Home>Levelset Community>Legal Help>CA Contractor with a Contract to Build for Owner and am also the Lienholder of the construction Loan. The home was complete 3 weeks ago with the Notice of Completion filed and recorded and have not been paid in full with no date for payment to be received. Do I need to file a mechanics lien within 60 days of completion and then start foreclosure within 90 days of completion?

CA Contractor with a Contract to Build for Owner and am also the Lienholder of the construction Loan. The home was complete 3 weeks ago with the Notice of Completion filed and recorded and have not been paid in full with no date for payment to be received. Do I need to file a mechanics lien within 60 days of completion and then start foreclosure within 90 days of completion?

CaliforniaLien Deadlines

CA Contractor with a Contract to Build for Owner and am also the Lienholder of the construction Loan. The home was complete 3 weeks ago with the Notice of Completion filed and recorded and have not been paid in full with no date for payment to be received. Do I need to file a mechanics lien within 60 days of completion and then start foreclosure within 90 days of completion? Contract says no move-in date until payment in full, which has not been received.

1 reply

Sep 6, 2018

That's a great question. As you'd mentioned above - a direct contractor's lien filing deadline will be 60 days after a Notice of Completion has been filed. However, the deadline to enforce that lien is based on when the lien was filed - not based on last work or a Notice of Completion. Once a California mechanics lien has been filed, the lien claimant will have 90 days from the date of filing the lien to file a foreclosure suit. Note also that it's possible to extend this tame frame through a document called a Notice of Credit. Of course, in order to extend a lien via Notice of Credit, the owner must agree to extend the timeframe. You can learn more about that document (and why a property owner would agree to such an extension) here: Understanding Notice of Credit and Lien Extensions in California.

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