California mechanics’ lien and bond deadlines
Work on Private Property
California lien deadline
Filing deadline
Claim of Lien is recorded with the county Recorder where the project sits, any time after the claimant's own work is done but no later than 90 days after completion of the entire work of improvement (completion = actual completion, owner occupancy plus labor cessation, 60 days' continuous cessation, or recorded notice of cessation after 30 days). A recorded Notice of Completion or Cessation shortens the window to 60 days for the direct contractor and 30 days for everyone else (owner must notify preliminary-notice claimants within 10 days of that recording).
Notice prerequisites
All lien claimants except direct (prime) contractors and wage laborers must serve a Preliminary Notice on the owner, direct contractor, and any construction lender within 20 days of first furnishing; even a direct contractor must serve it on the construction lender if one exists. A late notice only reaches back 20 days before service. Service is by personal/substituted service or certified/registered/express/overnight mail with affidavit proof; a supplier working under multiple subcontractors must notice each one.
Service on the owner
The Claim of Lien must also be served on the owner or reputed owner (registered, certified, or first-class mail with certificate of mailing; lender or direct contractor as fallback addresses), with a proof-of-service affidavit included in the recorded claim; failure to serve makes the lien unenforceable.
Enforcement
Foreclosure complaint must be filed within 90 days of recording the lien (extendable via a recorded Notice of Credit, but never beyond 1 year after completion), in the county of the property, naming all owners and security-interest holders; a Notice of Pendency of Action (lis pendens) must be recorded within 20 days of filing. Case may be dismissed if not brought to trial within 2 years.
Cal. Civ. Code secs. 8400-8494 (with definitions and waivers at 8000-8154); Cal. Const. art. XIV, sec. 3
California Civil Code — published by the California Legislative Counsel.
Work on Public Property
No mechanics lien attaches to public property in any state. On a government job the remedy is the prime contractor’s payment bond, and it runs on its own act with its own deadlines — not the lien deadlines above.
- Who — Preliminary notice: the public entity and the direct contractor. Bond notice: principal and surety.
- When — TWO notices, and the first has NO due date. Read below before relying on either. §§ 9304, 9560.
- How — Per Civ. Code ch. 2 (§ 8100 et seq.). § 9562.
- If late — NOT the whole claim — a claimant who missed preliminary notice still has a bond claim. § 9560(b).
- Sue by — 6 months after the § 9356 stop-payment-notice period closes — and that period varies.
Is there a bond at all?
$25,000. § 9550(a): 'A direct contractor that is awarded a public works contract involving an expenditure in excess of twenty-five thousand dollars ($25,000) shall, before commencement of work, give a payment bond to and approved by the officer or public entity by whom the contract was awarded.' § 9550(d): 'a design professional is not deemed a direct contractor and is not required to give a payment bond.' § 9550(e): the section 'does not apply to a public works contract with a 'state entity' as defined in subdivision (d) of Section 7103 of the Public Contract Code.'
Who can claim on it
§ 9100(a): persons not paid in full who provided work for a public works contract as authorized by a direct contractor, subcontractor, architect, project manager or other person having charge of the work; laborers; and persons described in Public Contract Code § 4107.7. The chain stops at the top, not the bottom - § 9100(b): 'A direct contractor may not give a stop payment notice or assert a claim against a payment bond under this title.' AND IT DOES STOP SOMEWHERE AT THE BOTTOM TOO. § 9566(a): 'A claimant does not have a right to recover on a payment bond unless the claimant provided work to the direct contractor EITHER DIRECTLY OR THROUGH ONE OR MORE SUBCONTRACTORS pursuant to a public works contract.' The chain may be long, but it must be a chain of SUBCONTRACTORS running back to the direct contractor - a supplier who sold to another supplier is not obviously on it. § 9566(b) preserves design professionals' stop payment notice rights and priorities without extending the bond. AND IF NO BOND WAS GIVEN AT ALL, § 9552 is the fallback: the public entity and its officers may not 'audit, allow, or pay a claim of the direct contractor', and 'a claimant shall receive payment of a claim pursuant to a stop payment notice in the manner provided by Chapter 4 (commencing with Section 9350)' - so the absence of a bond redirects you to the stop payment notice rather than leaving you with nothing.
What notice you owe
Every claimant that was required to give preliminary notice under Chapter 3 — in practice, everyone except a claimant in direct contract with the direct contractor and except laborers. § 9560(e): 'Pursuant to Section 9300, this section shall not apply to a laborer, as defined under Section 8024.'
Who it goes to
Preliminary notice under Chapter 3 goes to the public entity and to the direct contractor. If preliminary notice was not given, the substitute notice under § 9560(b) and (c) goes to the SURETY and the BOND PRINCIPAL.
By when
TWO DIFFERENT NOTICES, AND THE FIRST HAS NO DUE DATE AT ALL - which is the most misunderstood thing about California public work. § 9304: 'A claimant may give a stop payment notice or assert a claim against a payment bond ONLY FOR WORK PROVIDED WITHIN 20 DAYS BEFORE GIVING PRELIMINARY NOTICE AND AT ANY TIME THEREAFTER.' The twenty days is a LOOK-BACK, NOT A DEADLINE. Nothing expires. The notice may be given today, on any day of the job. What a late notice costs is everything furnished more than twenty days before it was given - so a claimant two months in who believes it has 'missed the 20-day notice' and walks away is discarding every dollar from twenty days ago forward, which on most jobs is nearly all of it. GIVE IT NOW, WHATEVER DAY IT IS. § 9300(b) exempts two claimants from it entirely: a laborer, and a claimant in a direct contractual relationship with the direct contractor. § 9300(a) sends it to TWO recipients - the public entity and the direct contractor to which the claimant provides work - and § 9300(d) is what makes it matter: 'Compliance with this section or with Section 9562 is a necessary prerequisite to the validity of a claim against a payment bond under this title.' The substitute notice under § 9560(b) runs from COMPLETION rather than from furnishing: 'within 15 days after recordation of a notice of completion. If no notice of completion has been recorded, the time for giving written notice to the surety and the bond principal is extended to 75 days after completion of the work of improvement.'
How it must be served
§ 9562: 'Notice to the principal and surety under Section 9560 shall comply with the requirements of Chapter 2 (commencing with Section 8100) of Title 1' - the Civil Code's general service chapter. § 8106: notice 'shall be given by any of the following means: (a) Personal delivery. (b) Mail in the manner provided in Section 8110. (c) Leaving the notice and mailing a copy in the manner provided in Section 415.20 of the Code of Civil Procedure for service of summons and complaint in a civil action.' § 8110 defines the mail: 'notice by mail under this part shall be given by REGISTERED OR CERTIFIED MAIL, EXPRESS MAIL, OR OVERNIGHT DELIVERY BY AN EXPRESS SERVICE CARRIER' - ordinary first-class mail is not on the list. § 8108 fixes where it goes: the person's residence or place of business, and for a PUBLIC ENTITY, 'the office of the public entity or another address specified by the public entity in the contract or elsewhere for service of notices.' Notice is complete when sent: § 8116 makes notice complete WHEN SENT, not when received - 'if given by mail, when deposited in the mail or with an express service carrier in the manner provided in Section 1013 of the Code of Civil Procedure.'
What it has to say
Not enumerated in § 9560; § 9562 routes both contents and manner of service to Civ. Code § 8100 et seq. § 8102(a) requires, to the extent known: the name and address of the owner or reputed owner; the name and address of the direct contractor; the name and address of the construction lender, if any; a description of the site sufficient for identification, including the street address if any - and note that 'if a sufficient legal description of the site is given, the effectiveness of the notice is not affected by the fact that the street address is erroneous or is omitted'; the name, address and relationship to the parties of the person giving the notice; and, from a claimant, a general statement of the work provided, the name of the person to or for whom it was provided, and a statement or estimate of the demand after deducting all just credits and offsets. THE PRELIMINARY NOTICE ADDS TWO MORE, § 9303: '(a) A general description of the work to be provided. (b) An estimate of the total price of the work provided and to be provided.' On state work built by the Department of Public Works or the Department of General Services, § 9302(b) sends the public entity's copy to the DISBURSING OFFICER of that department rather than to the entity generally.
If the notice is late, or never given
NOT the whole claim. A claimant who missed preliminary notice still has a bond claim. § 9560(b): 'If preliminary notice was not given as provided in Chapter 3 (commencing with Section 9300), a claimant may enforce a claim by giving written notice to the surety and the bond principal within 15 days after recordation of a notice of completion. If no notice of completion has been recorded, the time for giving written notice to the surety and the bond principal is extended to 75 days after completion of the work of improvement.' § 9560(c) states the same cure in parallel terms for a claimant with no direct contractual relationship with the contractor, referring the manner of notice to § 9562. Laborers are outside the requirement altogether under § 9560(e). BUT THE CURE IN § 9560(c) IS SWITCHED OFF IN TWO SITUATIONS. § 9560(d): subdivision (c) 'shall not apply in either of the following circumstances: (1) All progress payments, except for those disputed in good faith, have been made to a subcontractor who has a direct contractual relationship with the general contractor to whom the claimant has provided materials or services. (2) The subcontractor who has a direct contractual relationship with the general contractor to whom the claimant has provided materials or services has been terminated from the project pursuant to the contract, and all progress payments, except those disputed in good faith, have been made.' Subdivision (c) is the cure for the REMOTE claimant - the one with no direct contract with the general contractor - which is exactly the claimant most likely to have missed preliminary notice in the first place. And both switches turn on whether the GENERAL CONTRACTOR PAID THE SUBCONTRACTOR, a fact the claimant usually cannot know. If your customer was paid and did not pass it on, the second chance may not exist: the preliminary notice was the whole of your protection. The § 9304 preliminary notice has no deadline, so give it as early as possible.
When the suit clock starts
Not last furnishing, and not completion. § 9558: 'A claimant may commence an action to enforce the liability on the bond at any time after the claimant ceases to provide work, but not later than six months after the period in which a stop payment notice may be given under Section 9356.'
How long you have to sue
Six months measured from the close of the § 9356 stop-payment-notice period — and that period is itself variable. § 9356: a stop payment notice is not effective unless given before the expiration of whichever applies: 30 days after recordation of a notice of completion, acceptance or cessation; or, if no such notice is recorded, 90 days after cessation or completion. So the outside date is about seven months after completion where a notice of completion was recorded, and about nine months where none was.
Where suit is brought
Not prescribed. § 9564(a): 'A claimant may maintain an action to enforce the liability of a surety on a payment bond whether or not the claimant has given the public entity a stop payment notice.' § 9564(b): the action may be maintained 'separately from and without commencement of an action against the public entity by whom the contract was awarded or against any officer of the public entity.' § 9564(c): 'In an action to enforce the liability on the bond, the court shall award the prevailing party a reasonable attorney's fee.'
The trap
The preliminary notice under § 9304 has NO DEADLINE - it is a twenty-day LOOK-BACK, so giving it late costs you only what you furnished more than twenty days earlier - yet the cure for having skipped it is switched off by § 9560(d) whenever the general contractor has already paid your customer, which is a fact you cannot check, so the notice with no deadline is the one thing you should do today; and separately the suit deadline is not measured from anyone's last day of work at all: it is six months after the § 9356 stop-notice period, and the public entity's recording of a notice of completion silently collapses that period from 90 days to 30 and pulls the whole outside date two months forward.
The act itself
No popular name. The public works payment bond provisions of the Civil Code, enacted in the 2012 recodification that replaced former Civ. Code § 3247 et seq.
Where this comes from
Cal. Civ. Code §§ 9550–9566 (Division 4, Part 6, Title 3, Chapter 5 — Payment Bond). The claimant class is fixed by § 9100; preliminary notice by Chapter 3, §§ 9300–9306, which runs through the general notice machinery at § 8100 et seq.; the stop payment notice period that governs the suit deadline is § 9356.
California Civil Code — published by the California Legislative Counsel.
Statutory summary as of 31 July 2026. Not legal advice; confirm with a lawyer licensed in California.