Arizona Mechanics Lien Deadline Calculator, and the Question That Comes Before Any Date
Arizona is the state where a deadline calculator can give you the wrong answer while every number on it is correct, because the first thing Arizona decides is not when, it is whether. Section 33-1002(B) says no lien shall be allowed or recorded against the dwelling of somebody who was living there before the work started, unless the claimant signed a written contract directly with that owner-occupant. If that is your job and you were hired by a general contractor, there is no deadline to miss. After that gate, three things make Arizona unlike anywhere else in this lane. A late preliminary twenty day notice does not kill the lien, it reaches back exactly twenty days and quietly drops the front of the job off the claim. Completion is a defined term the statute works out rather than a date you pick, and on two of its three routes it can still be in the future on a job you finished weeks ago. And the hundred and twenty days you think you have becomes sixty the moment the owner records a notice of completion, unless the owner forgot to mail you a copy, in which case section 33-993(I) hands the hundred and twenty back. Put your dates in and this page answers the gate first, then counts every clock that is actually running.
Worked example
These are the figures the calculator opens with and the answer it gives. Change anything above and every number below moves with it.
- The property, and your contract on itNot an owner-occupied home
- Days since you FIRST furnished anything to the jobsite190 days
- Your preliminary twenty day noticeServed, I have the proof
- Days since you deposited that notice in the mail156 days
- How completion is fixed on this jobFinal inspection and written acceptance
- Days since that event120 days
- Notice of completion recorded by the ownerNone recorded
- Days since that notice of completion was recorded18 days
- Your notice and claim of lienNot recorded yet
- Days since you recorded the claim of lien40 days
- Days of slack you want before the deadline7 days
Days left to record the claim of lien30 days
Your lien is smaller than your invoice, and this is the number most Arizona pages never print. Section 33-992.01(E) says a person who serves a late preliminary twenty day notice is entitled to claim a lien only for what was furnished within twenty days before the service of the notice and at any time thereafter. Your notice went out on day 34 of this job, so the first 14 days of what you furnished sits outside the lien. The debt is still owed and the contract claim still covers all of it. What has shrunk is the part the property secures, so work out what you actually furnished in that window before you put a figure on the claim of lien.
The claim of lien is not a one page form in Arizona. Section 33-993(A) requires it under oath, with the legal description, the owner or reputed owner, who hired you, the terms of the contract or a copy of it if written, your demand after just credits and offsets, the date of completion, and the date the preliminary twenty day notice was given. Paragraph 6 then says a copy of that preliminary twenty day notice and the proof of mailing required by 33-992.02 shall be attached. Two copies: one recorded with the county recorder, the other served on the owner within a reasonable time after.
One notice covers the job until your number moves. Section 33-992.01(G) says a claimant need give only one preliminary twenty day notice unless the actual estimated total price exceeds by thirty percent or more the total price in any prior notice, or the work is furnished under contracts with more than one subcontractor. Subsection (H) confirms the other side of it: a notice is not defective because later work exceeds the estimate by less than thirty percent. So a job that has grown by a third since you sent that notice needs a fresh one for the excess, and change orders are how contractors walk into this without noticing.
Two Arizona questions this page deliberately does not answer, because both can decide the case. Whether a cessation of labor really was sixty consecutive days, since 33-993(C)(2) excepts a stoppage due to a strike, shortage of materials or act of God, and a stoppage that turns out to be excused moves completion and every date under it. And whether you were properly licensed for this work, which under 32-1153 can bar the claim outright however good the dates are.
| Your lien right, before any date | 33-1002 does not reach itnot a one or two family dwelling whose owner was living there before the work started |
|---|---|
| Preliminary twenty day notice, day 20 | served on day 3414 past the 20 in 33-992.01(C), which 33-992.01(E) charges for rather than refuses |
| What that notice actually covers | 14 days are outside it33-992.01(E) covers what you furnished within 20 days before service and after, so the first 14 of this job are not in the lien |
| Completion, the day it all runs from | 90 days ago33-993(C)(1), 30 days after the final inspection and written final acceptance 120 days ago |
| Record the claim of lien | 30 days leftday 90 of 120 since completion, 33-993(A) |
| Proof of mailing for the attachment | affidavit route is open33-992.02(2), 30 days have passed since you mailed, so an affidavit of mailing will do if no acknowledgment came back |
| Sue and record the lis pendens | six months once recorded33-998(A), and the notice of pendency under 12-1191 has to be recorded inside the same six months |
| With 7 days of slack | 23 days from nowkeeping 7 in hand for the recorder, off a window that closes in 30 |
| The 30 percent rule on your estimate | 33-992.01(G)one notice covers the job unless the actual total runs 30 percent or more above the estimate you put in it, and then the excess needs its own notice |
What this calculator assumes
- Arizona asks a question before any clock starts, and on a house the answer is often no. Section 33-1002(B) says no lien shall be allowed or recorded against the dwelling of a person who became an owner-occupant before the work, except by a person having executed in writing a contract directly with that owner-occupant. A subcontractor or supplier on a homeowner's remodel has no lien to be late for, and subsection (C) makes any waiver of that protection void, so there is no form that fixes it.
- A late preliminary twenty day notice in Arizona is expensive, not fatal. Section 33-992.01(E) says a person who serves late is entitled to claim a lien only for what was furnished within twenty days before the service of the notice and at any time thereafter. So the lien survives and the front of the job falls off it, one day of work for each day of lateness. Serving a late notice today is almost always worth doing, because every day you wait costs another day of the claim.
- Completion is a defined term and this page works it out rather than asking you for it. Section 33-993(C) makes completion the earliest of thirty days after final inspection and written final acceptance by the body that issued the permit, or cessation of labor for sixty consecutive days. Section 33-993(D) says that if no permit was issued, or the permitting body does not issue final inspections and written final acceptances, completion is the last date anything was furnished. On the first two routes completion can still be in the future on a job you finished weeks ago.
- The sixty day window only binds you if the owner did the mailing. Section 33-993(A) cuts the hundred and twenty days to sixty from the recordation of a notice of completion, but 33-993(I) says a person from whom the owner had received a preliminary twenty day notice, and who was not mailed a copy within fifteen days of recording, shall have one hundred twenty days from completion. The only people on that mailing list are the ones who sent a preliminary notice, which is one more reason to send it.
- Recording the lien is not the end of it. Section 33-998(A) says the lien shall not continue longer than six months after it is recorded unless action is brought within that period AND a notice of pendency of action is recorded under 12-1191 in the same county. Two acts inside one window. Filing the suit and forgetting the lis pendens loses the lien just as completely as never suing.
- Six months is a calendar span, not a count of days, and this page cannot see your calendar. The shortest six consecutive months in a year is 181 days and the longest is 184, so the page works to the 181 and tells you the spread. The only answer you can rely on is the date six months after your recording date, counted on a calendar.
- Nothing in article 6 moves a deadline off a weekend or a holiday the way some states do, so this page moves nothing. Every date here is the early one, and the county recorder's counter hours are your real deadline on the last day.
The question Arizona asks before any clock starts
Most lien statutes assume you have a lien and then argue about when you have to record it. Arizona does the opposite on one kind of job. Section 33-1002(B) removes the lien entirely from a claimant who did not sign a written contract directly with an owner-occupant, on the dwelling of a person who became an owner-occupant before the construction, alteration, repair or improvement.
That is the ordinary residential remodel. The homeowner hires a general contractor, the general contractor hires you, and you have no lien on that house no matter how carefully you serve your notices. The statute says allowed or recorded, so recording one anyway is not a cautious fallback, it is doing the thing the section prohibits.
Subsection (C) closes the obvious workaround. A written waiver of that protection by the owner-occupant, signed before the work, is void. There is no form that gets you back inside. What you still have is the contract claim against whoever actually hired you, which runs on its own limitations period and has nothing to do with the dates on this page.
Two things narrow it, and both are worth checking rather than assuming. The protection belongs to somebody who became an owner-occupant before the work, so it does not cover new construction the buyer moved into afterwards. And it is the dwelling, not every job with a house on it.
A.R.S. 33-1002(B)No lien provided for in this article shall be allowed or recorded by the person claiming a lien against the dwelling of a person who became an owner-occupant prior to the construction, alteration, repair or improvement, except by a person having executed in writing a contract directly with the owner-occupant.
Allowed or recorded. If this is your job, the answer is not a later date, it is that there is no lien to date.
A late twenty day notice is not fatal in Arizona, it is priced
Every other state in this lane treats a preliminary notice as pass or fail. Serve it inside the window and the lien lives, miss the window and it does not. Arizona charges by the day instead, and it is the only partial loss anywhere in this group of calculators.
Section 33-992.01(B) wants the notice within twenty days of first furnishing labor or materials to the jobsite. Subsection (E) then says a person who did not do that is not precluded from serving later, but is entitled to claim a lien only for what was furnished within twenty days before the service of the notice and at any time thereafter. The notice reaches backwards exactly twenty days and no further.
Work that out on a real job and it stings in a useful way. Serve on day 34 and everything you furnished in the first fourteen days is outside the lien. Serve on day 60 and the first forty days are gone. The claim is still alive, it is just smaller, and it gets smaller every day you wait. That is why the answer to a late notice in Arizona is almost always to serve it today rather than to decide it is too late to bother.
One more thing the same section does. Subsection (F) says service is complete at the time of deposit in the mail, not on delivery, so the day that counts is the day it went into the mailbox, and that is the day this calculator asks for.
A.R.S. 33-992.01(E)If labor, professional services, materials, machinery, fixtures or tools are furnished to a jobsite by a person who elects not to give a preliminary twenty day notice as provided in subsection B of this section, that person is not precluded from giving a preliminary twenty day notice not later than twenty days after furnishing other labor, professional services, materials, machinery, fixtures or tools to the same jobsite. The person, however, is entitled to claim a lien only for such labor, professional services, materials, machinery, fixtures or tools furnished within twenty days before the service of the notice and at any time thereafter.
Within twenty days before the service of the notice. Everything earlier than that falls outside the lien and stays outside it.
Completion is a defined term, and on two routes it has not happened yet
Ask an Arizona contractor when the job was completed and you will get the day the crew left. Section 33-993(C) does not use that day, and getting this wrong is the commonest way to compute an Arizona deadline that is weeks out.
Completion is the earliest of two events. Thirty days after final inspection and written final acceptance by the governmental body that issued the building permit, or cessation of labor for sixty consecutive days. Both of those add a statutory period to the day you remember, which means completion can be in the future on a job that finished a month ago, and the hundred and twenty days has not started running yet.
Subsection (D) is the fallback most small jobs actually land on. If no building permit was issued, or the body that issued it does not do final inspections and written final acceptances, completion is the last date anything was furnished to the property. That one is the day you think it is.
The cessation route carries an exception worth reading before you rely on it. Sixty consecutive days of no labor counts as completion except when the cessation is due to a strike, a shortage of materials or an act of God. A job that sat idle because the owner ran out of money is a cessation. A job that sat idle waiting on a material nobody could get may not be, and that is a question for an Arizona construction attorney rather than for a calculator.
A.R.S. 33-993(C)For the purposes of subsection A of this section, "completion" means the earliest of the following events: 1. Thirty days after final inspection and written final acceptance by the governmental body which issued the building permit for the building, structure or improvement. 2. Cessation of labor for a period of sixty consecutive days, except when such cessation of labor is due to a strike, shortage of materials or act of God.
Thirty days after, and sixty consecutive days. Neither of those is the day the work stopped.
A hundred and twenty days, cut to sixty, unless the owner forgot to mail it
Section 33-993(A) gives every claimant one hundred and twenty days after completion to record the notice and claim of lien. The owner can shorten that to sixty by recording a notice of completion, and subsection (E) says the owner may elect to record one at any time after completion for the purpose of shortening the lien period. It is a lever the owner pulls, and it halves your window without anybody asking you.
Subsection (I) is the part almost nobody reads, and it is the reason this calculator asks whether a copy was mailed to you. Within fifteen days of recording, the person recording the notice of completion has to mail a copy, and the date and recording location, by certified or registered mail to the original contractor and to everybody from whom the owner had received a preliminary twenty day notice. If that mailing did not happen, the claimant who was skipped has one hundred and twenty days from completion, not sixty.
So the sixty day window belongs to a notice of completion that was actually served on you. Where it was not, the longer window is not a fallback or a cautious reading, it is the express grant in the statute, and this page prints it. What it costs you is evidence: you will be proving that something did not arrive, so keep whatever shows what did and did not reach you.
And note who is on that mailing list. Only people from whom the owner received a preliminary twenty day notice. A claimant who never sent one is not on it, so 33-993(I) does nothing for him and the sixty days binds him in full. That is one more reason to serve the notice even when you are sure you will be paid.
One more trap sits in subsection (B). On a residential work of improvement made up of more than one separate building, each building is a separate work, and the time to record runs from the completion of each one. Whether they were built under one contract or several makes no difference. A twelve unit development is twelve deadlines, not one.
A.R.S. 33-993(I)In the event the owner or its agent fails to mail a copy of the notice of completion and a written statement of the date of recording and the county recorder's record location information within fifteen days of recording to any person from whom the owner has received a preliminary twenty day notice, such person shall have one hundred twenty days from completion as defined in section 33-993 to impress and secure the lien provided for in this article.
Shall have one hundred twenty days. This is a grant, not an argument, and it is the window this page counts when you say nothing was mailed to you.
The proof of mailing has to be attached, and it can take thirty days to exist
Section 33-993(A)(6) requires the claim of lien to state the date the preliminary twenty day notice was given, with a copy of that notice and the proof of mailing required by section 33-992.02 attached. Attached, to the document you record. It is not something you produce later if somebody asks.
Proof of mailing is easy when the person you served signs the acknowledgment and sends it back. When they do not, section 33-992.02 gives you an affidavit route instead, and that route has a waiting period built into it. The affidavit only becomes available once the recipient has failed to complete and return the acknowledgment within thirty days from the date of mailing.
Those two rules collide on a late notice. Serve on day 100 of a hundred and twenty day window, get no acknowledgment back, and the affidavit is not available until day 130. The recording deadline passed on day 120 and you had nothing lawful to attach. The calculator on this page flags that gap when your dates create it, because it is invisible until you go to record.
The practical answer is to serve early enough that the thirty days can run, and to chase the acknowledgment rather than waiting the thirty days out by default. Certified mail with a return receipt is cheap next to a lien you cannot record.
A.R.S. 33-992.02(2)If a person to whom the notice is served pursuant to section 33-992.01, subsection F fails to complete the acknowledgment or fails to complete and return the acknowledgment within thirty days from the date of mailing, proof of mailing may be made by affidavit of the person making the mailing, showing the time, place and manner of mailing and facts showing that such service was made in accordance with section 33-992.01.
Thirty days from the date of mailing. That is a waiting period sitting in front of a document you have to attach to the lien.
Six months to do two separate things, not one
Recording the lien does not end the job. Section 33-998(A) says a recorded lien shall not continue for a longer period than six months after it is recorded, unless an action is brought within that period to enforce it and a notice of pendency of action is recorded under section 12-1191 in the county where the property sits.
Two acts, one window. Filing the lawsuit on day 170 and recording the lis pendens on day 190 loses the lien just as completely as never suing at all. They are joined by an and, and the second one is the one people forget because it happens at the recorder rather than at the court.
Six months is also not a number of days, and this is where a calculator has to be honest about what it cannot see. Six consecutive calendar months can be as short as 181 days and as long as 184, depending on which months they are. This page works to the 181 and tells you where the spread sits, but the only date you can rely on is the one six months after your recording date counted on a calendar.
Subsection (B) is worth knowing for a different reason. In any action to enforce a lien under this article the court may award the successful party reasonable attorney fees. That runs both ways, and it is the single best argument for not recording a lien you are not sure about.
A.R.S. 33-998(A)A lien granted under the provisions of this article shall not continue for a longer period than six months after it is recorded, unless action is brought within that period to enforce the lien and a notice of pendency of action is recorded pursuant to section 12-1191 in the office of the county recorder in the county where the property is located.
Unless action is brought and a notice of pendency is recorded. Both, inside the six months.
One notice covers the whole job, until your estimate is thirty percent out
Arizona does not make you serve a fresh preliminary twenty day notice every time you deliver something. Section 33-992.01(G) says one notice covers all the labor, services, materials, machinery, fixtures or tools furnished for that building, structure or improvement.
It gives back that convenience in two situations. If the actual estimated total price exceeds by thirty percent or more the total price stated in a prior notice, the notice requirements have to be met for the additional work. And if the work is furnished under contracts with more than one subcontractor, the same applies.
So the number you wrote on the notice matters months later. A change order run that takes a twenty thousand dollar scope to twenty seven thousand is inside the thirty percent. Take it to twenty seven thousand and one dollars and you owe a further notice on the extra, and that notice carries its own twenty day lookback under subsection (E). The calculator shows you where the thirty percent line falls on your own estimate so you can see how much room is left before it bites.
A sensible habit is to put a realistic figure on the first notice rather than a conservative one, since the statute measures growth against what you stated, and a low opening number is the thing that makes the threshold easy to cross.
A.R.S. 33-992.01(G)A person required by this section to give notice to the owner, to an original contractor, to the construction lender, if any, and to the person with whom the claimant has contracted need give only one notice to the owner, to the original contractor, to the construction lender, if any, and to the person with whom the claimant has contracted with respect to all labor, professional services, materials, machinery, fixtures or tools furnished for the building, structure or improvement, unless the actual estimated total price for the labor, professional services, materials, machinery, fixtures or tools furnished or to be furnished exceeds by thirty percent or more the total price in any prior original or subsequent preliminary notice.
Thirty percent or more over what you stated, and the extra work needs its own notice.
Questions people ask
I am a subcontractor on a homeowner's remodel in Arizona. Do I have a lien?
Probably not, and section 33-1002(B) is the reason. It removes the lien from anybody claiming against the dwelling of a person who became an owner-occupant before the work, except a person who executed a written contract directly with that owner-occupant. If the homeowner hired the general contractor and the general contractor hired you, you are outside it. Subsection (C) makes a pre-work waiver of that protection by the owner void, so there is no paperwork that fixes it. Your claim is against whoever hired you, on the contract, not on the property.
I missed the twenty day deadline for the preliminary notice. Is my Arizona lien dead?
No, and this is the one place Arizona is kinder than most states. Section 33-992.01(E) lets you serve late, and the notice then covers what you furnished within twenty days before the service and everything after. So you lose the front of the job rather than the lien. If you are on day 50 and serve today, the first thirty days of work fall outside the claim. Every further day of delay costs another day, which is why serving today is nearly always the right answer.
When does the hundred and twenty days actually start in Arizona?
At completion as section 33-993(C) defines it, which is often not the day you stopped work. It is the earliest of thirty days after final inspection and written final acceptance by the permitting body, or sixty consecutive days of cessation of labor. If no permit was issued, or the permitting body does not do final inspections and written acceptances, subsection (D) makes it the last date anything was furnished. On the first two routes the start date can still be in the future on a job you finished weeks ago, so the window is longer than it feels.
The owner recorded a notice of completion. Do I really only have sixty days?
Only if a copy was mailed to you. Section 33-993(A) shortens the window to sixty days from the recordation, but 33-993(I) says a claimant from whom the owner had received a preliminary twenty day notice, and who was not mailed a copy of the notice of completion within fifteen days of recording, has one hundred and twenty days from completion. If nothing reached you, the longer window is the one the statute gives you. Keep the evidence, because you will be proving a negative. And if you never sent a preliminary notice you were never on the mailing list, so the sixty days binds you in full.
I recorded my Arizona lien. What do I have to do inside six months?
Two things, and missing either one ends the lien. Section 33-998(A) requires that an action be brought to enforce the lien within six months of recording and that a notice of pendency of action be recorded under section 12-1191 in the same county inside the same period. Suing without recording the lis pendens loses the lien. Note also that six months is a calendar span, between 181 and 184 days depending on the months, so count it on a calendar rather than from a day count.
Do I need a new preliminary notice when the job grows?
Usually not. Section 33-992.01(G) says one notice covers everything furnished for that building or improvement. It stops covering the extra work once the actual estimated total exceeds the price you stated on a prior notice by thirty percent or more, or where the work is furnished under contracts with more than one subcontractor. A further notice then has to be given for the additional work, and that notice carries its own twenty day lookback, so it should go out as soon as you can see the growth coming rather than at the end.
Does Arizona move a deadline that lands on a weekend?
Nothing in article 6 says so, and this page moves nothing. Every date it prints is the early one. On the last day your real deadline is the county recorder's counter hours, not midnight, so treat the printed day as the day the document has to be in somebody's hands rather than the day you start driving.
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