Category Archives: Liens

Don’t let contractors put lien on your construction property

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If you are thinking to not pay your contractors for their job for whatever reason, you should think twice about it. You may find their work to be of poor quality but when you see the progress of the construction, you can let the contractors know that you do not like their work and they need to focus more on the quality part. Just not paying them their dues can drive you into serious problems. The contractor can place a lien on the construction property and can make the entire thing quite messy for you. It is better to counter them upfront and tell them you do not like their work rather than not paying them their dues.

Let us first understand what a lien on a property is all about. Having first lien on a property means that it completely belongs to you and in case if you want to sell it off and go back home with all the cash you are free to do so. Now if someone puts a lien on your property, it means that if you sell the place you can’t get away with the entire cash amount. You have to first clear the dues of the person/entity that has put the lien on your property and then whatever is left belongs to you. It eventually means that you do not have the absolute right on the property.

This is perhaps just the tip of the iceberg. You may be further entangled with more such complications that will act as a big distraction in your business. Your credit rating goes for a toss. You are also not able to refinance the property with any financial institution. This means that you can’t even keep this place as LAP (Loan Against Property). Moreover, when you are letting you the construction work to a contractor and if he sub-lets it to another contractor, you need to ensure that the contractor pays all the dues to the sub contractor or else that particular person will place a lien on your property. It simply means that whosoever person who has any interest in your property can place a lien on it if their dues are not paid.

In case you come across a contractor who does not carry a good record and you unfortunately give the work to him. In this case, you got to be absolutely sure that you keep records of your payments to him. Such people can create nuisance even after they have received all their dues. In case you are clean, you hire an attorney who will take such guys to task. But before you hire any contractor, it is important that you do a research on their conduct. You can check things like how long they are into this business and how their relations have been with other construction companies. You can check with people in your business circles and hire someone who will not unnecessarily put liens on the property to create problems for you.

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Placing a lien on the property is one of the best ways to claim your dues

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There may have been few instances where you are not paid for the work done on a project. You have been given some or the other reasons by the construction company that you found to be absolutely vague and got the hint that you will not be paid for your work. Situations like these are nothing but a nightmare for small contractors. Firstly, the small contractors do not have sufficient money to pay the workers and if at all they manage to secure the money from any of their sources, they experience a hard time to meet the other operational expenses of their business. On top of that if they see the construction company to be defaulting on them, they can’t imagine anything worse than that. In such a situation, the only thing that they can do is place a lien on the property that will disallow the company to get any loans or any sort of finance on the property.

You can’t place a lien on any property just because you want to. For that, you have to approach the court and put forth your matter to them. Take help of a competent attorney who will guide you with the legal proceedings and also will fight the case for you. Once the court acknowledges and sees that you owe money on the property that will allow you to place a lien on the place. Now once you get the lien, you also get the legal right to sell the property and claim the due amount.

Now the kind of evidences that you can submit to the court is the invoices of the materials that were bought for the construction of the building in the property. Additionally, you can also show the bills that were incurred for the wages you paid to the workers. These evidences will certainly make your case strong and you can hope that the court will rule in your favor. However, there is a timeframe for placing liens. You need to place the lien within a stipulated period of time or else the court will not entertain your plea.

Once you get the ruling in your favor, you have to inform your debtors about it and send a copy of the notice to them. This will give a strong message to your debtors that you are just not letting them go and placing a lien can bring trouble to them. They might then intend to pay you in full and once you are paid in full, you should drop the lien by informing the court that you have received the money in full.

Though placing a lien can work as a tool in recovering your dues, this should not be misused by you in any manner. In case, you approach to the court stating that you have not received the money whereas you have been already paid, it can backfire hard on you. The court may direct the authorities to put you behind the bars. Hence any such intention should be strictly avoided.

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