Wyoming Construction Lien Deadline Calculator, Including the Preliminary Notice That Bars the General Contractor Too
Wyoming puts its hardest rule first. Section 29-2-112(a)(iii) says failure to send the preliminary notice within the time specified shall bar the right of a contractor, subcontractor or materialman to assert a lien, and that sentence reaches the general contractor who signed with the owner just as surely as it reaches the supplier who never met him. There is no late version that shortens the lien instead, no cure, and no discretion anywhere in Title 29. The two clocks are not even the same shape: a subcontractor or materialman has thirty days after first providing services or materials, while a contractor's notice is due before he receives any payment from the owner including advances, which is an event rather than a date and therefore has no countdown to watch. That is why contractors miss it. After that the arithmetic starts. Section 29-2-106 gives a contractor one hundred fifty days to file and everyone else one hundred twenty, and section 29-1-201(a)(i)(A) quietly puts architects, professional engineers and surveyors inside the word contractor, so a design professional gets the longer window and the harsher notice rule at the same time. Then section 29-2-107 takes twenty days back out of whichever window you are in, because the notice of intention must be sent no later than twenty days prior to filing and the statute gives it no window of its own. Your real deadline is day one hundred and thirty, or day one hundred, and no section in the chapter says so. Put your dates in and the page tells you which of these is your problem today, and whether the answer is a date at all.
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.
- What you are on this jobSubcontractor, I perform work for a contractor
- Days since your last day of work or materials40 days
- Days since you FIRST worked or delivered here70 days
- The preliminary notice under 29-2-112Not sent
- Contractors only, have you taken any money from the ownerNothing yet, not even an advance
- Has the owner recorded a notice of substantial completionNo, nothing recorded
- If one was recorded, days since it was recorded30 days
- The notice of intention to file lien, 29-2-107Not sent to the owner yet
- If you sent it, days since you sent it5 days
- A recorded extension agreement that YOU signedThere is none
- If there is one, the total days it allows240 days
- Your lien statement at the county clerkNot filed yet
- If you filed it, days since you filed20 days
- The 30 day notice to the owner AFTER filingNot sent
- Longest gap between two visits to this job0 days
- Warn me when a deadline is this close7 days
Your lien right on this jobgone, 29-2-112
Read this before anything above it. On the facts you have given, 29-2-112(a)(iii) bars your right to assert a lien on this job and no date on this page will give it back. A subcontractor or materialman has thirty days after first providing services or materials, under 29-2-112(a)(ii)(B). You first worked or delivered here 70 days ago and no notice went out. What survives is the debt. Your contract claim against whoever hired you is untouched by Title 29 and runs on the ordinary contract limitation period, which is years rather than months. Nothing here stops you suing for the money, it stops you securing it against the property. One thing is worth an hour with a Wyoming construction lawyer before you accept it: whether a notice you sent for a different purpose on this job, or a document the owner already holds, contains what 29-2-112(a)(i) actually requires, because the subsection describes content rather than a title.
This page counts days from what you typed and nothing else. It does not know when the project reached substantial completion, whether you are a contractor or a subcontractor within the meaning of 29-1-201, whether a delivery belongs to the same contract as an earlier one, or what your contract says. Wyoming gives no second chances anywhere in Title 29 except the thirty day notice after filing, so use these dates to book the conversation early rather than to decide you have time.
| Your lien right, before any date | gone, no preliminary noticeSection 29-2-112(a)(iii) says failure to send the preliminary notice within the time specified shall bar the right of a contractor, subcontractor or materialman to assert a lien. Not a defense the owner has to raise, and not a lien that gets shortened. The right to assert one is barred, and Title 29 gives no way back. |
|---|---|
| Which day the clock counts from | your last day on siteSection 29-2-106(a)(i) counts from the earlier of your last day of work or materials and the date of substantial completion. Subsection (a)(ii) then adds a separate trigger for a subcontractor, the last day he performed work at the direction of the contractor, and the statute joins the two limbs with 'or' without saying which governs. This page counts from the earlier date, because that is the one that can run out first. |
| Preliminary notice, 29-2-112 | 40 days pastSection 29-2-112(a)(ii)(B) gives a subcontractor or materialman thirty days after first providing services or materials to the construction project. You have said you first worked or delivered here 70 days ago. |
| Notice of intention, 20 days | no lien to protectThere is no lien on this job for this notice to protect. The first row above names the subsection that barred it. |
| File the lien statement | no lien to fileNothing goes to the county clerk on these facts. The first row above names the subsection that barred the lien, and the warnings below say what survives it. |
| The window, counted honestly | day 120Wyoming counts in days, not in calendar months, so there is no 181 against 184 problem here and no rollover rule to hope for either. Section 29-2-106(a) gives 120 days to every person who is not a contractor. The number is the number. |
| Tell the owner after you file | no lien to noticeSection 29-1-312(c) attaches to a lien statement that created a lien, and the first row above names the subsection that barred yours. There is nothing here left to notice. If you filed a statement anyway, take advice about getting it released, because a statement on the record against property the claimant has no lien on is its own problem. |
| Sue on the lien | no lien to sue onSection 29-2-109 runs one hundred eighty days from the filing of a lien statement, and there is no lien here. The debt is a different question and the warnings below say so. |
| What being late costs you | already goneWyoming has no partial credit in Title 29. There is no late preliminary notice that shortens the lien instead of barring it, no cure period after a filing, and no discretion in 29-2-106 or 29-2-109. The only softness anywhere in the chapter is 29-1-312(c), the thirty day notice after filing, and that one is expressly free to miss. |
What this calculator assumes
- Wyoming bars the lien for a missing preliminary notice and it does it to EVERYONE, including the contractor who signed with the owner. Section 29-2-112(a)(iii) says failure to send the notice within the time specified 'shall bar the right of a contractor, subcontractor or materialman to assert a lien'. There is no late filing that shortens the lien instead, no cure, and no discretion. The two clocks are different, though: a contractor's notice is due before he receives any payment from the owner including advances, which is an event and not a date, and a subcontractor's or materialman's is due within thirty days after first providing services or materials.
- The twenty day notice of intention under 29-2-107 comes out of the filing window, because the statute gives it no window of its own. It must be sent no later than twenty days prior to filing a lien statement, and the filing window is one hundred fifty days for a contractor and one hundred twenty for everyone else. So the last day on which sending the notice still leaves you able to file is day one hundred thirty, or day one hundred, and no section in Title 29 says so. Missouri does the same thing with ten days and exempts its original contractor. Wyoming exempts nobody.
- In Wyoming the word 'contractor' includes an architect, a professional engineer and a surveyor. Section 29-1-201(a)(i)(A) says so in as many words, which means a design professional who contracted with the owner gets one hundred fifty days rather than one hundred twenty, and owes the preliminary notice before taking any payment rather than within thirty days of starting.
- A deadline here is met when you SEND, not when it lands. Section 29-1-201(a)(xii) says the time a writing is deemed to have been sent is the time it is deposited in the mail or delivered for transmission, and the same definition requires first class mail, certified mail return receipt requested, or a delivery that requires a receipt. Keep the receipt, because the date on it is the date that counts.
- This calculator counts days from what you type. It does not decide when the project reached substantial completion, whether your work makes you a contractor or a subcontractor within the meaning of 29-1-201, or whether a particular delivery was under the same contract as an earlier one. Those are the questions a Wyoming construction lawyer earns a fee answering, and the dates below are what you take to that conversation rather than a substitute for it.
One hundred fifty days for a contractor, one hundred twenty for everybody else, and an architect is a contractor
Section 29-2-106(a) is the filing deadline and it splits the world in two. A contractor asserting a lien files within one hundred fifty days. Every other person asserting a lien files within one hundred twenty. There is no third figure for a supplier, no shorter period for equipment rental and no residential variant, which makes Wyoming one of the simplest states in this lane to count and one of the easiest to be wrong about, because the thirty day difference between the two groups turns entirely on a definition you have to go to a different article to read.
That definition is section 29-1-201(a)(i), and it is worth reading slowly. A contractor is a person employed by and contracting with an owner to improve an owner's property, including an architect, a professional engineer and a surveyor. Two things follow. The first is that a design professional who contracted directly with the owner is a contractor in Wyoming and gets the one hundred fifty days rather than the one hundred twenty, which is the opposite of the assumption most architects arrive with. The second is that the same person is caught by the contractor's version of the preliminary notice rule, so his notice is due before he takes a retainer rather than within thirty days of starting work. The longer window and the harder notice come as a pair.
The clock runs from the earlier of two dates under section 29-2-106(a)(i): after the last day when work was performed or materials furnished under contract, or from the date of substantial completion of the project. Earlier, not later. If the project reached substantial completion while you were still doing punch work, the substantial completion date is the one that started your one hundred twenty days, and you will have been counting from the wrong end.
Then subsection (a) does something the drafters probably did not intend. It adds a second limb at (a)(ii) for a subcontractor, running from the last day he performed work at the direction of the contractor, and joins it to the earlier-of rule at (a)(i) with the word or. The statute does not say which one governs a subcontractor whose two dates differ. This page counts from whichever date is earlier, because that is the window that can run out first and a calculator that picks the generous reading is a calculator that tells you to relax on the day you should be filing. If your two dates are far apart, that gap is a question for a Wyoming construction lawyer and not for arithmetic.
One more thing that is not a deadline but changes which deadline you are on. Section 29-1-403 says all work performed or materials furnished by a lien claimant shall be considered as having been done under the same contract unless more than one hundred eighty days elapse between one furnishing and the next. Go back to a job after a six month gap and you have very likely started a second contract rather than extended the first, and the first one's window closed while you were away. A small warranty visit does not reopen an old account.
Wyoming Statutes section 29-2-106(a)(a) Except as provided in subsection (c) of this section, any contractor asserting a lien under this chapter shall file his lien statement within one hundred fifty (150) days and every other person asserting a lien under this chapter shall file within one hundred twenty (120) days: (i) Of the earlier of: (A) After the last day when work was performed or materials furnished under contract; (B) From the date of substantial completion of the project on which work was performed or materials were furnished under contract; or (ii) With respect to a subcontractor, after the last day he performed work at the direction of the contractor or other person authorized to provide direction.
Read the two limbs against each other. Subsection (a)(i) counts from the EARLIER of your last day and substantial completion, which means the owner's project schedule can start your clock before you have finished. Subsection (a)(ii) then gives a subcontractor a different trigger and the word joining them is or. Nothing in the section resolves it, so count from the earlier date and treat the difference as a question rather than as a margin.
The preliminary notice is the whole game, and it bars the general contractor too
Most states in this lane put the preliminary notice on the people furthest from the owner, on the theory that the owner already knows who his general contractor is. Wyoming does not. Section 29-2-112(a)(i) puts the duty on the contractor, the subcontractor and the materialman by name, and section 29-2-112(a)(iii) says failure to send it within the time specified shall bar the right of a contractor, subcontractor or materialman to assert a lien. A general contractor with a signed contract, a permit in his own name and a year on the site loses the lien exactly as completely as a supplier who delivered once.
The content is set by the subsection rather than by a title on a page. The notice tells the record owner or his agent two things: that you have the right to assert a lien against the property if you are not paid, and that the owner or contractor has the right to obtain a lien waiver upon payment. A subcontractor or materialman has a second duty in the same sentence, and it is the half people skip: provide a copy of the written notice to the contractor you are working for. The form is in section 29-10-101 and the county clerk's office has it.
The timing is where Wyoming stops being like anywhere else. Section 29-2-112(a)(ii) gives two completely different triggers. A subcontractor or materialman sends within thirty days after first providing services or materials to the construction project, which is a date you can put in a calendar on the day you start. A contractor sends prior to receiving any payment from owner, including advances, which is not a date at all. It is an event, and it is an event the contractor controls and often walks straight into, because the first thing that happens on many jobs is a mobilization payment. There is no countdown for the contractor's notice, which is exactly why this page will not print one, and exactly why contractors miss it.
The word send has a statutory meaning here and it is in your favor. Section 29-1-201(a)(xii) says the time a writing is deemed to have been sent is the time at which it is deposited in the mail or delivered for transmission, so the deadline is met at the post office counter and not in the owner's mailbox. The same definition tells you how: first class mail, certified mail return receipt requested, or any other mail requiring a receipt, or a commercial carrier that gives you one. Keep the receipt. The date on it is the date that decides whether you have a lien.
If the notice went out late, or did not go out at all and the window has closed, the lien is gone and no other date on this page matters. What is not gone is the money. Title 29 is about security against the property, and barring a lien does not touch your contract claim against whoever hired you. One thing is worth an hour with a Wyoming construction lawyer before you accept the loss, and it is not a loophole, it is a reading: subsection (a)(i) describes what the notice must tell the owner rather than what it must be called, so a document already in the owner's hands may do more work than you think.
Wyoming Statutes section 29-2-112(a)(ii) and (iii)(ii) Any notice required under this section shall be sent: (A) By the contractor prior to receiving any payment from owner, including advances; (B) By the subcontractor or materialman within thirty (30) days after first providing services or materials to the construction project. (iii) Failure to send the notice required under this section within the time specified shall bar the right of a contractor, subcontractor or materialman to assert a lien;
Two triggers and one consequence. The subcontractor and materialman get a number of days. The contractor gets an event, and an advance counts as a payment. The consequence in (iii) is the same for all three and it is the strongest sentence in the chapter: the right to assert a lien is barred, not shortened, not made defensible, barred.
Twenty days before you file, taken out of the same window
Section 29-2-107(a) requires a lien claimant to send the record owner written notice of the claim, stating the amount and from whom it is due, before filing a lien. The notice shall be sent no later than twenty days prior to filing a lien statement. It is a short section with nothing unusual in it, and it is the single most dangerous line in Wyoming's chapter for one reason: the twenty days come out of your filing window, because the statute gives them no window of their own.
Work it through. A subcontractor has one hundred twenty days to file. To file on day one hundred and twenty, the notice of intention must have been sent by day one hundred. Send it on day one hundred and five and the earliest day you may lawfully file is day one hundred and twenty five, and the window shut five days earlier. So the real subcontractor deadline in Wyoming is day one hundred, and the real contractor deadline is day one hundred and thirty, and no section in Title 29 prints either number. That is why this page leads with the notice of intention rather than the filing whenever the notice is still owed. While it is owed, the filing is arithmetic you can do and not a step you can take.
Missouri does the same thing with a ten day notice under section 429.100, and Missouri at least exempts its original contractor from it. Wyoming does not. Section 29-2-107(a) says a lien claimant, and section 29-1-201(a)(iv) defines a lien claimant as any person who claims a lien under the act pursuant to a contract for improvement of property entered into by an owner of the property. The general contractor is a lien claimant, and that definition fits him more squarely than anyone. He gets one hundred fifty days on paper and one hundred and thirty in practice, and he is the claimant least likely to have been told.
If you have already filed, the question changes from when to in what order. The notice must precede the filing by twenty days, so a statement filed nine days after the notice is a statement filed out of sequence, and that is the kind of defect an owner's lawyer looks for before he reads anything else. Whether it can be cured by sending again and filing again depends on whether the filing window is still open, which is exactly what the page above is telling you.
One practical note on sequence. Filing early does not only start the clock on the owner's problem, it starts one of yours: section 29-2-109 runs one hundred eighty days from the filing, not from your last day of work. Filing on day thirty of a one hundred twenty day window means your deadline to sue arrives one hundred and eighty days from then, which is sooner than it would have been. That is rarely a reason to wait, but it is a reason to know the date before you go to the clerk.
Wyoming Statutes section 29-2-107(a)(a) Before filing a lien pursuant to this chapter a lien claimant shall send written notice to the record owner or his agent of any claim against real property, a building or an improvement stating the amount of any claim and from whom it is due. The notice shall be sent no later than twenty (20) days prior to filing a lien statement.
Note what the section does not contain. There is no separate window for this notice, no exception for a contractor who contracted with the owner, and no provision making a short notice good if the owner suffered no prejudice. The twenty days are simply subtracted from whatever time section 29-2-106 gave you, by arithmetic rather than by any sentence you can point at.
The owner can start your clock by recording a piece of paper
Section 29-2-106(c) gives the record owner an option almost nobody outside Wyoming expects. He may record a notice of substantial completion in the records of the county clerk, and if he does, the date the notice is recorded shall be presumed to be the date of substantial completion of the project. Because section 29-2-106(a)(i) counts from the earlier of substantial completion and your last day, recording that notice can start your window before your work is finished, and it does not need your agreement or your signature.
The subsection gives you two pieces of protection and then takes most of one back. The owner shall send a copy of the notice within five days to all contractors, subcontractors and materialmen who provided him with a preliminary notice under section 29-2-112, which is one more reason to send that notice even when you think the owner knows perfectly well who you are. And the last sentence says the time to file shall not be affected if the record owner fails to send it. So the duty to tell you is real and the consequence of not telling you falls on you. If you are on a job where the money has gone quiet, watch the county clerk's records yourself.
The presumption is rebuttable, and that word is doing real work. If the project plainly was not substantially complete on the day the notice was recorded, the presumption can be argued with. But it is an argument, which means evidence, a lawyer and time, and the deadline does not pause while you have it. Treat a recorded notice as having started your clock and fight about it from inside the window rather than outside it.
There is one more thing the subsection says that people rely on in the wrong direction: the notice shall not extend the date by which a lien statement shall be filed. It only ever moves your deadline earlier, never later. So an owner who records a notice of substantial completion the week before a job actually finishes has shortened everybody's window, and an owner who records one months afterwards has not lengthened anybody's.
Section 29-2-106(d) requires the notice to refer to that section, give the date of substantial completion on its face, and carry a paragraph in bold face type saying that the notice creates a rebuttable presumption that the period for filing a lien begins to run as of the date the notice was recorded, and that a lien to secure full payment must be filed within one hundred fifty days of that date by contractors and within one hundred twenty days of it for materialmen. If a notice you are looking at does not contain that paragraph, it is not doing what the section asks of it, and that is worth mentioning to a lawyer. Note too that the bold face wording in (d) says materialmen where subsection (a) says every other person. The one hundred twenty days is the same either way, so do not read the form as giving you something the statute does not.
Wyoming Statutes section 29-2-106(c)(c) The record owner may record a notice of substantial completion of the project in the records of the county clerk in the county where the project is located. If a notice of substantial completion of the project is recorded under this subsection, the date the notice is recorded shall be presumed to be the date of substantial completion of the project. After the notice has been duly recorded, the record owner shall send a copy of the notice within five (5) days to all contractors, subcontractors and materialmen who provided the record owner with preliminary notice pursuant to W.S. 29-2-112. The notice shall not extend the date by which a lien statement shall be filed as may otherwise be provided in this section. The time to file a lien statement by any contractor, subcontractor or materialman shall not be affected if the record owner fails to send the notice of substantial completion of the project.
Three sentences that matter in sequence. The recording creates a presumed date. The owner must send you a copy within five days, but only if you gave him a preliminary notice. And if he fails to send it, your time is unaffected, which in this context means unaffected in his favor rather than in yours.
The extension that doubles your window, and only for the people who signed it
Section 29-2-106(e) is unusual enough that it is worth saying plainly: in Wyoming the parties can agree to extend the lien filing deadline, and the agreement is enforceable. Most states treat the filing period as jurisdictional and untouchable by contract. Wyoming lets any party to a contract for which a lien may be filed agree to an extension of the time within which the lien may be filed, which turns a one hundred twenty day window into as much as two hundred and forty and a one hundred fifty day window into as much as three hundred.
The cap is hard and it is arithmetic. The time agreed upon may not exceed twice the time within which the lien would have to be filed in accordance with subsection (a). Twice, not more, and it is measured against the statutory period rather than against anything the parties think is reasonable. An agreement purporting to give you a year is not a year, and a page that counted to the date such an agreement names would be lying in the direction that costs you the lien.
The formalities are not optional either. The agreement shall be acknowledged before a notarial officer and signed by the owner, the contractor and any other parties to the contract before it is valid, and it shall be filed with and recorded by the county clerk in the manner section 29-1-312 provides for a lien statement. An unrecorded side letter between you and the general contractor is not an extension under this subsection. It may be worth something in a contract action and it is worth nothing on this page.
The last sentence is the one that decides whether the extension is yours: the lien rights of persons not signing the agreement are not affected by it. If you did not sign it, your window is whatever section 29-2-106(a) gave you, no matter what the owner and the contractor agreed upstairs. That protects you from an extension used to push a job past the point where your claim is worth having, and it also means you cannot borrow one. If a general contractor tells you there is an extension in place, the only question that matters is whether your name is on it.
Section 29-2-106(f) runs a separate and longer track for one kind of claimant. A cooperative utility claiming a lien under section 29-2-101(d) files within one hundred eighty days, extendable by agreement in the same way but to a total that may not go beyond three hundred and sixty days. The trigger is different too: it runs from the first date on which the conditions in section 29-2-101(d) were satisfied rather than from a last day of work.
Wyoming Statutes section 29-2-106(e)(e) Any party to a contract for which a lien may be filed may agree to an extension of the time within which the lien may be filed. The time agreed upon may not exceed twice the time within which the lien would have to be filed in accordance with subsection (a) of this section. The agreement shall be acknowledged before a notarial officer, and signed by the owner, the contractor and any other parties to the contract before it is valid. The agreement shall be filed with and recorded by the county clerk in the manner provided by W.S. 29-1-312 for a lien statement. The lien rights of persons not signing the agreement are not affected by it.
Four requirements and one limit, and all five have to hold. Acknowledged before a notarial officer, signed by the owner, signed by the contractor, signed by any other parties, recorded with the county clerk, and capped at twice the statutory period. Miss any of them and the date you are relying on is the old one.
File with the county clerk, tell the owner within thirty days, then sue inside one hundred eighty
The lien statement goes to the county clerk, not to a court, and section 29-1-312(a) wants it verified and acknowledged before a notarial officer. Section 29-1-312(b) then lists eight things it must contain, including an itemized list describing the materials delivered or work performed, the date when labor was last performed or the date of substantial completion, the legal description of the property, and a copy of your contract if you have one or a summary of it with a statement of the amounts paid and the balance due. Section 29-1-312(f) says it must be in substantially the same format as the form at section 29-10-104, and the clerk's office has that form.
Section 29-1-312(d) contains a sentence worth understanding before you rely on a filing. The county clerk files the statement at the date and time received regardless of any irregularity in it, and the same subsection says an irregularity in the lien statement may provide a valid defense for a party defending against the lien. So a defective lien statement still gets a filing date, still appears on the record, and still has to be sued on inside one hundred eighty days, while being attackable the whole time. A filing receipt is proof that you filed and not proof that you filed something good.
Then comes the one deadline in this chapter you can miss for free. Section 29-1-312(c) gives you thirty days after the lien statement is filed to send notice to the last record owner or his agent, in the form given by section 29-10-103, and it ends by saying that failure to send the notice required under this subsection shall not affect the validity of the lien. That is the opposite of every other notice in Wyoming's chapter, and it is why this page never leads with it. It is still a statutory duty, it costs a stamp, and a file where the claimant skipped the only free step invites a question about everything else in it.
Section 29-2-109 ends the sequence and it ends it hard. All actions to foreclose or enforce a lien shall be commenced within one hundred eighty days after the filing of the lien statement, and no lien shall continue to exist for more than one hundred eighty days after it is filed unless an action to foreclose is instituted. Read the second sentence again. This is not an ordinary limitation period that bars a remedy while leaving a right in place. The lien stops existing. There is nothing left to revive, nothing to renew and nothing to extend, and section 29-2-106(e) extends the time to file rather than the time to sue.
Where you sue is settled by section 29-1-401. The foreclosure is a quasi in rem proceeding commenced by filing a complaint in the district court, or in the circuit court when W.S. 5-9-128(a)(vi) requires it, in any county in which the property is located. Section 29-1-407 is the one an out of state supplier should read twice: by contracting to perform work or furnish materials on a project located in Wyoming, every contractor, subcontractor and materialman who asserts a lien submits to Wyoming law and to those courts, regardless of residence and regardless of a contrary choice of law or venue provision in the contract. And section 29-1-501 is the step that can take the lien off the property before any of this. The owner, the contractor or a subcontractor may deposit a corporate surety bond, a letter of credit, cash or a cash equivalent worth one and one half times the lien with the clerk of the court, and on an order accepting it the lien is discharged and released in full with the security substituted for it, leaving you an action upon the security under subsection (f). Subsection (c) allows that deposit at any time prior to entry of a final judgment in an action to foreclose the lien, which reads as though the substitution normally happens inside a case somebody has already filed, so do not treat a bond as a reason to let the one hundred eighty days run out.
Wyoming Statutes section 29-2-109All actions to foreclose or enforce a lien under this chapter shall be commenced within one hundred eighty (180) days after the filing of the lien statement. No lien shall continue to exist except by virtue of the provisions of this chapter for more than one hundred eighty (180) days after the lien is filed unless an action to foreclose the lien is instituted.
The first sentence is a limitation period. The second sentence is something stronger, and it is the reason a Wyoming lien cannot be quietly left on the record while the parties negotiate. After one hundred eighty days without a foreclosure action there is no lien, whatever the county clerk's records still show.
Questions people ask
I am the general contractor. Do I really have to send a preliminary notice in Wyoming?
Yes, and this is the question that costs Wyoming contractors the most money. Section 29-2-112(a)(i) names the contractor first, before the subcontractor and the materialman, and section 29-2-112(a)(iii) bars the right of a contractor, subcontractor or materialman to assert a lien if the notice is not sent within the time specified. Your deadline is section 29-2-112(a)(ii)(A): prior to receiving any payment from owner, including advances. It is an event rather than a date, so there is no countdown to notice slipping. If a mobilization payment or a deposit arrives before your notice goes out, the lien is barred. Send the notice with the contract, before you invoice anything.
I am an architect. Which window am I in?
The one hundred fifty day window, and you probably have the harder notice rule as well. Section 29-1-201(a)(i)(A) defines a contractor as a person employed by and contracting with an owner to improve an owner's property including an architect, a professional engineer and a surveyor. So if your contract is with the owner you are a contractor for every purpose in Title 29: one hundred fifty days to file under section 29-2-106(a), and a preliminary notice due before you receive any payment including advances under section 29-2-112(a)(ii)(A). A retainer taken at the top of a project is a payment. If you took one before sending the notice, the answer to your deadline question is in section 29-2-112(a)(iii) rather than in section 29-2-106.
Why does the page say my deadline is day one hundred when the statute says one hundred twenty?
Because section 29-2-107(a) requires the notice of intention to be sent no later than twenty days prior to filing a lien statement, and the statute gives those twenty days no window of their own. They come out of the one hundred twenty. To file on day one hundred and twenty you must have sent the notice by day one hundred, so day one hundred is the last day on which doing both still fits. A contractor's equivalent number is day one hundred and thirty. Neither figure appears anywhere in Title 29, which is why a claimant who reads section 29-2-106 on its own and starts work on day one hundred and ten has already lost without knowing it.
The owner recorded a notice of substantial completion and never sent me a copy. Does that give me more time?
No, and section 29-2-106(c) says so in terms. The owner must send a copy within five days to everyone who gave him a preliminary notice, and the last sentence of the same subsection says the time to file shall not be affected if the record owner fails to send it. The recording still creates the presumption that the date recorded is the date of substantial completion, which under section 29-2-106(a)(i) may be the earlier date and therefore the one that started your clock. The presumption is rebuttable, so if the project was plainly not substantially complete that day, take it to a lawyer, but do it from inside your window rather than after it.
I sent the preliminary notice a week late. Is there any way to fix that?
Not within Title 29. Section 29-2-112(a)(iii) bars the right to assert a lien when the notice is not sent within the time specified, and the chapter contains no cure period, no substantial compliance provision and no discretion for a court to excuse it. Utah lets a late preliminary notice buy a reduced lien under section 38-1a-501(1)(c). Wyoming has nothing of the sort. What survives is the debt: your contract claim against whoever hired you is untouched by Title 29 and runs on the ordinary contract limitation period. Before you accept it, have a lawyer look at what you did send the owner, because section 29-2-112(a)(i) describes content rather than a title.
Can the deadline really be extended by agreement?
Yes, which makes Wyoming unusual, but only on the terms in section 29-2-106(e). The agreed time may not exceed twice the statutory period, so at most two hundred and forty days for a subcontractor or materialman and three hundred for a contractor. It must be acknowledged before a notarial officer, signed by the owner, the contractor and any other parties to the contract, and filed and recorded with the county clerk in the manner section 29-1-312 provides for a lien statement. And the last sentence decides whether it is yours: the lien rights of persons not signing the agreement are not affected by it. An extension you did not sign does nothing for you, in either direction.
Does my deadline count from when I mail the notice or when the owner receives it?
From when you send it, and section 29-1-201(a)(xii) defines that precisely: the time a writing is deemed to have been sent is the time at which it is deposited in the mail or delivered for transmission. The same definition sets out the acceptable methods, which are first class mail, certified mail return receipt requested, other mail requiring a receipt, or delivery to a commercial carrier that gives a receipt, and it also allows an electronic record where the parties have previously communicated electronically. Keep the receipt. On a deadline decided by the date of deposit, the receipt is the evidence.
I went back to the job after five months for a small repair. Did that restart my window?
Almost certainly not, and it may have created a second contract. Section 29-1-403 says all work performed or materials furnished by a lien claimant is considered as having been done under the same contract unless more than one hundred eighty days elapse between one furnishing and the next. Five months is inside that, so the two stretches are probably one contract and your deadline runs from the later work. Go past one hundred eighty days and they are probably two, with the first one's window having closed while you were away. Either way, a small repair visit is not a reliable way to revive an old account, and a lien statement claiming both sides of a long gap can be attacked as a whole.
I forgot the thirty day notice to the owner after I filed. How bad is that?
It is the one miss in this chapter that costs you nothing. Section 29-1-312(c) requires the notice within thirty days after the lien statement is filed and then says failure to send the notice required under this subsection shall not affect the validity of the lien. Send it anyway, today, using the form in section 29-10-103. It costs a stamp, it closes off an argument that has nothing to do with the merits, and it is the only free step in Wyoming's construction lien law. Everything else on this page is fatal.
Does this calculator give me legal advice or tell me whether my lien is any good?
No to both. It applies the dates in the sections it names to the dates you enter, and it shows the arithmetic so you can check it. It cannot tell you when the project reached substantial completion, whether your role makes you a contractor or a subcontractor within the meaning of section 29-1-201, which limb of section 29-2-106(a) governs you when the two give different dates, whether a delivery belongs to the same contract as an earlier one under section 29-1-403, or whether an extension agreement satisfies section 29-2-106(e). Wyoming gives no second chances anywhere in Title 29 except the thirty day notice after filing, so use these dates to book the conversation early rather than to decide you have time.
Free Lien Waiver Forms for Contractors, free, no signup, PDF Word and Excel.
Nothing on this calculator counts it. Wyoming lien waiver form, free and on the statutory wording sets out what a signature does to your claim in Wyoming, with the statutory forms word for word.