Preliminary Notice Deadlines by State
Twenty two preliminary notices in seventeen states, and for each one the deadline wording from its own form page, copied across word for word. That is every notice the construction notice forms page files in its early group, not every state, and each row links the form and the section it was read out of.
When each notice is due, in its own page's words
The rows are the twenty two notices construction notice forms by state groups under "Sent early, to keep a lien right alive", the group that page calls the preliminary notice family. The name at the top of this page is that group's name, not a word every row's statute uses, and not every row is a warning of a lien to come: in that page's words, the Massachusetts notices of contract are recorded at the registry of deeds and are the lien itself rather than a warning of one.
The third column is quoted, not summarized, and the event the clock runs from changes from row to row, so read the whole cell rather than the number in it. In a few there is no deadline at all and the notice reaches back a fixed number of days from the day you send it.
| State | Notice | When it is due | Section |
|---|---|---|---|
| Alabama | notice to owner before furnishing material | Before you furnish any material. The statute conditions the whole benefit on having notified the owner before furnishing, so the letter has to be in the owner's hands before the first delivery for that job. There is no grace period and no cure. | Ala. Code 35-11-210 |
| Arizona | preliminary twenty day notice | Subsection C: the notice shall be given not later than twenty days after the claimant has first furnished labor, professional services, materials, machinery, fixtures or tools to the jobsite. Miss that and you are not finished. Subsection E lets you serve it later, but then you can claim a lien only for what you furnished within twenty days before you served it and after. | A.R.S. 33-992.01 |
| California | preliminary notice | Section 8204(a) sets the clock at not later than 20 days after the claimant has first furnished work. A late notice is still worth giving: 8204(a) says a claimant who did not give one is not precluded from giving it at any time thereafter, but is then entitled to claim only for work performed within 20 days prior to the service of the notice, and at any time thereafter. | Cal. Civ. Code 8202 |
| Florida | notice to owner | Serve it before you start, or not later than 45 days after you start furnishing labor, services or materials. Section 713.06(2)(a) sets that deadline and then says that failing to serve the notice, or to serve it on time, is a complete defense to enforcement of a lien by any person. Section 713.06(2)(f) forgives errors in the form for anyone not harmed by them, and in the same breath says a lienor must strictly comply with the time requirements. | Fla. Stat. 713.06 |
| Georgia | notice to contractor | Subsection (a) gives you 30 days from the filing of the notice of commencement, or 30 days following the first delivery of labor, services, or materials to the property, whichever is later. | O.C.G.A. 44-14-361.5 |
| Kansas | warning statement | 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. | K.S.A. 60-1103a |
| Maryland | notice of intention to claim a lien | A subcontractor doing work or furnishing materials or both for or about a building other than a single family dwelling being erected on the owner's land for his own residence is not entitled to a lien under this subtitle unless, within 120 days after doing the work or furnishing the materials, the subcontractor gives written notice of an intention to claim a lien substantially in the form specified in subsection (b) of this section. | Md. Real Prop. 9-104 |
| Massachusetts | notice of contract | The earliest of three dates under section 4: sixty days after a notice of substantial completion is filed or recorded under section 2A, ninety days after a notice of termination is filed or recorded under section 2B, or ninety days after the last day anybody entitled to enforce a lien under section 2, or anyone claiming under them, worked on the project. There is no earliest date: you may record at any time after execution of the written contract, whether or not any work has been performed. | M.G.L. c. 254, s. 4 |
| Massachusetts | notice of identification | The statute says the cap applies unless the person claiming such lien has, within thirty days of commencement of his performance, given written notice of identification by certified mail return receipt requested to the original contractor. | M.G.L. c. 254, s. 4 |
| Massachusetts | notice of contract, direct contract | The earliest of three dates: sixty days after a notice of substantial completion is filed or recorded under section 2A, ninety days after a notice of termination is filed or recorded under section 2B, or ninety days after you or anyone claiming by, through or under you last performed or furnished labor or materials. Earliest, not latest. | M.G.L. c. 254, s. 2 |
| Massachusetts | design professional's notice of contract | The earlier of sixty days after a notice of substantial completion is filed or recorded under section 2A, or ninety days after you or anyone claiming by, through or under you last performed professional services. | M.G.L. c. 254, s. 2C |
| Massachusetts | notice of contract for a subconsultant to a design professional | The earlier of sixty days after a notice of substantial completion under section 2A, or ninety days after the last day a design professional entitled to enforce a lien under section 2 or section 2C, or anyone claiming through him, performed professional services for the project. | M.G.L. c. 254, s. 2D |
| Michigan | notice of furnishing | MCL 570.1109(1) gives a subcontractor or supplier twenty days after furnishing the first labor or material to provide a notice of furnishing to the designee and the general contractor, if any, as named in the notice of commencement, at the address shown in that notice. | MCL 570.1109 |
| Minnesota | pre-lien notice | Subdivision 2(a), in the statute's own words: every person who contributes to the improvement of real property so as to be entitled to a lien pursuant to section 514.01, except a party under direct contract with the owner, must, as a necessary prerequisite to the validity of any claim or lien, cause to be given to the owner or the owner's authorized agent, either by personal delivery or by certified mail, not later than 45 days after the lien claimant has first furnished labor, skill or materials for the improvement, a written notice in at least 10-point bold type, if printed, or in capital letters, if typewritten. Read prerequisite literally. This is not a step that trims the lien down if you are late, the way Ohio's notice of furnishing does. Without it there is nothing to trim. The one thing standing between a late notice and an empty file is subdivision 2(b), which saves a claimant who made a good faith effort to comply unless the owner or another lien claimant proves damage as a direct result of the failure. | Minn. Stat. 514.011 |
| Missouri | notice to owner | RSMo 429.012(1) says the original contractor shall provide this notice prior to receiving payment in any form of any kind, and subsection 2 says compliance is a condition precedent to the creation, existence or validity of any mechanic's lien in favor of that contractor. | RSMo 429.012 |
| Nevada | notice of right to lien | There is no deadline, which is the trap. NRS 108.245(1) lets you deliver it at any time after the first delivery of material or performance of work or services under your contract. But subsection 6 only gives you a lien right for what was furnished in the 31 days before you give it, plus everything after. | NRS 108.245 |
| New Jersey | notice of unpaid balance | As a condition precedent to the filing of any lien arising under a residential construction contract, a lien claimant shall first file a Notice of Unpaid Balance and Right to File Lien by lodging for record the Notice within 60 days following the last date that work, services, material or equipment were provided for which payment is claimed. | N.J.S.A. 2A:44A-20 |
| Ohio | notice of furnishing | ORC 1311.05(D)(1), in the statute's own words: a notice of furnishing served more than twenty-one days after you first performed labor or work or furnished material at the site preserves your lien rights for amounts owing for labor and work performed and materials furnished within the twenty-one-day period immediately preceding service of the notice of furnishing and thereafter, but does not revive any prior lien rights for labor or work performed or materials furnished prior to those twenty-one days. | ORC 1311.05 |
| Oregon | notice of right to a lien | The notice of right to a lien may be given at any time during the progress of the improvement, but the notice only protects the right to perfect a lien for materials, equipment and labor or services provided after a date which is eight days, not including Saturdays, Sundays and other holidays as defined in ORS 187.010, before the notice is delivered or mailed. | ORS 87.023 |
| Washington | notice of right to claim a lien | Subsection (1): the notice may be given at any time but only protects the right to claim a lien for professional services, materials, or equipment supplied after the date which is sixty days before you mail it certified or registered, or deliver it personally and get a signed receipt or an affidavit of service. On new construction of a single-family residence that sixty becomes ten. | RCW 60.04.031 |
| Washington | notice of furnishing professional services | Subsection (5): if this notice is not recorded, the lien claimed shall be subordinate to the interest of any subsequent mortgagee and invalid as to the interest of any subsequent purchaser, where the mortgagee or purchaser acts in good faith and for valuable consideration and acquires an interest before an improvement is commenced, without notice of the professional services being provided. | RCW 60.04.031 |
| Wisconsin | notice to owner | The 60 days run from the date the claimant first performed, furnished or procured labor, services, materials, plans or specifications, which is the opposite end of the job from the deadline most contractors carry in their head. Subsection (3) is the consequence: any lien claimant, other than the prime contractor, who fails to give a notice as required by sub. (2)(b) shall have no lien on the land or improvement to which the failure relates. There is one softening and it is narrow. A claimant who serves a late but otherwise proper notice on the owner or authorized agent has the lien provided by s. 779.01 for labor, services, materials, plans or specifications performed, furnished or procured after the late notice is actually received by the owner, and the burden of proving that the work was furnished after that date is on the claimant. Everything you did before the late notice landed is gone. | Wis. Stat. 779.02 |
What this table is not
It is not the whole rule for any state. Each cell is the deadline wording from a longer form page that also sets out what the clock runs from and how the statute says the notice has to be served or recorded, and links the section so you can check it. Those parts stay on that page rather than being cut down into columns here, because a shortened legal rule is a new claim that nobody read out of a statute.
It is not all fifty states either. A state missing from this table is not a state with no notice rule: either its statute has not been read for this site yet, or it demands a notice without printing the wording, or the notices it does print go out at another point in the job and are on construction notice forms by state. Every state's lien law, all fifty and the District of Columbia, is written out on its own page, reachable from lien waiver forms.
And it is not legal advice, and no page on this site is. Where real money is attached, read the section in the last column, and pay a lawyer once to confirm how the deadline is counted on the kind of job you do.
How the table is built
Nothing in the third column was typed for this page. Each cell names a field in the same data file the notice form pages are built from, and the build stops if the quote is not inside that field character for character. A second check reads the finished table and the form page each row links to, and fails if a quote is on one and not the other. If a form page is corrected, this table either still quotes it exactly or the site does not build, so the two cannot quietly disagree.
The last column is the section each form page links as its source, the one its wording was sliced out of. It is not always the section the clock is written in, and where a quote names a different one, read that one too. How these forms are made says where every one of those sections was read from.