I am the project manager for the property owner. We recently completed a project, and the General Contractor has been paid in full for the contract total and provided an unconditional lien waiver. However, one of their subcontractors reached out to me saying they had not been paid and that they were moving forward with filing a mechanic's lien against the property. Am I responsible for paying the subcontractor if the General Contractor did not fulfill their obligation? ...Read More
I am the project owner or a commercial renovation. We require lien waivers from our General Contractor and each of their subcontractors at the end of every project. During this particular project, our GC fired a subcontractor. They were paid through their termination date, and I have a conditional waiver for that payment. However, the subcontractor is telling me that he is still owed the full contract amount. The GC said they will not pay because the contractor didn't complete the work, and they incurred cost finding another subcontractor. Does this subcontractor have lien rights for the upaid amount, even though they did not complete the work?...Read More
My company is a GC on a Construction Project. Our Subcontractor, who we are contracted with, has a court case against them, and because of that my company was ordered to not release payment to them. In an effort to prevent the Subcontractor's vendor (who is owed money) from putting a lien on the project, we spoke with attorneys and were granted access to release payment directly to these vendors. Note, we are not contracted with the Vendors - we are contracted with the Subcontractor. Along with releasing payment to the vendor, we want to issue them a final lien waiver so they cannot lien the project. We are not sure what kind of final lien waiver we should use for a vendor and what wording should be used or left out. Can you help with this?...Read More
I’m working with lending home who rejected a draw request saying that the contractor lien release needs to be notarized. The first draw release went through no issue and not notarized. Everything thing I read or colleague I talk to says NYS does not require this mike...Read More
We had a dispute with a contractor years ago about work done to our home. His last date of work on our home was Dec 2018. This year we listed our home for sale and miraculously, the contractor somehow feels he has a right to collect on work he never finished. He falsified and filed a Mechanics Lien this year, overshooting the deadline by several years. We deposited money with the courts to sell our home. Now that the house is sold, we wanted to take him to court to prove the lien willfully exaggerated and have it declared void/get it vacated. His attorney/debt collector wants to settle for less than what they claim we owe, however, they want us to pay money directly to them. I don't want to end up worse off and since the court system has our money and are holding those funds, how do I get them back? How do we ensure no shenanigans?...Read More
I am a subcontractor and we are looking to start a new project however the contract will list the owner as "abcd condominium c/o abcd abcd abcd" I want to make sure if there were anything to happen and for any reason we were not to be paid on time How do we file a lien if needed against this building since its a condominium? Please let me know,...Read More
We are in a bit of a tricky situation with our first filed lien. Our client is now asking us to sign lien waivers and split 3rd party payment agreements that specifically are stating that no liens have been placed to our knowledge, but there have been and they know this. The only alternative suggestion they stated is for us to remove the lien, have it signed by a county clerk in order for us to get paid. They are stating that they won't pay until its removed or the paperwork is signed and that IF something happens we should just refile a new lien. ...Read More
We wonder if a lien waiver only pertains payment for material and services provided or also for other costs (e.g. open demurrage claims) that the general contractor owes a supplier. ...Read More
Hello, we received a partial lien waiver from the client to sign and the value on that document is $1. Payment that we are expecting to receive is $110,000.00. We asked client to amend this dollar value to the actual amount due and their response was:
The waiver is approved by both our attorney and the bank. All waivers remain universal for every subcontractor on the project, just date and req period change month to month. The reason $1.00 is the amount is because we do not enclose the payment value on waiver, but yes we can confirm the true value you will be funded.
Their CFO added:
What we can do is provide you with 2 waivers. One which contains the value you will be funded and the other is waiving the $1. The $1 waiver has to be provided to the owner for their lender as we are a general contractor for this project and therefore the owner is not privy to the contract values and payment to our individual trades.
Our question is - can we sign two documents $1 and $110,000.00. We want to make sure we will be protected in case of the pay $1 dollar and we do not want to loose any lien rights.
Thank you!...Read More
A contractor wants me, (a subcontractor), to commit to sighing unconditional waivers before I actually receive my payments. I know that this is illegal in some states and I want to know what the law is in NYS and NJ.
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My documents are being mailed today/tomorrow to all parties. The customers lawyer reached out today and sent a copy of our check and is requesring we bring the final lien waiver and collect the check. Do we try to have the lien released now or let it go thru and then have it removed (assuming they make payment)...Read More