Contractors: the notice you must give before you can ever file a lien

By David J.S. Madgett

Minnesota attorney, license no. 390494 · Published August 7, 2026

The mechanic’s lien is the most powerful collection tool a construction business has. It attaches to the property itself, which means the owner cannot sell or refinance without dealing with you.

Minnesota conditions it on a notice most contractors have never read, and the penalty for skipping it is not a reduced remedy. It is no remedy.

If you contract directly with the owner

Minn. Stat. § 514.011, subd. 1 requires the notice either in your written contract, or — if there is no written contract — delivered personally or by certified mail within ten days after the work of improvement is agreed upon.

Format is prescribed: “in at least 10-point bold type, if printed, or in capital letters, if typewritten.” Ordinary body text buried in your terms does not satisfy it.

The required text:

(a) Any person or company supplying labor or materials for this improvement to your property may file a lien against your property if that person or company is not paid for the contributions.

(b) Under Minnesota law, you have the right to pay persons who supplied labor or materials for this improvement directly and deduct this amount from our contract price, or withhold the amounts due them from us until 120 days after completion of the improvement unless we give you a lien waiver signed by persons who supplied any labor or material for the improvement and who gave you timely notice.

And the consequence:

A person who fails to provide the notice shall not have the lien and remedy provided by this chapter.

Not “may have a defense raised.” Shall not have the lien. The most valuable right in your collection toolkit disappears because of a formatting requirement in a document you signed months earlier.

If you are a subcontractor

Subdivision 2 sets a different trigger. A subcontractor must give notice to the owner or the owner’s authorized agent, by personal delivery or certified mail, not later than 45 days after first furnishing labor, skill, or materials.

Same formatting rule — 10-point bold or capitals. The notice advises the owner of their rights under Minnesota law and warns that any person or company supplying labor or materials may file a lien if unpaid. It must also identify you, the contractor who hired you, what you are providing, and your estimated charges.

The subcontractor rule is more forgiving. Lien rights are preserved where “a good faith effort is made to comply, unless the owner or another lien claimant proves damage as a direct result of the failure to comply.” That good-faith standard has no counterpart in subdivision 1 — a prime contractor who simply did not give the notice has no equivalent argument.

Why the 45 days is harder than it looks

The clock starts when you first furnish labor, skill, or materials — not when you finish, not when you invoice, not when payment goes late. On a job that runs eight months, the notice deadline expires in month two, long before anyone is worried about getting paid.

By the time a payment problem is obvious, the window has usually closed. That is the entire trap.

Build it into the process

• Put the subdivision 1 notice in your standard contract, correctly formatted, and never use a contract without it. This solves the problem permanently for direct work.
• If you start work on a handshake, send the notice by certified mail within ten days. Diary it the day the job is agreed.
• For subcontract work, send the 45-day notice on every job, immediately. Not when you suspect a payment problem — on mobilization, as routine paperwork. It costs a stamp.
• Keep the certified mail receipts. The notice you cannot prove you sent is the notice you did not send.
• Check your formatting. 10-point bold if printed, capitals if typed. A contract template that reflowed the text into regular type has quietly destroyed the notice.

This page covers the pre-lien notice only. The lien statement itself has its own content requirements and its own deadline, and foreclosing a lien has another after that. Missing any of them ends the remedy just as completely — if you are approaching a deadline on an unpaid job, that is a same-week conversation with a lawyer, not a next-month one.