before your filing deadline runs, and, if you are still unpaid, sue to foreclose the lien within 90 days of recording. Every step carries its own hard deadline, and missing any one of them can wipe out your lien.
That last part is where most contractors lose the fight. A mechanics and materialmen’s lien is one of the strongest tools you have for getting paid for labor and materials, because it attaches your claim directly to the property you worked on. But it does not guarantee payment on its own, and it only protects you if you follow the process exactly and on time. One skipped notice or one missed deadline, and the lien is unenforceable, no matter how much you are owed.
This guide walks through every step in plain English, with the exact California deadlines for each one, so you can file a valid mechanics lien and protect your right to get paid.
A mechanics lien (sometimes referred to as a “materialman’s lien”) is a legal claim against a property for unpaid work or materials supplied during its improvement. Under California law, this remedy is legally called a “mechanics lien.”
It gives contractors, subcontractors, and suppliers real leverage to get paid because it attaches your claim to the property itself. If the debt remains unpaid, you can foreclose the lien and force a sale of the property to collect the debt. But it only holds up if you file it correctly, which is why every step and deadline below matters.
You have the right to file a California mechanics lien if you provided labor, materials, equipment, or professional services for a “work of improvement” and that work was authorized. That covers direct (prime) contractors, subcontractors, material suppliers, equipment lessors, laborers, and design professionals such as architects and engineers.
You do not need a contract with the property owner. This is the part most contractors get wrong. Your work only has to be authorized for the project, and that authorization can come from the owner, the general contractor, a subcontractor, or anyone else in charge of the work. A second-tier subcontractor or a supplier that sold materials to a subcontractor still has lien rights, even without a direct relationship to the owner or the general contractor.
The work has to be for a work of improvement, not routine maintenance. Building, remodeling, repairing, or otherwise improving the property generally qualifies. Ordinary maintenance or warranty work usually does not support a mechanics lien in California.
You must have been properly licensed. If your work required a contractor’s license and you were not licensed while you did it, you cannot enforce a lien, and you may even have to pay back what you already earned. Make sure your license was active for the entire project.
Serve the preliminary notice within 20 days of first providing labor or materials. For most contractors and suppliers, this notice is not optional. It is a prerequisite to your lien rights, and serving it late or skipping it is one of the most common reasons mechanics liens fail in California.
Who has to serve it depends on your role. If you do not have a direct contract with the owner, which covers most subcontractors and suppliers, you serve three parties: the property owner, the direct (general) contractor, and the construction lender if there is one. If you are the direct contractor with a contract directly from the owner, you only have to serve the construction lender. If there is no lender on the project, you do not have to serve a preliminary notice at all. Laborers are exempt.
Serve it the right way. California allows several methods, including personal delivery and registered, certified, express, or overnight mail. Certified mail with a return receipt is the safest, because it documents who received the notice and when, which is the proof you will want if your lien is ever challenged.
Serve early, because a late notice shrinks what you can claim. If you serve after the 20-day window, the notice still counts, but you can only claim a lien for the work you provided in the 20 days before you served it, plus anything after.
Work from earlier than that falls outside your lien rights, so the sooner you serve, the more of your job the lien protects.
Before you record anything, you have to prepare the lien document itself, and California requires it to contain specific information. Leave out a required piece, and the lien can be thrown out, so build it carefully.
A valid California mechanics lien must include all of the following:
The Notice of Mechanics Lien is the piece most people miss, and leaving it out is a big mistake. California requires the lien to include a specific statutory warning to the owner, printed in at least 10-point boldface type, that tells the owner a lien has been recorded against the property and what can happen if the debt goes unpaid.
If that notice is missing or does not match the format the statute requires, the lien is unenforceable as a matter of law. Use the exact statutory language instead of writing your own.
The whole document must be verified, which means you sign it under penalty of perjury that the information is true.
Before you record, check every detail, because a misspelled name, a wrong address, or a bad property description can hand the owner a reason to challenge your lien.
Serve a copy of the lien, including the Notice of Mechanics Lien, on the property owner before you record it. This is the opposite of what many people assume. The proof that you served the owner has to be part of the recorded document, so the service comes first. Serve the owner, complete the proof of service, then record the lien with that proof attached.
Who you serve. Serve the property owner. If you cannot confirm who holds the title, serving whoever reasonably appears to be the owner is enough. If you cannot reach the owner, mail the copy to the construction lender or the direct contractor instead.
How you serve. Use registered, certified, or first-class mail, sent to the owner’s home or business or to the address on the building permit. Certified mail gives you the cleanest proof of delivery, which is exactly what you want if the lien is ever challenged.
What happens if you skip it? A lien that is not served on the owner is unenforceable as a matter of law, no matter how perfect the rest of your paperwork is. Serving the owner is what makes the lien stick.
Record your lien with the county recorder in the county where the property is located, and do so before your deadline runs out. Miss the deadline, and the lien is dead, no matter how strong your claim is. The deadline depends on your role, and this is where many subcontractors and suppliers get burned.
If you are the direct contractor, you record by the earlier of these two dates: 90 days after the project is completed, or 60 days after the owner records a Notice of Completion or Notice of Cessation.
If you are a subcontractor, supplier, or anyone else, you have less time. You record by the earlier of: 90 days after the project is completed, or 30 days after the owner records a Notice of Completion or Cessation. That is 30 days, not 60.
Assuming you get the same 60 days the general contractor gets is one of the most common ways a sub blows the deadline.
What counts as “completion.” The 90-day clock starts at the earliest of a few events: the work of improvement is finished, the owner occupies or starts using the property and work has stopped, all work stops for 60 straight days, or the owner records a notice of cessation after work has been stopped for 30 days.
One protection worth knowing. If the owner records a Notice of Completion or Cessation but does not send you a copy within 10 days, the shortened deadline does not apply to you, and you keep the full 90 days. The owner only gets to hold you to the shorter clock if they tell you the clock has started.
Recording fees vary by county, so check with the county recorder in the county where you are filing. And remember, by the time you record, you should already have served the owner, because proof of service must be part of the recorded document.
If the owner still has not paid, you enforce the lien by filing a lawsuit to foreclose on it, and you have 90 days from the date you recorded the lien to file. Miss that 90-day window and the lien expires on its own, even if everything up to that point was done right.
Record a lis pendens after you file. Once your lawsuit is filed, you have 20 days to record a notice of pending action, called a lis pendens, with the county recorder. This puts the world on notice that the property is tied up in litigation, and skipping it can weaken your position against anyone who later buys or lends against the property.
There is one way to buy more time. If you and the owner agree to extend credit and you record a notice of that agreement, your deadline to sue moves out to 90 days after the extended credit period ends, though never more than a year after the project was completed.
Enforcing a lien is a real lawsuit with strict procedural rules, so this is the point where most contractors bring in an experienced construction attorney.
Before you file, confirm your lien was prepared, served, and recorded correctly, because any slip in those earlier steps gives the owner a way to fight the foreclosure.
Filing a mechanics lien in California is a detailed process, but done correctly, it gives you real leverage to get paid for your work.
Here’s a quick recap of the steps:
Missing even one of these steps, or one of the deadlines, can wipe out your lien, so stay organized and track your dates closely.
Want to go deeper on California lien rights? Listen to our podcast on protecting your payment rights.
If you would rather have it handled right the first time, we can help.
The Cromeens Law Firm works with contractors, subcontractors, and suppliers across California, and a lien filed correctly is far easier to deal with than one that has to be fixed after the fact. Call us at 909-326-7003 or schedule a free consultation.
It is your money, so do not leave it to chance.
It depends on your role. A direct contractor has to record the lien within 90 days after the project is completed, or within 60 days after the owner records a Notice of Completion or Cessation, whichever comes first. A subcontractor or supplier has the same 90-day outside limit but only 30 days after a Notice of Completion or Cessation. If you are not sure which deadline applies to you, treat the shortest one as your target so you do not lose the lien.
No, you can prepare and record a lien yourself, and many contractors do. The catch is that the small mistakes are the ones that void a lien, like a missed deadline, a skipped preliminary notice, or leaving out the Notice of Mechanics Lien.
A lawyer is most worth it when the deadline is close, the amount is significant, or the owner is disputing the work, and especially once you have to move to foreclosure, which is a full lawsuit. If you are unsure whether your lien will hold up, having it reviewed before you record is cheaper than fixing it after.
Yes. California grants lien rights to anyone who provides authorized labor, materials, or equipment for a work of improvement, including subcontractors and suppliers who never signed anything with the owner.
Your work must be authorized for the project, whether by the owner, the general contractor, or another party responsible for the job. You can read about who qualifies under California’s mechanics lien law. One catch: if your work required a contractor’s license and you were not licensed, you cannot enforce a lien.
The most common ones are missing the preliminary notice or serving it late, recording the lien after your deadline, and failing to serve the owner before you record. Subcontractors and suppliers often assume they have 60 days after a Notice of Completion, but they really have 30. Other lien-killers include leaving out the required Notice of Mechanics Lien, describing the property incorrectly, and padding the lien with amounts you are not owed. Almost all of these stem from a missed deadline or a skipped step, which is why staying organized matters so much.
Yes, in a couple of ways. The owner, a direct contractor, or a subcontractor can record a lien release bond for 125% of your claim, which clears the lien off the property and shifts your claim to the bond instead. Separately, if your lien has expired because you did not sue to foreclose within 90 days, the owner can petition the court to have it removed, and they can recover attorney fees if they win. Both are good reasons to hit your deadlines and make sure the lien was done right.
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.