Michigan lien waiver forms, all four, word for word from MCL 570.1115

Which of the Michigan forms you need

• Partial Conditional Waiver. You are being asked to sign before the progress payment clears. This one only takes effect once the check is actually paid by the bank, so if the check bounces you still have your lien.
• Partial Unconditional Waiver. The progress payment is already in your account. Signing this gives up your rights for that payment with no condition attached, so never sign it while the money is still in the mail.
• Full Conditional Waiver. The final payment has been offered but has not cleared. This releases everything once the check is paid, and not a moment sooner.
• Full Unconditional Waiver. The final payment has cleared. This is the end of your lien rights on the job, so check the amount against your own ledger before it is signed.

Working under somebody else on a Michigan job? The waiver is the end of the story and this is the start of it. MCL 570.1109 gives a subcontractor or supplier twenty days from the first labor or material to serve a notice of furnishing on the designee named in the notice of commencement and on the general contractor. Until you have, MCL 570.1110(8) lets the owner rely on somebody else's sworn statement to avoid your claim entirely. Fill that one in here.

An advance waiver written into the contract is invalid

Subsection (1) is the first thing to know and the part most Michigan contractors never read. A person shall not require, as part of any contract for an improvement, that the right to a construction lien be waived in advance of work performed. A waiver obtained as part of such a contract is contrary to public policy and invalid, except to the extent that payment for the labor and material furnished was actually made to the person giving the waiver.

That is a no lien clause in the subcontract, dead on arrival. It does not help you with the waiver form you hand over at a draw meeting, because that is not part of the contract for the improvement, but it does mean the paragraph buried on page nine of the subcontract is not the thing that ends your lien.

The same subsection adds that accepting a promissory note or other evidence of indebtedness from an owner, lessee or contractor does not by itself waive or discharge otherwise valid lien rights. Taking an IOU is not taking payment.

Written notice that the consideration has failed

This is the Michigan provision nobody writes about, and it is a live tool rather than a piece of theory.

A waiver bites when somebody pays relying on it. If, before that payment is made, the payer has written notice that the consideration for the waiver has failed, the waiver does not become effective against you.

In plain terms: you signed a waiver, the money did not come, and the owner or the lender is about to pay somebody upstream on the strength of your signature. Put it in writing to them, before that payment goes out, that the consideration failed. Keep proof of when you sent it.

The timing is everything. The notice has to exist at the time payment was made. Sent afterwards it does nothing under this sentence.

The conditional forms carry their own trigger

A partial conditional waiver of lien or a full conditional waiver of lien is effective upon payment of the amount indicated in the waiver. The statute says so directly, which is stronger than the general reliance rule and does not depend on anybody's state of mind.

So on a Michigan job the conditional form is the safer default for the same reason it is everywhere else, but with an extra advantage: you are not arguing about whether the release attached, you are pointing at a sentence that says it attaches on payment of a stated amount.

Which means the amount on the face of the form matters. An amount left blank on a Michigan conditional waiver removes the thing the statute keys the release to.

Partial, full, and the word substantially

Partial and full is the axis most people get wrong. A partial waiver covers work through a date you write on the form, for an amount you write on the form. A full waiver says the contract has been fully paid and satisfied and releases all lien rights against the property. A full waiver signed at a mid job draw gives away the rest of the contract.

Conditional and unconditional is the axis that decides whether you get paid. Conditional means the release happens on payment of the stated amount. Unconditional means it happens on signature, and Michigan's unconditional forms carry no payment language at all.

Substantially the following format is the standard, not identically. Getting the content right matters more than the layout, which is why every word below comes straight out of the statute and the only thing added is a place to write the answer.

Who owes whom a waiver, and the residential verification trap

Subsections (2) and (3) turn this into an obligation rather than a favor. A lien claimant who receives full payment for his contract shall provide the owner, lessee or designee a full unconditional waiver. A claimant who receives partial payment shall provide a partial unconditional waiver for the amount received, if the owner, lessee or designee asks for one.

Subsection (7) is the one that protects you on a house. If the improvement is to a residential structure, and you have filed a notice of furnishing or are excused from filing one, the owner, lessee or designee may not rely on any waiver bearing your name that came from somebody other than you, unless they first verify it with you in writing, by telephone or in person. That is why every one of the four forms below prints the verification paragraph and asks for your telephone number.

Subsection (6) is worth repeating in this context: a waiver takes effect on a payment made relying on it. Put those two together and a forged or stale waiver on a residential job is a weak document, provided you filed your notice of furnishing.

One more, from subsection (5). Retainage that is not payable under the contract until some further event happens is not due as of the date the improvement was provided. A full waiver does not become accurate just because the work is finished.

Questions people ask

Working outside Michigan? The general lien waiver forms cover the states that prescribe no wording, and conditional vs unconditional lien waiver explains which of the two to sign.