A Preliminary Notice is a construction notice that subcontractors, equipment lessors, and material suppliers must send at the start of a construction job in order to secure their lien and/or bond claim rights.
43 states have a required notice in order to secure Lien and Bond Claim rights. Every state has different Preliminary Notice deadline. Does your state require a Preliminary Notice? Check it out on the map below, along with specified deadlines.
In Florida, you have forty five (45) days from the first day of furnishing materials and/or labor for a Notice to Owner to be received.
In California, a Preliminary Notice (also known as a pre-lien) should be sent within twenty (20) days from your start date on the project.
A Preliminary 20-Day Lien Notice should be sent within twenty (20) days after the commencement or furnishing labor and/or material to the project. A Preliminary 20-Day Lien Notice requires you to have an estimated contract amount.
For commercial projects 3rd Month Fund Trapping Notice is statutory but sending a 2nd Month Notice is recommended. For private residential projects, a Residential Notice Letter to Owner and Original Contractor to Trap Funds is mandatory to secure lien rights. For state/county projects a 3rd Month Bond Claim Notice is required and sending a2nd Month Bond Notice is recommended.
In Georgia, a Notice to Contract should be sent thirty (30) days from the recording of a Notice of Commencement of Improvement which is recorded by the Original Contractor or within thirty (30 ) days of first furnishing. It is required by law to secure lien rights for private and public projects with the exception of federal projects.
Some states require you to send a Preliminary Notice within a specific period of time in order to secure your lien and/or bond claim rights.
Preliminary Notices are named differently in different states. For example, in Florida a preliminary notice is called a Notice to Owner (NTO), in Texas it's called a Fund Trapping notice, and in Georgia it's called a Notice to Contractor.
To send a preliminary notice, you need to have your job information like the job address, your first day on the job, the company/person that hired you and the contract amount.
Once you have the information ready with you, sign up to send your preliminary notice in less than 5 minutes. Once your account is active, you can put in all the information and submit your request in a few steps. Easy peasy!
A dedicated account manager from SunRay will be assigned to send your preliminary notice within 5 business days.
Frequently asked questions on preliminary notice or pre-lien
The rule for a blanket NTO vs. multiple NTOs is based off whether there is 1 contract between the GC and the owner of the project. If they do not know if there is 1 contract and there are multiple NOCs, then we would send multiple NTOs.
For multiple residential lots that have separate NOCs even though there is 1 contract (between GC and Owner), it would be best to send multiple NTOs as well, one NTO for each NOC/lot in case they start selling the lots as they get finished.
For example, there are 10 lots being built, there is one contract between the owner and the GC but each lot has its own NOC, if the owner/developer sells only lots 1 & 2, you shouldn't do one lien to reflect all the lots and all the owners. The best business practice is to do one lien for lot 1 with the old and new owner, one lien for lot 2 with the old and new owner and the other lien for the other lots that have not been sold and are still owned by the developer. As there were separate Notice to Owner forms for each lot, you may file such separate liens.
There are other facts to take into consideration, such as the NOCs being terminated when the lots are completed and so that they can be sold, regardless, if you are within the 30 days from the notice of termination you can still lien for that specific lot.
Another case, if you got paid for each lot separately, you may file separate liens only on the lots that you did not get paid for, because you secured your lien rights for each lot, by doing separate NTOs.
