In CA, do the materials used in a job have to be shipped directly to the job or can they be shipped off site and stage to the job site?
Materials are presumed to be incorporated into the project when you can demonstrate delivery to the project through invoices and delivery receipts. This presumption can be rebutted by an owner/direct contractor. While it is always better to direct ship to a jobsite for this reason, as long as you can eventually prove your materials were incorporated into the project, that is the key.
Levelset wrote a general blog post about this topic that can be found here: https://www.levelset.com/blog/material-suppliers-proving-incorporation-when-filing-a-mechanics-lien/
Hello David! I'd have to go back to my Century City office to find the actual applicable California Law Revision Commissions comments to Civil Code 8026 and other statutes amended back in 2012, but I believe Marsh's California Mechanics Lien Law and Construction Industry Practice treatise discusses the reversal of then-existing case law whiuch had held proof of actual delivery insufficient like in the CED v. Kirkham et al. case from 1971. If you have the Marsh treatise handy, it is discussed in Chapter 4 under a subheading "Proof of Delivery and Use."