Alabama lien waiver: the state banned the advance waiver, of interest
Alabama wrote the sentence. A party may not waive the right to receive interest before a payment is due. Then the same act says it does not amend the mechanics and materialmen lien law and does not apply to it. The advance waiver ban exists here, and the legislature walled it off from the thing you were asking about.
No Alabama statute voids a lien waiver signed before payment. Ala. Code 8-29-5 does ban waiving prompt pay interest in advance, and Ala. Code 8-29-8 says that chapter does not amend the mechanics and materialmen lien law and does not apply in actions under it. The twenty five sections of Title 35, Chapter 11, Division 8 contain no waiver provision at all.
Read the law: Alabama Code section 8-29-5law.onecle.com
Ala. Code 8-29-5, the waiver ban Alabama actually wroteFill it in online Type your details in and download it already filled in.A party may not waive the right to receive interest before a payment is due under a contract subject to this section. A party may waive the interest due on any late payment on or after the date the payment is due under Section 8-29-3.
That is the shape of a real anti waiver rule: void before the money is due, valid after. It is in the Prompt Pay chapter and it is about interest. Ala. Code 8-29-8 then closes the door in one sentence, saying the chapter does not amend or modify existing laws relating to mechanics and materialmen liens and does not apply in actions under Title 35, Chapter 11, Division 8.
Download a blank Alabama lien waiver
Alabama prescribes no statutory wording, so this is the general conditional waiver on progress payment, the form that fits most draws. Print it and fill it in by hand, or use the builder below and get it back already filled in.
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The anti waiver sentence Alabama did write
Around thirty states carry a section declaring that a waiver of lien rights signed before payment is void as against public policy. Alabama carries no such section. What it carries instead is Ala. Code 8-29-5, in the Prompt Pay chapter, and the structure of it is the structure every anti waiver statute uses. You cannot give up the right in advance. You can give it up once the money is due.
The right in question is interest on a late payment under 8-29-3, and nothing else. A contractor who signs away his interest at the subcontract stage has signed away nothing, because the statute says he cannot do that. A contractor who signs away his lien rights at the same table on the same afternoon has signed them away, because no Alabama section says he cannot.
Ala. Code 8-29-8 makes the separation explicit rather than leaving it to inference. This chapter does not amend or modify existing laws relating to mechanics and materialmen liens and shall not be applicable in civil actions pursuant to Title 35, Chapter 11, Division 8. The legislature was not silent about advance waivers in construction. It was specific about where the ban stops.
What Division 8 contains, and what it does not
The Alabama construction lien lives in Title 35, Chapter 11, Article 5, Division 8, sections 35-11-210 through 35-11-234. Twenty five sections, and they run from the lien being declared, through the verified statement and its filing deadlines, through notice, jurisdiction, limitations and the mechanics of an enforcement action, out to assignment and subrogation at the end. None of them is about waiving the lien, and none of them mentions a waiver signed before payment.
Chapter 11 does use the word once. Section 35-11-272 says the liens created by this division shall be held to have been waived or abandoned unless proceedings to enforce the same are commenced within 60 days after the work shall have been completed. Read where it sits before you read anything into it. That is Division 10, the lien for sawmill, lumber and timber employees, and what it calls a waiver is a missed deadline rather than a signature.
So the only waiver in the Alabama lien chapter is a clock running out on somebody else's lien. For a construction lien under Division 8, the question of what a signed waiver does is answered by the document and by general contract law, and not by the code.
Two ways Alabama kills a lien without any waiver at all
Section 35-11-210 is the first and it catches subcontractors and suppliers the hardest. If you are an employee of the contractor or a person furnishing material to him, the lien extends only to the amount of any unpaid balance due the contractor by the owner. The owner who has already paid his general in full has no unpaid balance, and your lien reaches the number that is left rather than the number you are owed.
The same section gives you the way out and it has to happen before the material goes on the truck. Notify the owner in writing that specified material will be furnished at specified prices and, unless the owner objects in writing before the material is used, you have a lien for the full price stated in the notice whether or not it exceeds the unpaid balance. The statute even prints the wording of the notice. On an Alabama job that letter is worth more than any waiver you will ever argue about.
Section 35-11-219 is the second and it points at the original contractor. Furnish the owner, when required, a complete list of every materialman, laborer and employee with the terms and price. Fail to furnish it, fail to give the information, or fail to pay a materialman, subcontractor, laborer or employee in accordance with a special contract made with the owner, and he shall thereby forfeit his right to a lien under this division. Not reduce it. Forfeit it.
What to do about it on an Alabama job
Sign conditional, never unconditional, until the money has cleared your bank. Where no statute voids a bad waiver the form is the entire protection, and a conditional waiver that takes effect when the payment clears is a different document from one that takes effect on signature.
Put the amount and the through date on every waiver you sign. There is no Alabama section that reads a limit into a waiver that does not carry one, and no Alabama section that construes an ambiguous one in your favor either. What is on the paper is the agreement.
Then keep the two Alabama specific dates in front of you, because they will beat a waiver argument to the punch. Send the 35-11-210 notice before you furnish material, so your lien is not capped at whatever the owner still happens to owe the general. File the verified statement under 35-11-215 within six months if you are the original contractor, within four months if you are anyone else, and within 30 days if you are a journeyman or day laborer, measured from the last item of work or material.
An Alabama supplier who sends a notice to owner before furnishing material before furnishing material gets a lien for the full price named in the notice instead of a share of whatever the owner still owes the contractor.
An Alabama claimant who is not paid files a verified statement of lien with the judge of probate, and 35-11-213 says that unless the statement is filed the lien is lost.
Which of the four to sign on an Alabama job
Alabama has no anti waiver statute, so the wording of the form is the whole of the protection. A conditional waiver ties the release to the payment clearing. An unconditional one releases on signature, paid or not, and nothing in Division 8 is going to unwind it for you afterwards.
Questions people ask
Is an Alabama lien waiver signed before payment valid?
Yes, as far as the Alabama Code is concerned. No section of Title 35, Chapter 11, Division 8 voids a waiver of construction lien rights signed in advance of payment. The one advance waiver ban Alabama does have, Ala. Code 8-29-5, is about prompt pay interest, and Ala. Code 8-29-8 says that chapter does not amend the mechanics and materialmen lien law and does not apply in actions under it.
What can I not waive in advance in Alabama?
Interest on a late payment. Ala. Code 8-29-5 says a party may not waive the right to receive interest before a payment is due, and may waive interest on a late payment only on or after the date that payment became due under 8-29-3. That is the whole of the advance waiver prohibition in Alabama construction law.
Why is my Alabama lien limited to the unpaid balance?
Because Ala. Code 35-11-210 says so for anyone furnishing material or labor to the contractor rather than to the owner. The fix is in the same section: give the owner written notice of the specified material and the specified price before you furnish it, and unless the owner objects in writing before the material is used, the lien is for the full price stated in the notice regardless of the unpaid balance.
Does Alabama prescribe a lien waiver form?
No. There is no statutory Alabama waiver wording, which is exactly why the form is worth choosing with care. A conditional waiver on progress payment names the amount, names the through date and states that it takes effect when the payment clears, and it is effective on those terms because no Alabama statute overrides them.
Working in another state? The general lien waiver forms page covers all four waiver types, and conditional vs unconditional lien waiver explains which of the two to sign and when.
This page quotes Alabama Code section 8-29-5 and explains what it says. It is not legal advice, and a statute can be amended. Read the linked section before you rely on it.