Guide · California home improvement
Mechanics liens: a release with every payment
You can pay your contractor in full and on time and still face a lien on your house, recorded by a subcontractor or supplier your contractor did not pay. A plain piece of paper collected with every payment is the defense.
What a mechanics lien is
A claim against your property, recorded with the county recorder, by someone who helped improve it and was not paid: a contractor, subcontractor, laborer or supplier. The Mechanics Lien Warning that California requires in home improvement contracts puts it this way: "Even if you pay your contractor in full, unpaid subcontractors, suppliers, and laborers who helped to improve your property may record mechanics liens and sue you in court to foreclose the lien. If a court finds the lien is valid, you could be forced to pay twice or have a court officer sell your home to pay the lien" (BPC 7159(e)(4)).
Preliminary notices are not threats
Early in the job you may get envelopes titled "Preliminary Notice" from companies you have never met. Keep them. Sending one is what preserves a subcontractor's or supplier's right to record a lien later (Civil Code 8200); it is not a lien. Laborers do not have to send one, and your own contractor does not send one to you.
The notices are your list of who can lien your house, and so of whom to ask for releases.
The four release forms
A release counts only if it is signed and in substantially the form the law sets out (Civil Code 8124), and no contract term can give away a subcontractor's or supplier's rights for them (8122). A line on an invoice or a "paid in full" email is not one of the forms. The four:
- Conditional waiver and release on progress payment (8132): releases rights through a date, but counts only with evidence of payment, such as the claimant's endorsement on a check your bank has paid (8124).
- Unconditional waiver and release on progress payment (8134): the form itself warns the signer that it "is enforceable against you if you sign it, even if you have not been paid."
- Conditional waiver and release on final payment (8136).
- Unconditional waiver and release on final payment (8138): the one that closes out the job.
The rhythm that keeps you safe
- Before you pay: get a conditional release through the payment date from the contractor and from each subcontractor or supplier who sent a preliminary notice for work in that payment.
- After the payment clears: get the unconditional release for that amount, signed by the claimant who was paid.
- Before the next payment: after any payment you may ask the contractor for unconditional releases for the work you paid for, and withhold all further payments until they arrive (BPC 7159.5(a)(6)). CSLB's advice is the same, and it suggests joint checks payable to both the contractor and the supplier or subcontractor.
Deadlines, briefly
When the job ends, the calendar matters. You may record a Notice of Completion within 15 days after completion (Civil Code 8182). That shortens the time to record a lien from 90 days after completion to 60 days after the notice for your own contractor and 30 days for everyone else (8412, 8414). A recorded lien expires unless the claimant files suit within 90 days (8460). If a lien lands on your title, talk to a California construction attorney: the deadlines and removal steps have traps.
The file is the defense
Preliminary notices, the payment schedule, every conditional and unconditional release, every check: keep them in one folder. If a lien ever appears, that folder is your case.
Keep every payment and release in one place
Project Guard ($39 once for one project, 90 days, no renewal, refundable any time in those 90 days) builds your payment schedule from the contract and, before each payment, lists the releases to collect. Paste a release or a preliminary notice and we file it with the right payment and say what is still missing. The free quick check reads a quote or contract and the contractor's CSLB record, with no account needed.
General information about California law, not legal advice. Checked against the official text on November 3, 2026. Sources: BPC 7159, BPC 7159.5, Civil Code 8124, 8200, CSLB: how to prevent a mechanics lien.