You know that scene in movie, “Forrest Gump,” where Bubba tells Forrest all of the different ways you can cook shrimp?
Well, sometimes at Levelset, we sort of feel the same way Bubba does, except rather than talking about all of the different ways you can cook shrimp, we’re talking about all of the different kinds of construction projects that we’ve secured payments on for our customers.
And one type of project that you don’t see every day is a cellphone tower. However, if you’re a contractor that wants to secure their payments on a cellphone tower project, then it doesn’t really matter how uncommon this type of project is – you’ll want to be sure to send your preliminary notices to the correct parties all the same. In the following article, we’ll discuss how to do just that.
Property Owner or Tower Owner?
So you’ve worked on a project for a cellphone tower and want to know how to proceed with notifying the parties involved? Whether it was supplying materials, labor, equipment for refurbishing an existing tower or erecting a new one, there are a lot of components when it comes to these structures, and different parties that hold a legal interest in the manner. Rarely is the cellular company that owns the tower, the owner of the land itself which can present some confusion regarding lien rights. Best practice is to notify both the property owner and the cellular tower owner.
Send a Preliminary Notice
We’re the Preliminary Notice experts. With us it’s fast, easy, and done right.
How to Find the Property Owner’s Information
First step is going to be identifying the location for the plot of land that this cellular tower is standing on. Google Maps is a handy tool for this, especially with street view. Once you have an idea of the location of this land, it’s time to search for the property owner. There are plenty of options for locating this information through County Assessor sites. Depending on your state or county, you may need to also include a legal property description to identify this parcel. Once this information has been verified, the next step is obtaining the information for the tower itself.
Free Resource
Download the Legal Property Description Cheat Sheet
How to Find the Tower Owner’s Information
There are a lot of options for tower and antenna searches available online, all with map and address features. You can use these sites to pinpoint the location of the existing or future towers. They’ll give you a summary of the records on the tower, like longitude and latitude, registration numbers, and the tower owner itself. It’s best practice to include all of this information with your preliminary notice.
Notifying All of the Interested Parties
Finally you should send notice to all of the interested parties, even when notices are not expressly required. This is a great way to protect lien rights that could arise later down the road during this project, but sending notices also increases your visibility on your project which usually results in faster payments.
While the information we’ve provided in this article all seems pretty straightforward in theory, it can be much more difficult to do this type of work in practice. Thankfully, Levelset is staffed with trained researchers that are dedicated to finding this information for you. Feel free to chat in or give us a call at (866)720-5436 – we’re here to help you get paid!
