You haven’t been paid on a construction project and you’re thinking about filing a mechanics lien. What should you do? Will a lien get you paid? Is there a way to file a lien online? Should you hire an attorney? Let’s put these questions to rest.
You Can File Your Mechanics Lien Online
Levelset allows contractors, material suppliers, and others in the construction industry to file their mechanics lien online easily.
To do so, you simply answer some simple questions about your construction project.
From there, the Levelset team researches and verifies project information (see a video about how they work), prepares the lien form, and has the lien form filed with the applicable county.
In many cases, your mechanics lien claim is even electronically recorded with the county recorders office, as more than 790 county recorders now allow e-recording.
Do I Need An Attorney To File My Mechanics Lien?
In nearly all states, lawyers are not required in the process of filing a mechanics lien. In fact, we have an article for each state that walks you through each step in the process to file a lien on your own.
Filing a lien takes place outside of the court system, so legal representation is not necessary. However, each state’s mechanics lien law can be complex and complicated. In the past, construction business owners may not have felt comfortable understanding these complexities.
Each state has specific requirements about the form, including the page margins and font size, and the actual information you put on the form. Making even silly mistakes on a lien form can derail your lien claim, or get it canceled.
In the old days, filing a lien in the past meant contacting an attorney, negotiating an hourly rate, conducting an interview to collect information about your project, and on and on. The end product, however, was simply a form that met the state’s legal requirements.
Thanks to technological advances, a lot of work that used to be reserved for attorneys has been automated.
Levelset’s software does all the tough work in preparing your mechanics lien claim. This allows you to represent yourself and get the mechanics lien filed without hiring an attorney.
And since Levelset is an authorized Submitter for electronic recording in counties across the country, we can take your lien document and get it promptly filed.
In addition, our Expert Center gives you a forum to get legal advice from construction attorneys across the country, totally free of charge. They can help answer questions about complicated situations, lien forms, and other legal matters.
You can still hire an attorney, of course. Depending on your situation, you might want legal advice even with Levelset’s service available.
Will A Mechanics Lien Get Us Paid?
First, a mechanics lien has a lot of effects, and these effects push the parties on the construction project to pay your debt. We’ve analyzed some of the most popular consequences of a mechanics lien in this post: 17 Ways A Mechanics Lien Works To Get You Paid.
Second, we’ve seen the success of mechanics lien claims first hand and conducted a survey recently on the success of mechanics lien claims filed by our service. In reviewing the statistics associated with this survey remember the state of the debt at the time it goes out for a lien.
Folks are filing liens after they have tried every other avenue for payment. These debts are almost lost causes. Yet over 64% of them are paid within 90 days without any further legal or collection efforts. Even more are paid after 90 days.