Kansas warning statement
Kansas puts the wording of exactly one notice into chapter 60 article 11, and this is it. A supplier or subcontractor improving residential property may claim a lien under 60-1103 only if a warning statement has already reached one of the owners, and 60-1103a(c) prints what it has to say. There is no deadline anywhere in the section, which sounds generous and is not: 60-1103(d) makes the statement reach only the money the owner pays after it arrives, so every week it sits on your desk is money you can no longer touch.
A lien for the furnishing of labor, equipment, materials or supplies for the improvement of residential property may be claimed pursuant to K.S.A. 60-1103 and amendments thereto only if the claimant has: (1) Mailed to any one of the owners of the property a warning statement conforming with this section; or (2) in the claimant's possession a copy of a statement signed and dated by any one owner of the property stating that the general contractor or the claimant had given the warning statement conforming with this section to one such owner of the property.
Read the law: K.S.A. 60-1103a, who owes the warning statement, the wording and the $250 floorksrevisor.gov, K.S.A. 60-1103, the lien this notice keeps alive, three months, the affidavit and the owner's liabilityksrevisor.gov, K.S.A. 60-1102, the four month lane for a claimant who contracted with the ownerksrevisor.gov, K.S.A. 60-1101, who has a lien in Kansas at allksrevisor.gov, K.S.A. 60-1103b, the notice of intent to perform on new residential propertyksrevisor.gov, K.S.A. 60-1105, one year to foreclose, and what an amendment may not doksrevisor.gov and The findlaw edition of 60-1103a, the key copy, current as of January 01, 2025codes.findlaw.com
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This one is mailed, not filed. It goes to any one of the owners of the property and nothing about it goes to the clerk of the district court. What goes to the clerk later is the lien statement, and 60-1103(a)(2) says an affidavit that this warning statement was properly given has to be attached to it.
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One notice, and it is the only wording Kansas prints
Article 11 of chapter 60 names four documents besides the lien statement itself, and the legislature writes out the words of one of them. 60-1103a(c) says the warning statement provided for by this section, to be effective, shall contain substantially the following statement, and then prints the paragraph you can fill in below.
The other three are handed off. 60-1103b(c) says the notice of intent to perform and release thereof shall be deemed sufficient if in substantial compliance with the form set forth by the judicial council. 60-1103(e) says the same of the notice of extension that buys a non residential claimant five months instead of three, and 60-1102(c) says it again for the four month lane. The Kansas Judicial Council publishes those, not the legislature, so they are not on this site: every form here is keyed against the statute that prints it, and for those three there is no such statute.
Substantially is a real word and it does some work. It means a statement that carries this content in this order is not thrown out over a line break or a business name in the wrong place. It is not permission to shorten it. The sentence that tells the owner they may withhold from the contractor the amount claimed until the dispute is settled is the sentence that makes the notice do anything, and a version without it is not substantially this one.
It is the subcontractor and the supplier who owe it, and nobody else
60-1103 is the section headed liens of suppliers and subcontractors, and 60-1103a(b) hangs the duty on a lien claimed pursuant to that section. So the question is not what your trade is or how big the job is. It is who hired you.
If your contract is with the owner, or with the owner's trustee, agent or spouse, you are in 60-1101, you file under 60-1102, and neither section mentions a warning statement anywhere. Nothing goes to the owner in advance, because the owner is the person who signed your contract.
If your contract is with the general contractor, a construction manager or another subcontractor, you are in 60-1103, and on residential property the warning statement is the price of admission. Send it and you have a lien to argue about. Do not send it and there is nothing to argue about, whatever the job was worth.
It is worth saying what the section does not do. It does not create the lien, it does not fix an amount and it does not stop the owner paying anybody. It is a condition on a lien that 60-1103 gives you somewhere else.
Residential, and Kansas writes that test twice in two different sections
60-1103a(a) defines improvement of residential property for this section, and it has two branches. The first is improvement of a preexisting structure in which the owner resides at the time the claimant first furnishes labor, equipment, material or supplies, not used or intended for use as a residence for more than two families or for commercial purposes, and it sweeps in any addition, garage, fence, swimming pool, outbuilding or other improvement appurtenant to such a structure. So a fence around a house somebody lives in is inside this section.
The second branch is new build, and it is the one that catches people out. Any construction upon real property which is owned or acquired by an individual at the time the claimant first furnishes, intended to become and does become the principal personal residence of that individual upon completion, and not used or intended for use as a residence for more than two families or for commercial purposes.
Read that middle clause again: intended to become and does become. Whether you owed a warning statement is decided partly by something that has not happened yet on the day you deliver. You cannot know in March whether the individual who owns the lot will actually move in when it is finished in November. The only safe reading is that if an individual owns the land and it looks like a house, you send the statement.
And do not carry that definition across the page. 60-1102(d) writes a different one for its own section: residential property means a structure which is constructed for use as a residence and which is not used or intended for use as a residence for more than two families. Two definitions, two jobs. The one that decides whether you owe this notice is the one in 60-1103a(a).
There is no deadline, and that is worse than a deadline
Nothing in 60-1103a says when the statement has to go. There is no window counted from first furnishing, no number of days and no cure provision, because there is nothing to cure. That reads like a gift and it is the opposite of one.
The clock is in the money instead. 60-1103(d) says the owner is not liable for more than they contracted to pay the original contractor, except for payments made subsequent to the date the owner received the warning statement where a warning statement is required. Every dollar the owner had already paid out before your envelope arrived is gone, and your lien reaches only what is left.
Put a number on it. On a house where the owner pays the general contractor monthly, a supplier who starts in January and mails the statement in April has a lien against April onward. January, February and March went out of the door while the owner had never heard of them, and the section says so.
The other half of the same subsection is what happens when no warning statement is required at all. Then the owner is protected for payments made prior to the expiration of the three month period for filing lien claims, which is a rule about a different kind of claimant and is not a second chance for you.
So there is only one sensible practice. Post it the same week you first furnish, before the first invoice and before anybody is late. It costs a stamp and it is the difference between a lien over the whole job and a lien over the tail of it.
Mail it, or hold the signed paper that says somebody else did
60-1103a(b) gives two routes and there is no third. Route one is that you mailed to any one of the owners of the property a warning statement conforming with this section. Any one of them, so on a jointly owned house you do not have to reach both names.
Route two is that you have in your possession a copy of a statement signed and dated by any one owner of the property stating that the general contractor or the claimant had given the warning statement to one such owner. That exists because on most residential jobs the general contractor hands the owner a pack at the start, and Kansas will let their delivery count as yours.
But read what route two actually asks you to hold. A copy. Signed. Dated. By an owner. Not the general contractor's assurance, not an email saying it was in the pack and not your own file note. If you are relying on somebody else's envelope, get the owner's signature on paper at the start of the job, because you will not get it once the money has gone wrong.
The section does not require certified or restricted mail for this notice, which is worth noticing because the same article does require it elsewhere: 60-1103(c) makes you serve or send the lien statement itself by restricted mail. Ordinary mail satisfies 60-1103a. Keep proof of posting anyway, for the reason in the next section.
The $250 floor, and it has not moved since 1987
60-1103a(d) is one sentence. The warning statement provided for by this section shall not be required if the claimant's total claim does not exceed $250.
Total claim, not one invoice and not one delivery. If you supplied three loads to the same job and the unpaid total is $400, you are over the line and the statement was required.
That figure was written in 1986 and took effect on 1 January 1987, and the section has not been amended since, so the floor is worth a fraction of what the legislature set. In practice it exempts almost nothing. Treat the notice as always required and you will be right nearly every time.
Then the affidavit, which is a second piece of paper nobody warns you about
Months later, when the money has not come and you file the lien statement, 60-1103(a)(2) adds a requirement that catches claimants who did everything else right. If a warning statement is required, there shall be attached to the lien statement the affidavit of the supplier or subcontractor that such warning statement was properly given.
The section prescribes no wording for that affidavit, so there is no form for it here and there is none in the statute. What it does mean is that the lien statement is incomplete without a sworn statement about this envelope, and you are the person swearing it.
So keep three things in the job file from the day you post it: a copy of the statement as it went, the address you posted it to and the name of the owner you posted it to, and the date. Properly given is a fact you will be asked to swear to under oath, and a file with none of those three in it makes that a hard oath to take.
The clocks around this notice
Three months for you. 60-1103(a)(1) says the lien statement must state the name of the contractor and be filed within three months after the date supplies, material or equipment was last furnished or labor performed by the claimant. Last furnished, not last invoiced and not the day the payment was due.
Four months for the other lane. A claimant who contracted with the owner files under 60-1102 within four months of the same event. One article, two clocks, and which one you are on was decided by who signed your contract.
Five months on commercial work, and only by paperwork. 60-1103(e) stretches the three months to five on property that is not residential, but only if a notice of extension was filed with the clerk of the district court within the three months and mailed to the general contractor or construction manager by certified and by regular mail, with a copy to the owner. 60-1102(c) does the same to the four month lane. Both of those notices are judicial council forms, which is why neither is printed here.
One year to sue. 60-1105(a) says an action to foreclose a lien under the article shall be brought within one year from the time of filing the lien statement, or within one year from maturity where a promissory note was attached instead of an itemized statement. And 60-1105(b) lets the judge allow an amendment to the lien statement in furtherance of justice, except to increase the amount claimed. Get the figure right the first time.
What the statement tells the owner about waivers
The sentence the legislature wrote for the owner is the one worth reading twice. Kansas law will allow this supplier or subcontractor to file a lien against your property for materials or labor not paid for by your contractor unless you have a waiver of lien signed by this supplier or subcontractor.
So the notice teaches the owner exactly what to ask their general contractor for, and a well run residential builder in Kansas will start collecting signed waivers the moment these envelopes begin arriving. That is the system working as intended: you get told about the lien risk, the owner gets told how to close it, and the way it closes is a payment against a signed waiver.
60-1103b carries the same pairing on new residential property. Where a claimant has filed a notice of intent to perform and is then paid in full, subsection (d) requires a release of that notice and a waiver of lien, executed by the claimant, identifying the property as set out in the notice and stating the intention to relinquish the statutory lien right. The notice itself expires anyway eighteen months after filing unless a lien has been filed in the meantime.
None of that gives Kansas a prescribed waiver form, and the Kansas lien waiver page on this site covers what a waiver can and cannot be made to do here. The point for this page is narrower: the waiver is what the warning statement points the owner at, so expect one to be put in front of you with the next payment.
Questions people ask
Who has to send a Kansas warning statement?
A supplier or subcontractor claiming a lien under K.S.A. 60-1103 for the improvement of residential property. In practice that is anyone whose contract is with the general contractor, a construction manager or another subcontractor rather than with the owner. If you contracted with the owner you are under 60-1101 and 60-1102, and neither of those sections mentions a warning statement.
When is the deadline to send it?
There is not one. 60-1103a sets no time limit at all. What it costs you to be late is money rather than the lien: 60-1103(d) says the owner stays protected for everything they paid the original contractor before the statement arrived, so the lien reaches only payments made after the owner received it. Send it the week you first furnish.
Does it have to be certified mail?
No. 60-1103a(b)(1) says mailed, and says nothing about the class of mail. Compare 60-1103(c), which does require restricted mail for serving the lien statement itself. Keep proof of posting anyway, because 60-1103(a)(2) makes you attach a sworn affidavit that the warning statement was properly given when you file the lien.
Do I have to send it to every owner?
No. The statute says mailed to any one of the owners of the property. One owner is enough even where a house is owned jointly.
The general contractor says they already gave the owner the warning. Am I covered?
Only if you hold the paper. 60-1103a(b)(2) lets you rely on it, but what it asks for is a copy of a statement signed and dated by any one owner saying the general contractor or you had given the warning statement to an owner. The general contractor's word is not that document. Get the owner's signature at the start of the job, not after the money goes wrong.
Is there a minimum claim?
Yes, and it is tiny. 60-1103a(d) says the statement is not required if the claimant's total claim does not exceed $250. That is a total, not an invoice, and the number has not been changed since the section took effect on 1 January 1987.
What counts as residential property for this section?
60-1103a(a) gives two branches. Improvement of a preexisting structure the owner lives in when you first furnish, not for more than two families and not commercial, including an addition, garage, fence, swimming pool or outbuilding appurtenant to it. Or new construction on land owned or acquired by an individual that is intended to become and does become that individual's principal personal residence on completion, again not more than two families and not commercial.
Can I use the definition of residential property from 60-1102?
No, and they are genuinely different. 60-1102(d) defines residential property for its own section as a structure constructed for use as a residence and not used or intended for use as a residence for more than two families. The test that decides whether you owe a warning statement is the one in 60-1103a(a), which turns on who lives there when you first furnish or on what the building becomes.
What happens if I never send it?
There is no lien. 60-1103a(b) says the lien may be claimed only if one of its two routes has been taken, so on residential property a claimant who sent nothing and holds no signed owner acknowledgment has nothing to file. What survives is an ordinary debt claim against whoever hired you.
How long do I have to file the lien statement itself?
Three months after the date supplies, material or equipment were last furnished or labor last performed, under 60-1103(a)(1), and it is filed with the clerk of the district court of the county the property is in. A claimant who contracted directly with the owner gets four months under 60-1102 instead.
Is there a form for the notice of intent to perform?
Not in the statute. 60-1103b(c) says the notice of intent to perform and release thereof shall be deemed sufficient if in substantial compliance with the form set forth by the judicial council, so the Kansas Judicial Council publishes it rather than the legislature. The same is true of the notices of extension in 60-1102(c) and 60-1103(e). Every form on this site is keyed against the statute that prints it, and for those three there is no such statute.
Is this the same thing as a preliminary notice?
It does the same job as a preliminary notice in other states, but Kansas does not use that name anywhere. The statute calls it the warning statement in all four subsections of 60-1103a and again in 60-1103(a)(2), so that is what this page calls it and that is the name to use in a letter to a Kansas owner.
How current is this wording?
The section was enacted by L. 1986, ch. 217 and took effect on 1 January 1987, and the Kansas Revisor of Statutes prints nothing after that in its history line, so it has not been amended. The findlaw edition current as of January 01, 2025 agrees with the revisor character for character on the prescribed statement. Read the linked section before you rely on it anyway.
Do I have to swear anything about it later?
Yes. 60-1103(a)(2) says that where a warning statement is required, the affidavit of the supplier or subcontractor that the statement was properly given has to be attached to the lien statement. No wording is prescribed for that affidavit, so there is no form for it, but you will be swearing to a date and an address months after the fact. Keep them in the job file from day one.
Once the job is running and you are getting paid on it, the paperwork that comes next is the waiver: see the Kansas statutory lien waiver forms, and conditional vs unconditional lien waiver for which of the two to sign.