How to get paid in California: the mechanic's lien guide

The four tools, and when each one fits

There is no single button you push to get paid. There are four tools, and the right one depends on who hired you, what kind of work you did, and whether the job is private or public. Pick the wrong one and you can waste the only window you had.

Here is the part that catches people flat: not every kind of work carries lien rights. A lien attaches to work that improves real property. Framing, plumbing, electrical, concrete, paint, landscape installation, building anything that stays, all qualify. Routine janitorial, recurring maintenance, and junk hauling usually do not, because you serviced the property rather than improving it. If that is your trade, skip to the small claims section. That is your main tool, and most of the lien material above will not apply to you.

Step 1: The 20-day preliminary notice (Civil Code §8200–8216)

This is the step that quietly kills more lien rights than any other, because most contractors do not know it exists until the day they go to file a lien and learn they gave up the right to one weeks earlier without realizing it.

A preliminary notice is a short letter you serve near the start of a job. It tells the property owner, whoever hired the contractor, and any construction lender that you are on the project and intend to get paid. A lot of operators are nervous to send one because it feels aggressive. It is not. GCs and lenders see these constantly, and nobody blinks. The contractor who skips it is the one who looks like an amateur later, not the one who sent it.

Who needs to send one? If you are a sub or you supplied material, almost always. If you signed straight with the owner, you usually do not need it for the owner, but you still have to serve any construction lender. The safe rule is to send it on every job. One you did not strictly need costs you a stamp. One you needed and skipped costs you the whole claim.

Serve it by certified or registered mail and keep the certificate of mailing. The proof you sent it is what makes the notice count. A notice you cannot prove you mailed is a notice that did not happen.

Step 2: Filing the mechanic's lien (Civil Code §8400–8494)

Work is done, the money never came, and you served your preliminary notice. Now the lien is your pressure. When you record one, it attaches to the property's title, and the owner cannot cleanly sell or refinance until it clears. That is exactly why it works. Plenty of owners who ignored six invoices find the money the week a real lien hits the county record, because now it is their problem too.

The deadlines are strict, and there are two versions:

• If the owner records a notice of completion or cessation: a direct contractor has 60 days from that recording, everyone else has 30 days.
• If no notice of completion is recorded: 90 days after the work is actually complete.

Miss the date by a day and the lien is void. So the moment a job turns into a slow-pay, put the deadline on your calendar. Do not trust your memory three months out when you are buried in other work.

The lien has to contain specific things (§8416 lists them): the amount owed, the owner's name, a description of the work, the property address and enough of a legal description to identify it, your name and address, and a required notice to the owner. Get the form right. A defective lien is a void lien, and the first thing the owner's attorney does is look for the mistake that lets them throw it out.

You record it with the county recorder where the property sits, then serve a copy on the owner. Skip that second step and you can invalidate your own lien. Recording alone is not enough.

Step 3: After the lien, the 90-day foreclosure clock (§8460)

This is where contractors who did everything right still lose the money. They record the lien, feel like they won, and then sit on it. A recorded lien is not the finish line. You have 90 days from the recording date to file a lawsuit to foreclose on it. Let those 90 days pass and the lien expires on its own and becomes worthless.

Most of the time it never reaches a trial. The lien plus a real lawsuit deadline puts pressure on both sides at once. The owner wants their title clean, you want your money, and somewhere in that window a check usually appears. But the pressure only exists because the lawsuit is real and coming, not because you are politely waiting.

Public works: stop notices and payment bonds (§9300+)

Work on a school, a fire station, or a city park and you cannot lien any of it. You cannot put a lien on public land, full stop. So public jobs use a different set of tools:

• Stop payment notice. You serve this on the agency, not the owner, and it makes them freeze money they still owe the prime, enough to cover your claim. The deadlines track the private-lien clock, but you are going after the funds, not the land.
• Payment bond claim. On most public jobs over a certain size the prime had to post a payment bond, often for around the full contract value. If you are not paid, you file against that bond. The surety pays you, then chases the prime.

If you bid public work, you have to know this cold, the same way you need to know who else is bidding and where the winning numbers tend to land. That second half is the other thing Curbrank does for contractors.

When you have no lien rights: small claims and collections

If you run a cleaning crew, haul, or work a maintenance contract, you probably do not have a lien, as covered above. Small claims court is your tool, and it is a good one. As of 2024 a person or sole proprietor can sue for up to 12,500 dollars (corporations and LLCs are capped lower, so check your setup). No lawyers are allowed, the filing fee is small, and you get a hearing fast.

Do not file first, though. Send a demand letter: one page with what they owe, the work, and a date to pay by before you file. A lot of non-payers pay within a week of a letter that clearly means it, because it signals you are not going away. If they still do not pay, you file, show up with your signed contract and invoices, and ask the judge for a judgment.

One thing to know: winning is not the same as collecting. The court hands you a judgment, not a check. California gives you ways to enforce it, including wage garnishment, a bank levy, an abstract of judgment that liens any real estate they own, and a debtor's examination to find their assets. Plenty of judgments still never get collected, which is the real argument for screening customers and taking a deposit up front. It is far easier to avoid getting stiffed than to chase a non-payer through the courts.

Build protection into every job

The contractors who almost never get burned are not luckier than you. They stack a few cheap habits so a bad customer cannot wreck them:

1. Signed contract before anyone picks up a tool, with payment terms and a deposit written in.
2. Preliminary notice served within 20 days, every job, no exceptions.
3. Progress billing as you go, not one balloon invoice at the end when you have nothing left to hold.
4. Only the conditional release until the money clears your account.
5. The lien deadline on the calendar the day a job turns slow.

None of that costs much. The lawsuit you avoid by doing it costs a fortune.