Menu
Home>Levelset Community>Legal Help>If we deliver material to the nearest street address to a project on a nearby acreage, how can we confirm whether the street address is legally associated with the final project location in order to maintain our lien rights?

If we deliver material to the nearest street address to a project on a nearby acreage, how can we confirm whether the street address is legally associated with the final project location in order to maintain our lien rights?

IowaMechanics Lien

We are in the farm business and have material being delivered to farmsteads for buildings being installed. Sometimes, however the actual location of the building is in a nearby acreage that we have been told may have it's own legal description. We're concerned that we lose our lien rights when we are delivering it to the nearby street address rather than the specific plot of land, and have an active lien that the end user is claiming is filed on the wrong location because of this situation.

1 reply

Mar 6, 2018
Actual delivery to the project site does not necessarily appear to be a prerequisite to filing an Iowa mechanics lien. Under § 572.2.1 of the Iowa lien statute, "Every person who furnishes any material or labor for...any building or land for improvement, alteration, or repair thereof...shall have a lien upon such building or improvement..." when under contract with an owner, owner-builder, general contractor, or subcontractor. Thus, it would appear that when materials have been provided for the improvement of land, the land that is improved is subject to lien rights - even when the materials provided for that improvement have been delivered near the property site rather than at it. Of course, filing a lien on the street address where materials were delivered rather than on the property that was ultimately improved would likely not result in a valid lien filing. To confirm whether the location where material is delivered is the same property as the land being improved, researching the location in the county's property records should provide some clarity.
0 people found this helpful
Helpful