Texas lien waiver forms, free and on the statutory wording

Which of the Texas forms you need

• Conditional Waiver and Release on Progress Payment. 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.
• Unconditional Waiver and Release on Progress Payment. 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.
• Conditional Waiver and Release on Final Payment. The final payment has been offered but has not cleared. This releases everything once the check is paid, and not a moment sooner.
• Unconditional Waiver and Release on Final Payment. 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.

Not being paid yet? In Texas a subcontractor or supplier keeps the lien alive by sending the notice of claim for unpaid labor or materials on time, and section 53.056(a) makes that notice the condition of the lien being valid at all. You can fill that one in here too.

Holding retainage on a Texas job? Section 53.057 gives the retainage its own notice of claim for unpaid retainage and its own deadline, which can fall due months before the monthly notice for the same work does. You can fill that one in here too.

Building or remodeling a house in Texas as the original contractor? One piece of paper is due before anybody signs anything. Section 53.255(a) says you shall deliver the residential construction disclosure statement to the owner before the residential construction contract is executed, and subsection (b) writes the whole thing out for you. Waivers come later, once you are being paid.

Running a residential job in Texas? Section 53.256(a) says you furnish the owner a written list of every subcontractor and supplier before construction starts and update it inside fifteen days of every change, unless the owner signs the waiver of the list of subcontractors and suppliers. The statute prints that waiver in full, and the owner is the one who signs it.

The notice has a size rule attached to it

Both Texas unconditional forms must contain a notice at the top of the document, and section 53.284 says it has to be printed in bold type at least as large as the largest type used in the document. That is a rule about the printing, not just the words, so a form with the notice in small print does not comply.

The generator here prints that notice in bold at the same size as the document heading, which satisfies the rule by construction.

Conditional first, unconditional after the money lands

The pattern Texas expects is simple. A conditional waiver goes out with the pay application. Once the check has cleared, an unconditional waiver follows. Signing an unconditional waiver against a check that has not cleared is the most common way a Texas subcontractor loses a lien for nothing.

The conditional forms carry the protection in their own text: the release takes effect only when the check has been properly endorsed and has been paid by the bank on which it is drawn.

Job number and project are not padding

Every Texas form opens with a project line and a job number line. On a builder running twenty houses at once, those two fields are what stop a waiver signed for one address being applied to another.

Fill them in even when the customer says not to bother.

Questions people ask

Working outside Texas? 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.