What to Do When a General Contractor Doesn’t Pay Your Invoice
marketing@thecromeenslawfirm.com
July 9, 2026
Last Updated: June 18, 2026
To have a valid lien in Louisiana, you confirm you have lien rights under the Louisiana Private Works Act, give any notices your role requires, file your lien, formally called a statement of claim or privilege, in the mortgage records of the parish where the property sits, and, if you are still unpaid, sue to enforce it within one year of filing.
Louisiana gives some claimants as little as 30 days after a project ends to file, and missing a deadline or skipping a required notice can wipe out your lien rights entirely.
The number one rule in collecting the money you are owed in construction is knowing those rights. A valid lien secures the amount you are owed with an interest in the property you improved, which is the strongest leverage you have when payment stalls.
But Louisiana courts strictly apply the lien statute. If you miss a step, the court will not bend the rules to save your claim, no matter how clearly you are owed the money.
This guide covers private projects. Public jobs in Louisiana are governed by a separate law with different rules.
A construction lien in Louisiana is a legal claim that secures the money you are owed for labor or materials with an interest in the property you improved. The document you file is officially called a statement of claim or privilege, and the law that creates it is the Louisiana Private Works Act. If you know this tool as a mechanics lien, that is the name most other states use for the same thing.
The Private Works Act never uses that term, but the concept is identical: you furnished work or materials, were not paid, and the law lets you attach that debt to the property.
Once filed in the mortgage records of the parish where the property sits (Louisiana has parishes rather than counties), the lien clouds the property’s title. That puts real pressure on the owner to get your claim resolved, because the property is hard to sell or refinance with your claim sitting on it.
One more thing worth knowing: the Private Works Act was overhauled effective January 1, 2020, and amended again in 2024, so older guides and form templates floating around online can get the deadlines wrong.
The rules below are the current ones.
You have lien rights in Louisiana if you provided work, materials, leased equipment, or professional design services for a construction project, whether your contract was with the property owner, the general contractor, or a subcontractor.
The Private Works Act covers:
What matters is who you dealt with, not how far down the chain you sit. The main group the Act leaves out is suppliers to suppliers.
If you sold materials to another supplier rather than to a contractor or subcontractor, you have no lien rights; the same applies to leasing equipment to a supplier.
If your contract was not with the owner, you get more than a lien. Louisiana also gives you a claim against the owner and the general contractor themselves.
You can demand payment from them directly, not just from the property, even if you never signed a contract with them.
If you are the general contractor on a Louisiana project worth more than $100,000, you must file a notice of contract in the parish mortgage records before work begins.
Skip it, and you lose your lien rights for the entire job. The law is blunt on this point: a general contractor who should have filed a notice of contract and did not is barred from filing a statement of claim at all, no matter how much is owed. Courts used to let some contractors work around this, but the 2020 overhaul closed that door for good.
The notice itself is short. It identifies the owner and the contractor, along with their mailing addresses. It gives a complete legal description of the property, plus the project name if it has one. And it states the contract price (or an estimate and how it will be calculated), when payment is due, and a general description of the work.
Get it filed before anyone sets foot on the site, because the requirement is tied to when work begins, and there is no fixing it after the fact.
Everyone else on the job should care about this document too. Whether a notice of contract is on file changes every claimant’s filing deadline and, for material suppliers, triggers an additional notice requirement. Both are covered below.
A notice of contract can also be filed on a job of any size, the $100,000 line is where filing stops being optional for the general contractor.
So whatever your role, check the parish mortgage records at the start of the job. Knowing whether a notice of contract exists tells you which deadlines you are on before the clock starts running.
Depending on your role, Louisiana requires you to send certain notices during the project, long before any lien gets filed. These are easy to miss because they come due while the job is still going well, and missing one can erase your claim no matter how perfectly you file later.
Material suppliers, this is the big one. If you sold materials to a subcontractor on a job where a notice of contract is on file, you must send a notice of nonpayment to both the owner and the general contractor no later than 75 days after the end of the calendar month in which you delivered.
Miss it, and you lose your lien rights for those materials entirely. The clock runs separately for each delivery month, so for a long-supply job, track it month by month.
That rule has two built-in limits: it applies only when a notice of contract is on file, and only when you sold to a subcontractor. If you sold directly to the general contractor, or the job has no notice of contract, this particular notice is not required.
Older guides say every supplier must send it on every job. That was the old law, and it changed in 2020.
Equipment lessors. Send the contractor a notice that you are leasing equipment for the job, and send it to the owner too if a notice of contract is on file.
Get it delivered within 30 days of your equipment first arriving on site. A late notice does not kill your claim, but it shrinks it, because you can only claim rent that accrues after the notice.
One more duty: if the owner or contractor asks you to identify the equipment you have on site, respond within 15 days, or your claim may be reduced by the amount of any damage caused by the delay.
Design professionals. If you were engaged by the contractor or a subcontractor rather than by the owner, the Act requires you to give the owner written notice within 30 days of being engaged.
Subcontractors hired by another subcontractor. Before you sue the general contractor or its surety for payment, you must give the contractor 30 days’ notice.
This is not a lien-filing step, but if your plan includes chasing the GC or the bond, build that month in.
Residential jobs have one more notice worth knowing about: a notice of nonpayment that can extend your filing deadline to 70 days. That one is covered with the deadlines below.
Your deadline to file a statement of claim depends on two things: whether a notice of contract is on file in the parish mortgage records, and your role on the job.
Most claimants get either 30 or 60 days after the project ends. The clock starts when the owner files a notice of termination, or if no one files one, when the work is substantially completed or abandoned.
If no notice of contract was filed. Everyone has 60 days, including the general contractor. Count from the notice of termination if the owner files one, and from substantial completion or abandonment if not. (For a general contractor, this scenario assumes your contract was under $100,000. If it was over that and no notice of contract exists, you have the bigger problem covered earlier.)
If a notice of contract was filed and the owner files a notice of termination. Subcontractors, suppliers, laborers, lessors, and everyone else in the contractor’s chain have just 30 days from the date of the notice of termination. The general contractor has 60 days.
This is the scenario that catches people off guard, because 30 days is not much time, and the notice of termination can hit the record books before you even realize the job is wrapping up. Watch the mortgage records as the project winds down.
If a notice of contract was filed, but no notice of termination is ever filed. The windows get much longer: 6 months from substantial completion or abandonment for the contractor’s chain, and 7 months for the general contractor.
The residential extension. On residential jobs with no notice of contract, you can stretch your 60 days to 70 days by sending the owner a notice of nonpayment before your window closes and at least 10 days before you file. This extension is available to subcontractors, suppliers, lessors, and laborers, but not to the general contractor.
What counts as the end of the job? A notice of termination is a document the owner files to certify that the work is finished or abandoned, and it triggers the short 30- and 60-day windows. Without one, the law looks to substantial completion, which happens when the last work is performed, or the last materials are delivered, or when the owner accepts the improvement or moves in, even with punch-list items left.
Do not assume the clock starts when you think the job is done. The owner occupying the building can start it.
You never have to wait to file. Nothing stops you from filing the moment you are unpaid, even before the filing window formally opens.
And an intent-to-lien letter, telling the owner and contractor you will file if payment does not come in, often shakes the money loose without a filing.
The moment payment looks shaky, start protecting yourself, because these deadlines are hard cutoffs and courts do not extend them.
Louisiana keeps the statement of claim simple, but every required element must be present, and a single missing piece can sink the whole filing.
Your statement of claim or privilege must:
The property description is a common defect. Louisiana law is explicit: the owner’s name plus a street address, without more, is insufficient. Use the complete legal description of the property whenever you can get it. You can pull it from the parish records, the notice of contract (if one was filed), or the owner’s deed.
File in the mortgage records of the parish where the property sits. That means the recorder of mortgages for that parish. The mortgage records specifically, and the right parish, because filing in the wrong records or the wrong parish is a known lien killer. Expect a filing fee, which you can confirm with the recorder before you go.
Send the owner a copy. The actual rule is narrower than most people think: a copy is legally required only when a notice of contract was filed, and the owner’s address appears in it, and that duty falls on the contractor’s chain rather than the general contractor. Send it anyway in every case, by certified mail. It costs a few dollars and puts immediate pressure on the owner. It also leaves them no room to say they never knew about your lien.
You do not need a notary on a private job. The Private Works Act requires the statement of claim to be in writing and signed by you or your representative, and nothing more. Louisiana law used to require a sworn statement, and the legislature specifically removed that requirement.
Old habits die hard, which is why many Louisiana lien forms still carry notary and witness blocks. Using them does no harm, so notarize if it is convenient. Just never let a missing notary push you past a filing deadline, because the law asks for a signature, not a stamp. One caution: this applies to private projects. Claims on Louisiana public jobs still must be sworn.
One year. If you do not file a lawsuit to enforce your statement of claim within one year of filing it, the claim and the privilege are extinguished, no matter how valid the debt was. Filing the lien is not the finish line. It is leverage with a clock on it.
Two things have to happen inside that year. First, you file suit against the owner to enforce the claim or privilege. Second, you record a notice of pendency of action, also called a lis pendens, in the parish mortgage records, identifying that lawsuit.
Skip the lis pendens, and your recorded lien stops counting against third parties, meaning a buyer or lender who picks up an interest in the property can take it free of your claim even while your suit is pending.
In practice, the lien is the pressure, and the lawsuit is the deadline. Many claims resolve before suit, because the owner wants the title cleared and the contractor wants the dispute closed. The intent-to-lien letter starts that pressure, the filing raises it, and a well-timed reminder that your one-year window is open often finishes the job.
But calendar the suit deadline the day you file the lien, because owners know the lien dies if you let the year run out.
Missing a deadline does not always end everything. Louisiana has a narrow safety net: even if you fail to file your statement on time, your claim against the contractor can survive if you delivered a copy of the statement to the contractor within the filing period. Different facts produce different outcomes here, so before you write off a claim as dead, have a construction attorney look at it.
This is also the point where the do-it-yourself path usually ends. Filing the statement of claim is paperwork. Enforcing it is a real lawsuit with court deadlines, and a year disappears faster than you think when a project is winding down and everyone keeps promising the check is coming.
Having a valid lien in Louisiana comes down to getting every step right:
Miss one, and the whole claim can collapse, because Louisiana courts will not bend these rules for a sympathetic story. The flip side is just as true. A claimant who hits every deadline holds real leverage, and most owners and contractors know it.
Want to go deeper on Louisiana lien rights? Listen to Karalynn’s podcast episode on Louisiana liens.
If you would rather not run this gauntlet alone, we are here. The Cromeens Law Firm has a New Orleans office and works with contractors, subcontractors, and suppliers across Louisiana, and a lien done right the first time costs far less than one that has to be defended after the fact. Call us at 504-302-0511 or schedule a free consultation.
The money is yours. The deadlines decide whether you collect it.
It depends on your role and whether a notice of contract is on file. If no notice of contract was filed, everyone has 60 days, counted from the notice of termination, or from substantial completion or abandonment if no termination notice is filed. If a notice of contract is on file and a notice of termination is filed, subcontractors and suppliers have 30 days, and the general contractor has 60 days.
If a notice of contract is on file but no notice of termination ever appears, the windows stretch to 6 months for the contractor’s chain and 7 months for the general contractor. You can read the deadline rules in Louisiana’s lien law.
When in doubt, file early, because nothing requires you to wait.
The big ones: counting your deadline from the wrong trigger event, assuming you have 60 days when a notice of termination cuts you to 30, a supplier missing the 75-day notice of nonpayment, describing the property with only a street address, and filing in the wrong parish or the wrong records. General contractors add one more, skipping the notice of contract on a job over $100,000. And the quiet killer comes after filing, because the lien expires if you do not sue within one year. Louisiana courts apply these rules strictly, so a technical defect usually means cancellation, not forgiveness.
Yes, in two ways. Any interested party can deposit a bond for 125 percent of your claim with the recorder of mortgages, which clears the lien from the property and moves your claim onto the bond instead. That is not a defeat, because your security survives, it just changes form. Separately, if your lien is invalid or has expired, the owner can demand that you cancel it, and you have 10 days after that written demand to deliver the cancellation request. Refusing without good reason makes you liable for damages and attorney fees, so never leave a dead lien sitting in the records.
It can. If the notice of contract was filed with a qualifying payment bond attached, the owner and the property are relieved of the claims and privileges of the contractor’s chain, and your claim shifts to the bond instead. Recent changes to Louisiana law also let the bond’s surety raise the contractor’s own defenses, including pay-if-paid clauses. So check the parish mortgage records at the start of the job. If a bond is attached to the notice of contract, your protection runs through the bond, and your notice and deadline discipline matters just as much.
A few. For residential jobs with no contract notice, most claimants can extend their filing deadline from 60 to 70 days by sending the owner a notice of nonpayment at least 10 days before filing.
And if you contract directly with homeowners for residential improvements, Louisiana requires you to give the owner a written notice of lien rights, in the form the statute spells out, when you sign the contract.
If you build new homes, the warranties you owe the first owner are a separate obligation under the Louisiana New Home Warranty Act, which we cover in its own guide.
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.
