I recently fired my general contractor for defaulting on our construction agreement. We had a fixed price contract for renovation of the home I currently occupy. I have offered to make a final payment which covers the outstanding balance for work completed but the contractor is angry and demanding a much larger sum that does not correspond to work completed or to the schedule of values for the contract. This is a lender financed project so the amount of the final payment is limited to the value of work that the lender's inspector could document as completed. I am concerned the contractor is going to file a construction lien for the amount he asserts he is owed beyond what I can pay. To protect myself from this I filed a notice of contract termination. More than 60 days has passed since that filing. From the clerk's records I learned that he did not file our contract (with a fixed price greater than $100,000) until after I filed the termination notice. He also started work 6 weeks before we signed a contract which the contract itself notes. Does the contractor have lien rights against me? Can I cancel a lien because the contract was improperly filed?
Based on your information as described above, he does not have lien rights. That does not mean a lien cannot be filed. You would need to proceed to have the lien cancelled if it is filed.