receivables
The Lien Deadline Is the Whole Mechanism
Mechanics lien rights are created and destroyed by dates. Miss a preliminary notice and the remedy is gone before anybody knew there was a problem.
A mechanics lien is a security interest in the property somebody improved, available to the contractors, subcontractors and suppliers who improved it. It is the strongest collection tool in construction, and it is the one most often lost by accident.
It is lost by accident because the rights are governed by deadlines that start running at events nobody files, and most of those deadlines pass while the job is going well.
The shape, in general
Every state has its own statute and they differ substantially. The general shape, which Cornell's overview of mechanics liens sets out, is consistent even where the specifics are not.
A preliminary notice, often required early, sometimes within weeks of first furnishing labour or materials. Its purpose is to tell the owner and the lender who is working on the property. Many states make it a precondition of lien rights, which means failing to send it extinguishes the remedy before any payment is even late.
A notice of intent, in some states, before filing.
The lien filing itself, within a window measured from last furnishing or from completion, typically some months.
An enforcement action, within a further window after filing, often shorter than people expect. A recorded lien that is not enforced in time expires, and in several states an expired lien has to be released on request.
Three things follow for anybody running receivables.
The clock starts at work, not at non-payment
This is the part that catches people. The preliminary notice period runs from when you first supplied labour or materials, not from when an invoice went unpaid.
So by the time an account is thirty days late and somebody starts thinking about remedies, the window to preserve them may already have closed on a job that started two months ago. Nothing about the job felt like a dispute at the time. The deadline ran anyway.
The operational consequence is that lien management is not a collections activity. It is a job-setup activity, and it belongs in whatever happens when a job is created rather than in whatever happens when an invoice ages.
The dates have to come off a record, not a memory
Each deadline is computed from a specific event: first furnishing, last furnishing, completion, recording. Those are facts about the job, and they are only usable if somebody wrote them down at the time.
"Last furnishing" in particular is routinely disputed, because a small return visit may or may not restart or extend it depending on the state and on whether the work was corrective rather than new. A business that records each site visit with a date has an answer. A business reconstructing it from invoices does not.
So the minimum record per job is: the date of first furnishing, every date on site, the date of substantial completion, and the date of the last work of any kind. Four fields, all free at the time, all unavailable later.
It is a deadline system, so treat it as one
The reason lien rights get lost is never that somebody decided not to preserve them. It is that nobody was told a date was approaching.
Three mechanisms, in increasing order of reliability.
A calendar entry per deadline, per job, created when the job is created.
A report of jobs approaching a deadline, looked at weekly, by a named person.
A system that will not let a job be created without a first-furnishing date, because the date is what every other deadline is computed from, and a blank there silently disables all of them.
The last one is the only version that survives a busy quarter.
Preserving is not the same as using
Sending a preliminary notice is not an aggressive act and should not be treated as one internally. In the states that require it, it is routine paperwork that goes out on every job, including the ones that will be paid promptly, precisely because you cannot tell in advance which those are.
Framing matters when a customer receives one and has not seen one before. It is a notice that you are working on the property, required by statute to preserve a right that exists on every project. Businesses that send them on every job have this conversation once and then never again.
Filing an actual lien is the aggressive act, and it is a decision with consequences: it clouds title, it will be noticed by the owner's lender, and it tends to end the commercial relationship. It is the step to take deliberately, late, and usually after the ladder of ordinary chasing has run its course.
Get the state-specific answer
Everything above is the shape. The deadlines, who must send what, what must be in it, and how it must be served are state law and differ in ways that matter. Several states require notarisation, several require specific statutory wording, and several have different rules for residential than for commercial work.
Read your own state's statute once, or have a construction lawyer write you a one-page summary for the states you work in. It is a small fixed cost against a remedy that is worth the entire receivable, and the alternative is discovering the rule on the job where you needed it.
The cash-flow context all of this sits in, and why an unsecured construction receivable is a different risk from an ordinary one, is covered in the SBA's manage your finances material.