I sent the Notice of Intent per the date to do so from Levelset, however i received the below letter from our customers Attorney, what do we do? It is clear from reviewing the file as well your recorded lien that the lien is not valid. As you know, the memorandum needs to be filed within 90 days after the month in which the supplies are provided. In your case the lien would have needed to be recorded in 2021. As you mention below, the lien was recorded on 1/4/2022, which is beyond the deadline. We understand that --has sent this “lien” to contractors / owners / stakeholders on this job as an actual lien, which it is not. Given that does not have a lien, it is slandering the title of the property in question and tortiously interfering with my client’s contracts. We hereby demand that -- retract its statement that it has a valid lien and cease communicating with any party on this project regarding collections given that it has no claim against other stakeholders or ownership. In the event that my client suffers damages or my client’s contract is impacted by -- actions, we will seek indemnification from --for those damages. Please confirm by COB 1/13/2022. Thank you for your cooperation.
If you only mailed a notice of intent to lien (something not required for most projects under VA law), and have not recorded anything in the land records, I fail to see how that would slander the title. If you are beyond the 90 days to record a lien, the point is basically moot and if you feel the need you can respond that you won't be recording a lien. This presumes that any lien would be untimely at this juncture.
Good morning Christopher,
I did file it on time but it didnt get recorded until after the deline (holidays).
The recording of an arguably valid lien is not slander of title. If the Clerk did not record in a timely fashion but received the lien before the deadline, then the lien is likely enforceable. The details will be quite important in this case so I can't really opine on the validity of the lien aside from saying that if you have a basis for the lien it isn't slander of title.
Thank you so much for your help in getting my answer and have a wonderful day!