Lien and notice deadlines

First, you are likely correct that the deadline to send notice for the unpaid work is in October. However, this could depend on whether the general contractor contracted with the property owner in 2022 or 2021, as some of the deadlines changed in 2022. If this was a 2022 contract and this was a commercial job, then most likely your deadline for notice is in October. 

As for your question about retainage, I'm not entirely sure where the October 28th notice deadline comes from. The rules say that notice of a claim for retainage must be served by either the 30th day after you completed your work or 30 days after the orignal contract between the property owner and the general contract is completed or abandoned. It could be that the original contract between the property owner and general contractor will be completed on September 28th--making the deadline for notice of retainage due 30 days later, on October 28th. But without more information I cannot say for sure. 

Either way, if you have sent your notice for retainage with your notice for unpaid work, you should be fine, assuming original contract wasn't completed or abandoned more than 30 days before you sent your notice. An example of this would be if the original contractor completed the job on August 1st, the deadline to send your notice of retainage would then be August 30th because that is 30 days after the date the original contract was completed. 

It sounds to me like Levelset wants you to file two different liens: one for retainage and one for the unpaid work. Since you said you sent notice of the unpaid retainage with your notice for unpaid work, that probably isn't necessary. However, remember that your date to file your lien affidavit for the unpaid work is probably in November, as the rules state that subcontractors who are working on commercial projects need to file their lien by the 15th day of the 4th month after they provided labor or materials. 

As I'm sure you know, this stuff can get very complicated, depending on certain factors, so it's possible I have not answered your question. If that is the case, I would strongly suggest reaching out to an experienced construction law attorney so that you avoid missing any deadlines. Feel free to give us a call at Murphy Legal. Our number is (979) 690-0800. 

I hope this helped! Good luck to you. 

Thank you for your detailed answer Eddie .... However I still have two questions.

1. I didn't think that it was possible to file two separate liens on the same job. My lawyer always told me that that was not legal and that if we were going to put a lien on the job it always needed to be for the full amount Due including retainage ... Is that correct or is that wrong? Or did she simply tell me that in an attempt to save me money ?
2. If Notice for unpaid retention was sent in July, then I would still need to place a lien on the job for the retention due regardless of whether or not they paid the open invoice for July, Correct ? .....
   For example; We performed the work in July, We invoiced the work in July. I sent out the 2nd month notice & Notice for unpaid retention on 9/15/22.
   ** we recived a payment for Julys Invoice excluding retainage on 9/28/2022.....
   So the Next Step would be to send out a 3rd month notice on 10/15/22 for only the remaining amount of Retainage Due ?
   and then Lien the job for that amount on 11/15/22 if payment is not recived, correct ?