Home>Levelset Community>Legal Help>I worked as a sub contractor on a commercial job in Kansas. It has been 2 months since I last worked on this job. I filed a lien and it has been accepted. The property sold under a special warranty deed right before the lien was recorded. Do I need to file an amendment since the new owner was not listed on the lien? Thank you.

I worked as a sub contractor on a commercial job in Kansas. It has been 2 months since I last worked on this job. I filed a lien and it has been accepted. The property sold under a special warranty deed right before the lien was recorded. Do I need to file an amendment since the new owner was not listed on the lien? Thank you.

KansasMechanics Lien

Last work day was Dec. 7, 2018. Lien recorded on Feb. 5, 2019. New owner recorded on Jan. 17, 2018. Work was contracted through GC. Owner sold property without final lien release being signed. Then the second owner sold it with a special warranty deed. The new owner was not listed on the county web page when the lien was filed, therefor was not listed on the lien.

1 reply

Feb 7, 2019

I'm sorry to hear about your payment trouble, and that's an interesting situation. First, it's worth noting that when the project property has been sold after work is performed, generally, a mechanics lien claimant will be entitled to lien the improved property just as they would without a sale of the property. zlien discusses that idea here: What Happens If I Filed My Mechanics Lien After the Property Was Sold? Of course, the same lien deadlines apply. Where a lien has been filed but that lien may need to be amended, typically, any amendment to the filed lien would also need to occur within the deadline to originally file the lien which is to be amended. Looking to the Kansas lien statute - § 60-1102(a) requires that a lien claim state "The name of the owner", along with other requirements. In a situation where a lien claimant has filed their lien on a property and the party who they thought owned the property no longer owns that property, it's entirely possible that such an error could invalidate a lien and leave it unenforceable. In order to comply with the statute mentioned above, updating a lien filing to represent the true ownership of the property would likely make that lien more valid. In the event that amending a filed lien is not possible, potentially, a lien claimant could file a second, updated lien and release the originally filed lien. Of course, to release a properly filed lien before filing a second lien could be dangerous - so it might behoove a claimant to be sure that an updated filing make it into the record prior to releasing an already-filed lien. For more on the Kansas lien laws, this resource should be helpful: Kansas Lien & Notice FAQs.

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