How to File a Mechanics Lien in California

California's mechanics lien law lives in Civil Code §§ 8000–9566. The process has six steps: preliminary notice, know your deadline, build the claim, record it, serve the owner, and sue in time if you still aren't paid. Miss any step and the lien dies. Let's walk through all six.

Step 1: Serve the 20-day preliminary notice (or lose before you start)

The preliminary notice — everyone calls it the "20-day notice" — is a short document that tells the owner, the general contractor, and the construction lender: I'm on this job, here's what I'm doing, here's roughly what it costs, and I'm preserving my right to lien if I don't get paid. It's not a threat and it's not a lien. It's just you putting your name on the list.

Who has to serve it: basically everyone except the general contractor who has a direct contract with the owner — and even that GC has to serve it on the construction lender if there is one. Subcontractors, sub-subs, material suppliers, equipment lessors: all of you. If you don't have a direct contract with the owner, this notice is the price of admission.

Who gets it: the property owner (or reputed owner), the direct contractor, and the construction lender if there is one. Miss a recipient and you've got a hole in your protection.

When: no later than 20 days after you first furnish labor or materials (§ 8204). You can serve it earlier — plenty of sharp subs serve it the day they sign the contract, before they ever set foot on site. Here's the math that ruins people:

• Serve within 20 days of starting: your lien rights cover everything from day one.
• Serve late: you're not shut out completely, but your lien only covers work performed in the 20 days before you served the notice, plus everything after. Two months of unpaid work before that window? Unprotected.

What goes in it (Civil Code §§ 8202, 8102): a general description of the work, an estimate of the total price, the owner's name and address, the direct contractor's name and address, the construction lender's name and address if any, a description of the job site, and your own name, address, and relationship to the parties. The notice also has to carry the statutory "NOTICE TO PROPERTY OWNER" warning in bold type — use a proper form rather than typing one up from scratch. Our free templates include a California preliminary notice.

How to serve it: by certified or registered mail (or express/overnight with tracking). Keep your mailing receipts and a signed declaration of who you sent it to, when, and how. If your lien ever gets challenged, that paper trail is your whole defense on this step.

Step 2: Know your role — your deadline depends on it

California splits lien claimants into two groups with two different filing deadlines. Get your group wrong and you'll either file too late or panic for no reason.

Three things to burn into memory:

1. The clock runs from completion of the whole project, not your part. If you're the framing sub and you finished in March but the project wraps in August, your 90 days runs from August — not March. (This is also why you can't just walk away and forget about it.)
2. A recorded notice of completion shortens everything. The owner can record a notice of completion within 15 days after the project is actually done (§ 8182), and the moment they do, your window shrinks to 60 or 30 days. Subs: that 30-day window is brutally short. Ask your attorney about monitoring the county records on big jobs.
3. You must record after you stop work. A direct contractor records after completing the direct contract; everyone else records after ceasing to provide work. You can't record mid-job "just in case" and you can't record before your work is done.

One more California quirk worth knowing: if work stops and nothing happens for 60 continuous days with no notice recorded, the law can treat that as completion — which starts your 90-day clock even though nobody told you the job was "done." Disputes over when a project was "complete" are some of the most litigated fights in California lien law. When in doubt, file early.

A real timeline: how the deadlines stack up

Deadlines are easier to feel with dates on them. Say you're an electrical sub on a commercial build in Fresno:

• March 1: You start rough-in. Your 20-day preliminary notice clock starts.
• March 10: You serve the preliminary notice on the owner, the GC, and the lender. From here, everything you do is protected.
• June 1: You finish your trim work and leave the site. (Your personal 90-day clock does not start — the trigger is completion of the whole project, not your part.)
• August 15: The project is actually complete. Your 90-day recording window opens: you have until November 13 to record.
• August 20: The owner records a notice of completion. Your window just shrank: as a sub, you now have 30 days from August 20 — until September 19 — to record.
• September 5: You record the claim and mail the owner a copy the same day.
• December 4: Your 90-day lawsuit deadline — 90 days from recording. No payment by then? File the foreclosure suit and record the lis pendens within 20 days of filing.

Notice what happened on August 20: the owner's notice of completion cut nearly two months off the sub's timeline. That's the move that catches people. If you're a sub on a California job and the project is winding down, watch the county records for a notice of completion like you'd watch the weather — because your 30 days starts whether you noticed it or not.

Same job, but now you're the general contractor: your recording deadline after that August 20 notice of completion would be 60 days (until October 19), and you'd file your foreclosure suit within 90 days of whenever you recorded. Same rhythm, roomier windows.

Step 3: Build the claim of lien

The claim of lien is a written statement, signed and verified by you (that's a sworn statement that it's true — not the same as notarized, and California doesn't require notarization). Civil Code § 8416 lists exactly what has to be in it. Use this as your checklist:

• Your demand — the amount you're claiming, after subtracting all just credits and offsets (what you've been paid, back-charges you legitimately owe, etc.)
• The name of the owner or reputed owner, if you know it
• A general statement of the kind of work you furnished
• The name of the person who hired you (or who you furnished the work to)
• A description of the job site sufficient to identify it
• Your address
• A completed, signed proof of service affidavit — filled out by whoever serves the copy on the owner, showing the date, place, and manner of service
• The statutory "NOTICE OF MECHANICS LIEN" statement, printed in at least 10-point bold type — this is the warning to the owner spelled out in the statute itself, and leaving it out or shrinking the type can kill the lien

You can read the full text of § 8416 on FindLaw or at the official source, California Legislative Information. But here's the part people mess up: the dollar amount. Claim what you're actually owed for the work — not your attorney's fees, not lost profit on the next job, not delay damages. Interest on the unpaid amount is generally fine. Inflating the number "for leverage" is the fastest way to turn a good lien into a lawsuit against you for a false claim.

Step 4: Record it with the county recorder

Take the claim to the county recorder's office in the county where the property sits — not where your office is, not where the GC is headquartered. If the property straddles two counties, record in both. Pay the recording fee, get your recorded copy back with the recorder's stamp.

California law says a properly verified claim "shall be accepted by the recorder for recording" without acknowledgment (§ 8416(b)) — meaning the recorder can't turn you away for missing notarization. That doesn't mean they'll check your work for legal correctness, though. They record what you hand them; whether it holds up is on you.

Step 5: Serve a copy on the owner

This step is non-negotiable. A copy of the recorded claim — including the bold NOTICE OF MECHANICS LIEN statement — must be served on the owner or reputed owner by registered mail, certified mail, or first-class mail with a certificate of mailing, postage prepaid. If you can't serve the owner that way, the statute lets you serve the construction lender or the original contractor instead (§ 8416(c)).

Read this twice: failure to serve the owner makes the lien unenforceable as a matter of law (§ 8416(e)). Not "weakened." Not "fixable later." Unenforceable. And whoever serves it must complete and sign the proof-of-service affidavit that goes into the claim package. Don't record the lien and then sit on the service — get it in the mail immediately and keep your proof.

Step 6: Sue within 90 days — or the lien dies

Recording the lien doesn't get you paid by itself. It just parks your claim on the property's title so the owner can't sell or refinance without dealing with you. To actually enforce it, you have to file a lawsuit to foreclose the lien — and you have 90 days after recording to do it (§ 8460). Not 90 days after you "get around to it." Ninety days from the recording date, period. Miss it and the lien becomes unenforceable.

There's a companion step: within 20 days after filing the lawsuit, you must record a notice of pendency of action — the old "lis pendens" — so anyone checking title sees the lawsuit coming (§ 8461). This protects you against the owner selling the property out from under your case.

And note: 90 days means 90 days, not three months. If you recorded on September 5, your deadline is December 4 — count the actual days on a calendar, including weekends and holidays. "I thought I had until December 5" is not a defense anyone has ever won with.

Yes, this means a lien enforcement is a real lawsuit in Superior Court, with real legal costs. That's why most liens settle: once the owner sees a recorded lien and a foreclosure complaint, the math of fighting you usually looks worse than paying you. But don't file a lien assuming you'll never have to follow through — file it prepared to.

Bonus tool: the stop payment notice

California gives you one more weapon that most states don't: the stop payment notice. While a lien grabs the property, a stop notice grabs the money — you serve it on the owner (and the lender, on private jobs), and it obligates them to withhold enough of the remaining construction funds to cover your claim. It rides on the same preliminary notice as your lien rights, so if you served your 20-day notice on time, you've already laid the groundwork.

Stop notices have their own timing and service rules, and they work differently on public versus private jobs — so treat this as a "know it exists" heads-up, not a how-to. If a job still has significant funds undisbursed and the owner is dragging their feet, ask your construction attorney whether a stop notice belongs in your playbook alongside the lien.

Mistakes that kill California liens

After everything above, here's the hall of fame — the errors that show up in dead liens over and over:

• No preliminary notice, or a late one. The #1 killer, described at the top of this article. If you're a sub or supplier and you skipped the 20-day notice entirely, you generally have no lien rights at all.
• Using the wrong deadline for your role. Subs who assume they get the GC's 60-day window after a notice of completion — and file on day 45 — are 15 days too late.
• Counting from the wrong "completion." Your last day on site isn't the trigger; completion of the work of improvement is. But don't get cute in the other direction either — waiting for the "official" end of a project while your 90 days quietly runs out is just as fatal.
• An inflated claim amount. Pad the number and you hand the owner a weapon. Claim what's owed, with credits and offsets honestly subtracted.
• Recording but never serving the owner. An unserved lien is unenforceable as a matter of law. The recorder's stamp is only half the job.
• Missing the 90-day lawsuit deadline. A recorded lien with no lawsuit behind it expires into a cloud on title that helps nobody — and an owner can petition the court to expunge it and stick you with fees.
• Doing lien work unlicensed. California generally bars unlicensed contractors from enforcing payment claims. If your license lapsed mid-job, talk to a construction attorney before you spend a dollar on lien paperwork.

California rewards contractors who run a tight paper process and punishes everyone else. The good news: the whole system is mechanical. Preliminary notice on day one, watch the completion date, record on time, serve the owner, sue in time. Do all six and the law is firmly on your side.

Working a job in another state too? The rhythm is the same but the numbers are all different — see Florida's deadlines, how to file in Texas, or the full 50-state deadline hub. Grab the free notice templates to get your California paperwork started, and when you're ready for every state's deadlines on one page, that's the $49 pack.