Hi, There is a job that we have not sent a Notice of Furnishing for in the state of Ohio (Was due 7 months ago). I'm reaching out to find out if we can still secure our lien rights by sending out a Notice of Intent, even though the Notice of Furnishing deadline has passed. After reading about Ohio Lien Laws, I'm confused as I've read that for both public and private projects: -Notice must be sent within 21 days -Notice can be sent late If you could please clarify the time period these notices can be sent in order to secure lien rights? Thank you!
On commercial projects in Ohio, a notice of furnishing is only required if a notice of commencement was recorded by the owner. You can search for this record on the county recorder's site in the county where the work took place.
On public projects, a notice of furnishing must only be served by contractors who are under contract with someone other than the prime contractor. In other words, if you are contracting directly with the prime, you do not need to serve a notice of furnishing.
In either case, if you did not serve a notice of furnishing, and you wish to secure lien rights, you must first serve a notice of furnishing. When a notice of furnishing is served after work has commenced, the notice only takes effect for work performed by the subcontractor in the 21 days preceding service of the notice of furnishing. Basically if you performed work for 60 days, the notice would only be effective for the work performed in the last 21, and you could only lien for amounts that became due in those last 21 days.
Sometimes the last 21 days are all that matters, because it is the final pay app, or there is only money due from that point forward. If you have questions, do not hesitate to give me a call.