I must give a hat tip to the Cobb Law Group and their great Georgia Construction and Lien Law Blog for a really terrific post two weeks ago titled: When Should A Mechanics’ Lien or Materialmen’s Lien Be Filed in Georgia. I highly recommend heading over to their blog to read this post, which offers practical information to potential lien claimants in Georgia.
The question addressed by the post (and the title of this post) appears to be quite basic: When must a lien be filed in Georgia? And relative to other states, the answer in Georgia also appears to be quite basic: Within 90 days of last furnishing to the project. Georgia’s mechanic lien deadline, however, is a perfect example of how even simple lien principles and statutes can become confusing and complex.
Georgia lien claimants must consider two things when calculating their lien deadline.
First, lien claimants must look at the terms of the statute itself and realize that it has a day-counting nuance. The statute says that mechanic liens must be filed within 90 days from last furnishing to the project. As discussed in the Cobb Law Group blog post, this means the mechanics lien cannot be filed on the 90th day, because that wouldn’t be “within” 90 days. Damn Lawyers! This leads to a practical tip in calculating the mechanics lien deadline in Georgia: file your lien on or before the 89th day.
Many states answer this to give the mechanics lien claimant more time, allowing a filing on the next non-holiday. This is not the case in Georgia, where the mechanics lien must be filed on the court day before the holiday. Accordingly, Georgia’s mechanic lien deadline can be rendered even shorter than 89 days.
Those who use Zlien’s industry leading LienPilot need not really worry about this. After inputting your last furnishing date, the LienPilot does all the technical work to figure out your last day to file a mechanics lien, subtracting that pesky 90th day and adjusting your deadline if it falls on a holiday or weekend. Try it out to the left here.
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