A little while ago, I posted a short article discussing the requirement of identifying the property on which a mechanic’s lien is claimed. How detailed that description must be varies from state to state, and runs from a full legal description, to merely a municipal street address – or potentially even less. Another mechanic’s lien [...]
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New York Exaggerated Lien Claims More Difficult To Prove After Recent Appeals Case
In New York, as is the case in almost every state, the party filing a mechanics lien must do so truthfully. The mechanics lien statement must always be signed, and oftentimes must be notarized and verified, indicating that the facts and figures set forth therein are true and correct. This extends, of course, to the [...]
More Problems With Misidentification of Lien Claimant in Mechanics Lien
Who are you? Seems like a simple enough question. You’d be surprised how often mechanics lien claimants wrongly identify themselves in a mechanics lien, and you may even be surprised how often this makes a difference. The issue was addressed recently in Connecticut, and a mechanics lien claimant in that state lost its lien claim [...]
3 Ways To Get Burned Filing Your Own Mechanics Lien
No one goes to medical school to learn how to file a mechanic’s lien. It isn’t brain surgery. Claimants must be careful, however, because mechanic lien laws are hyper-technical and there are many traps for the inexperienced and the do-it-yourselfers. In fact, as an example of one of these traps, we previously wrote a post [...]
Connecticut Court Forgives Small Error In Mechanics Lien
Mechanics lien statutes are complex and technical, and they get mixed treatment by courts across the country with some courts very strictly construing and others very liberally construing the statutory requirements. It’s because of these varied restrictions that filing a mechanics lien can be a treacherous affair, and folks are at risk to make common mistakes [...]
Mechanics Lien Rumors Are Not Mechanics Lien Laws
Granted, mechanics lien laws are complex. It’s still surprising to me how many folks out there think they know everything about the lien laws when they in fact know little to nothing at all. This is a huge problem in the marketplace. Many companies rely on these misconceptions to their detriment, and wind up with defunct [...]
5 Things People Have Wrong About Mechanics Liens
Little in the law is as misunderstood as the mechanics lien instrument. We’ve dedicated some entire sections of this blog to trying to lift this fog, such sections being devoted to analyzing Common Mistakes and Lien Errors. While each state has its own mechanics lien rules and, therefore, it’s own unique common mistakes, there are [...]
Conflicting Court Decisions Highlight Complexity Of Mechanics Lien Law
Last week I wrote about two court decisions released in April 2012, one out of California (Montgomery Sansome LP v Rezai) and one out of Idaho (Stonebrook Construction v. Chase Home Finance). These cases presented almost identical circumstances, yet the courts reached opposite results. Summary of Idaho v. California Cases The California and Idaho cases [...]
3 Mistakes Mechanics Lien Claimants Make When Identifying Themselves
We posted an article yesterday about a California case published last month where a mechanics lien’s validity was in dispute because of the way the lien claimant identified itself on the lien. That case - Montgomery Sansome LP v. Rezai - was very similar to a California case we wrote about a few months ago – Ball [...]
Be Careful Who You Choose To Enforce Your Mechanics Lien
A construction company in Georgia got stiffed $175,000, and filed a Georgia mechanics lien for that amount. Then, they made a mistake that is a pretty difficult mistake to predict. They hired the wrong attorney. Xavier Dicks was hired in June 2007 to foreclose upon a $175,000 mechanics lien set to expire on December 15, [...]
California Court Forgives Mechanics Lien Incorrect Identification Of Claimant
What’s in a name? Unfortunately when filing a mechanics lien claim, since the legal industry sometimes celebrates pointless technicalities, names can mean a lot. [pullquote style="right" quote="dark"]Invalidating a lien under these circumstances seems a bit harsh. Most anyone looking at the lien would be able to determine who the lienor was. — Comment by Vincent Pallaci[/pullquote] [...]
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Scott Wolfe Jr., JD
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