Lien law in North Carolina is changing soon, with revisions to mechanics lien requirements scheduled to take place on January 1, 2013 and April 1, 2013. With the first set of revisions to the lien law set to take effect in just a couple weeks, the blog will revisit some posts examining the differences contained in the new revisions. Some posts will be published over the next couple of days, and some will be published closer to the next date on which revisions become effective, April 1, 2013. In these posts, we will briefly explore the new changes and take a look at what these revisions mean, in practice, for the lien North Carolina lien claimant.
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The new changes to the state’s lien laws were included in two bills: 1) House Bill 1052, and 2) Senate Bill 42. These bills included both evolutionary revisions the to existing lien laws and notice requirements, as well as revolutionary, and more drastic, brand new concepts foreign to the previous lien law of North Carolina. The changes contained within House Bill 1052 are the lien law revisions, designed with input from “stakeholders” in the construction industry and are generally less controversial in nature.
Senate Bill 42 introduces some completely new concepts to the lien law scheme, and was drafted (under pressure from the Title Insurance industry) to address the “hidden lien” issue. Presumably because the title insurance industry didn’t want to expend the necessary time on research to determine whether or not a property had any “hidden liens” prior to issuing a title insurance policy. The changes contained in Senate Bill 42 do not go into effect until April 1, 2013, but potential lien claimants in North Carolina should get familiar with the new concepts in preparation. We will briefly discuss the coming changes in the next couple days, and more posts about the Bill 42 changes will be posted closer to the effective date of April 1, 2013.