Connecticut mechanics’ lien and bond deadlines
Work on Private Property
Connecticut lien deadline
Based on the general 90-day period from last furnishing. Exceptions apply — treat this as a planning estimate, not legal advice.
Filing deadline
Certificate of Mechanic's Lien is recorded on the land records with the town clerk of the town where the property lies within 90 days after the claimant last renders services or furnishes materials (measured from substantial completion of the claimant's own contract; trivial work or unreasonable delay does not extend it). Contents, all five and the fifth is a RECITAL people leave out: (A) a description of the premises, the amount claimed as a lien, the name or names of the person against whom the lien is being filed, and the date of the COMMENCEMENT of performance; (B) a statement that the amount claimed is ‘justly due, as nearly as the same can be ascertained’; and (C) subscribed and sworn to by the claimant. No residential/commercial deadline split. § 49-36 THEN CAPS AND RANKS THE FUND, and the ranking runs the sub’s way: no lien may attach ‘to a greater amount in the whole than the price which the owner agreed to pay’, and where the united claims exceed that price the claimants OTHER THAN THE ORIGINAL CONTRACTOR are paid first in full, with any shortfall apportioned among them in proportion to their debts — the original contractor is paid last out of what is left.
Notice prerequisites
Nothing is required before work starts. An original contractor may file an affidavit with the town clerk within 15 days of starting work; if it does, subcontractors/suppliers must serve their Notice of Intent to Claim Mechanic's Lien on the original contractor as well as the owner. Everyone except the original contractor (and a subcontractor whose written subcontract the owner approved in writing) must serve the owner with a Notice of Intent (within the same 90-day post-work window as the lien certificate); a properly served lien certificate has been held to satisfy the notice-of-intent duty, but serving both is recommended. Two points from § 49-35 worth having: where there are two or more owners or two or more original contractors the notice must be served on EACH of them; and § 49-35(b) settles a question the consent language in § 49-33 otherwise raises — a subcontractor, or anyone furnishing materials or services under a contract with the original contractor or a subcontractor, may NOT be required to obtain the owner’s agreement or consent in order to claim a lien.
Service on the owner
A copy of the certificate must be served on the owner no later than 30 days after recording. Service formalities are strict: an indifferent person, state marshal, or proper officer must make in-hand or abode service if the recipient lives in the town where the property lies, certified mail if outside it, and publication if certified mail comes back unclaimed - improper service voids the lien. And the service is not finished when it is made: § 49-35(a) requires the notice, ‘with the return of the person who served it endorsed thereon’, to be RETURNED TO THE MAKER not later than thirty days after the certificate is filed under § 49-34 — so the marshal’s endorsed return has to come back to you inside the same thirty days, not merely be started within them.
Enforcement
Foreclosure suit plus a lis pendens on the land records must both occur within 1 year of recording the lien (or 60 days after final disposition of an appeal of a reduction/discharge order); the same 1-year clock governs suit on a substituted bond. Attorney fees are recoverable in bond actions and, per appellate authority, in foreclosure.
Conn. Gen. Stat. secs. 49-33 to 49-39 (lien fund at 49-36; discharge at 49-35a, 49-37)
Connecticut General Statutes, Chapter 847 — Liens — published by the Connecticut General Assembly.
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 — BOTH the surety AND the contractor named as principal. One is not enough. § 49-42(a).
- When — 180 days from your last furnishing — AND you cannot serve until 60 days after a missed payment date. Two conditions; the 60 does not extend the 180. §§ 49-42(a), 49-41a.
- How — Registered or certified mail to any office of the surety or principal. § 49-42(a).
- If late — The whole claim.
- Sue by — 1 year from your last furnishing. § 49-42(b).
Is there a bond at all?
$100,000. § 49-41(a): 'Each contract exceeding one hundred thousand dollars in amount for the construction, alteration or repair of any public building or public work' of the state or a subdivision requires a payment bond. No bond is required where the total estimated cost of labor and materials under a general bid is less than $100,000, nor where it is less than $100,000 under a sub-bid, nor for a general bid or sub-bid submitted by a consultant as defined in § 4b-55. § 49-41(d) is the safety net: where a political subdivision fails to obtain the required bond, unpaid workers and materialmen have the same rights against the subdivision as they would have had against the surety.
Who can claim on it
TWO GROUPS, NOT ONE, AND THE SECOND IS THE ONE PEOPLE ASSUME IS SHUT OUT. § 49-42(a)(1) covers, first, 'any person who performed work or supplied materials FOR WHICH A REQUISITION WAS SUBMITTED TO, OR FOR WHICH AN ESTIMATE WAS PREPARED BY, THE AWARDING AUTHORITY and who does not receive full payment for such work or materials within sixty days of the applicable payment date provided for in subsection (a) of section 49-41a'; and, second and separately, 'ANY PERSON WHO SUPPLIED MATERIALS OR PERFORMED SUBCONTRACTING WORK NOT INCLUDED ON A REQUISITION OR ESTIMATE who has not received full payment for such materials or work within sixty days after the date such materials were supplied or such work was performed.' SO NOT APPEARING ON A REQUISITION DOES NOT PUT YOU OUTSIDE THE BOND. It changes what your sixty-day waiting period runs from: for the first group it runs from the § 49-41a(a) payment date, and for the second from the day you actually supplied or performed. Nothing in either limb turns on your tier. § 49-42(a) closes the point: 'any person having a direct contractual relationship with a subcontractor but no contractual relationship express or implied with the contractor furnishing the payment bond shall have a right of action upon the payment bond upon giving written notice of claim as provided in this section.' § 49-42(c): the word 'material' as used in §§ 49-33 to 49-43 'shall include construction equipment and machinery that is rented or leased for use', so rental houses are in.
What notice you owe
Every claimant. Connecticut draws no privity distinction at all — a subcontractor in direct contract with the prime serves exactly the same notice of claim as a remote supplier. There is no in-privity exemption to rely on here.
Who it goes to
BOTH the surety that issued the bond AND the contractor named as principal in the bond. Serving one and not the other does not satisfy the section.
By when
180 days, running from LAST furnishing — 'not later than one hundred eighty days after the last date any such materials were supplied or any such work was performed by the claimant.' There is also a floor at the front: the claimant reaches the right to serve only once it 'does not receive full payment for such work or materials within sixty days of the applicable payment date provided for in subsection (a) of section 49-41a.' The 180 days and the 60-day non-payment condition are independent; the 60 days does not extend the 180.
How it must be served
'served by registered or certified mail, postage prepaid in envelopes addressed to any office at which the surety, principal or claimant conducts business, or in any manner in which civil process may be served.'
What it has to say
The notice must 'state with substantial accuracy the amount claimed and the name of the party for whom the work was performed or to whom the materials were supplied, and shall provide a detailed description of the bonded project.' The detailed project description is expressly required.
If the notice is late, or never given
The whole claim. Service of the notice of claim is the mechanism by which the right to payment under the bond is enforced, and it is what triggers the surety's duty to act within ninety days. SERVING IT ALSO STARTS THREE THINGS RUNNING IN YOUR FAVOR, which is a reason to serve early rather than at day 179. (1) THE SURETY IS ON A CLOCK: 'Not later than ninety days after service of the notice of claim, the surety shall make payment under the bond and satisfy the claim, or any portion of the claim which is not subject to a good faith dispute, and shall serve a notice on the claimant denying liability for any unpaid portion of the claim.' A surety that simply says nothing is in breach of that duty. (2) FEE INDEMNITY: 'if the surety fails to discharge its obligations under this section, then the surety shall indemnify the claimant for the reasonable attorneys' fees and costs the claimant incurs thereafter to recover any sums found due and owing to the claimant.' (3) INTEREST RUNS FROM THE DATE OF SERVICE, not from judgment: the court 'shall award the prevailing party the costs for bringing such proceeding and allow interest at the rate of interest specified in the labor or materials contract under which the claim arises or, if no such interest rate is specified, at the rate of interest as provided in section 37-3a upon the amount recovered, computed from the date of service of the notice of claim' - with any portion falling due later carrying interest from when it fell due. The court may also award reasonable attorneys' fees to EITHER party where the claim, the denial, or the defense 'is without substantial basis in fact or law', so the fee exposure runs both ways.
When the suit clock starts
The last date that materials were supplied or work was performed by the claimant — the SAME event the 180-day notice period runs from. Not the date the notice was served, and not the date the surety denied liability.
How long you have to sue
One year: 'no such suit may be commenced after the expiration of one year after the last date that materials were supplied or any work was performed by the claimant' - BUT THERE IS AN EXCEPTION THAT GIVES A RETAINAGE CLAIMANT MORE TIME, and it is easy to miss because it sits at the end of the same sentence: 'except that any such suit SOLELY SEEKING PAYMENT FOR RETAINAGE, as defined in section 42-158i, shall be commenced not later than one year after the date payment of such retainage was due, pursuant to the provisions of subsection (a) of section 49-41a.' Retainage normally falls due long after the claimant's last day, so a suit for retainage alone can be timely when a suit for the rest of the claim would already be barred. The exception is narrow - the suit must seek retainage AND NOTHING ELSE.
Where suit is brought
'Every suit instituted under this section shall be brought in the name of the person suing, in the superior court for the judicial district where the contract was to be performed, irrespective of the amount in controversy in the suit.'
The trap
Both Connecticut clocks start on the very same day — the claimant's last furnishing — so the 180-day notice buys no extension whatever of the one-year suit period, and a claimant who serves at day 180 and then respectfully waits out the surety's ninety-day window to pay or deny under § 49-42(a)(1) stands at day 270 with under a hundred days left, no tolling, and a venue requirement it may not have checked.
The act itself
Connecticut's Little Miller Act.
Where this comes from
Conn. Gen. Stat. §§ 49-41 to 49-43. Bond requirement at § 49-41; the payment dates that start the clock at § 49-41a; the claim, notice and suit procedure at § 49-42.
Connecticut General Statutes, Chapter 847 — Liens — published by the Connecticut General Assembly.
Statutory summary as of 31 July 2026. Not legal advice; confirm with a lawyer licensed in Connecticut.