New York mechanics’ lien and bond deadlines
Work on Private Property
New York lien deadline
Filing deadline
Private jobs: file the notice of lien with the county clerk where the property lies any time during the work and up to 8 months after the claimant's own contract completion/final furnishing; single-family dwellings get only 4 months. Broker-commission liens: 8 months from lease execution. Public jobs: file with the department head and the state comptroller/fiscal officer before, or within 30 days after, completion and acceptance. Warranty or punch-list work does not extend the clock.
Notice prerequisites
No preliminary or pre-work notice from any tier; the notice of lien itself is the first required filing. (Lenders, by contrast, must record the building loan contract/mortgage with a trust-fund covenant to beat later liens.)
Service on the owner
Private lien: serve a copy on the owner, and by certified mail on the party that hired the claimant (plus the GC if the claimant contracted with a sub or sub-sub), within a window of 5 days before to 30 days after filing; proof of service must hit the county clerk within 35 days of filing or the lien terminates. Public lien: the same certified-mail service must occur 5 days before or simultaneously with filing, and the filed lien must contain proof of service or it is a nullity.
Enforcement
Both private and public liens expire 1 year after filing unless a foreclosure suit is started or the lien is extended (one filing extension for non-single-family private liens; otherwise court order, max two successive 1-year extensions). A Notice of Pendency (lis pendens) must be filed before the lien expires - private with the county clerk (3-year life, extendable but never refileable), public with the fiscal officer (does not expire). A demand to commence suit can shorten the year.
N.Y. Lien Law sec. 3, 5, 9-13, 17-21, 23, 34, 39-a, 44, 56, 70-79-a
N.Y. Lien Law art. 2 — Mechanics’ Liens — published by the New York State Senate.
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 — The prime contractor who furnished the bond, and nobody else. State Fin. Law § 137(3).
- When — 120 days from your LAST furnishing. § 137(3).
- How — Personal delivery, or registered mail to the contractor. § 137(3).
- If late — The whole bond claim, for a claimant not in privity.
- Sue by — 1 year from completion and acceptance, with a 90-day wait after your last work.
Is there a bond at all?
BOND: the bond is the default and the exemption is discretionary and narrow. Section 137(1) requires the comptroller or other appropriate official to require, before approving a public improvement contract for the State, a municipal corporation, a public benefit corporation or a commission appointed pursuant to law, 'a bond guaranteeing prompt payment of moneys due to all persons furnishing labor or materials to the contractor or any subcontractors'. It may then 'at the discretion of the head of the state agency, public benefit corporation or commission, or his or her designee, be dispensed with ... for a public improvement for the state of New York for which bids are solicited where the aggregate amount of the contract is under one hundred thousand dollars', and, where the contract is not subject to the multiple contract award requirements of section 135, 'where the head of the state agency, public benefit corporation or commission finds it to be in the public interest and where the aggregate amount of the contract awarded or to be awarded is less than two hundred thousand dollars'. Read the grammar: that dispensing power is written for STATE agency, public benefit corporation and commission work - it is not on its face a municipal power. Where a bond is dispensed with, 'twenty per centum may be retained from each progress payment or estimate until the entire contract work has been completed and accepted'. LIEN: no threshold; but Lien Law section 5 adds a distinct bond trigger - 'Where no public fund has been established for the financing of a public improvement with estimated cost in excess of two hundred fifty thousand dollars, the chief financial officer of the public owner shall require the private entity for whom the public improvement is being made to post, or cause to be posted, a bond or other form of undertaking guaranteeing prompt payment of moneys due to the contractor, his or her subcontractors and to all persons furnishing labor or materials'.
Who can claim on it
BOND (section 137(3)): 'Every person who has furnished labor or material, to the contractor or to a subcontractor of the contractor, in the prosecution of the work provided for in the contract' - two tiers below the prime, and the chain stops there. Benefit-fund trustees have a parallel right: section 137(5)(b) defines 'moneys due to persons furnishing labor' to include wages, health, welfare, non-occupational disability, retirement, vacation benefits, holiday pay, life insurance or other benefits required by the Labor Law, the contract or a collective bargaining agreement, and provides that 'A trustee or other person authorized to collect such payments shall have the right to sue on the payment bond in his own name and subject to the same conditions as if he were the person performing the labor upon which such sums are computed.' LIEN (Lien Law section 5): 'A person performing labor for or furnishing materials to a contractor, his or her subcontractor or legal representative ... and any trust fund to which benefits and wage supplements are due or payable' - the same two tiers, plus legal representatives, plus trust funds. The lien reaches 'the moneys of the state or of such corporation applicable to the construction or demolition of such improvement, to the extent of the amount due or to become due on such contract', and also any Court of Claims judgment awarded to the contractor for the State's breach or for labor or materials not contemplated by the contract.
What notice you owe
BOND: only 'a person having a direct contractual relationship with a subcontractor of the contractor furnishing the payment bond but no contractual relationship express or implied with such contractor' (section 137(3)). A claimant in privity with the prime owes NO notice - but every claimant, privity or not, must wait out 90 days after its own last furnishing before suing. LIEN: no preliminary notice of any kind; the notice of lien is itself the filing, and every claimant files it, privity or not.
Who it goes to
BOND: 'such contractor' - the prime who furnished the bond, and nobody else. Nothing is filed with the public owner and nothing is served on the surety. LIEN: filed in TWO places at once, and both are required - 'with the head of the department or bureau having charge of such construction or demolition AND with the comptroller of the state or with the financial officer of the public corporation, or other officer or person charged with the custody and disbursements of the state or corporate funds applicable to the contract under which the claim is made' (Lien Law section 12).
By when
BOND: 120 days running from the claimant's LAST furnishing - 'unless he shall have given written notice to such contractor within one hundred twenty days from the date on which the last of the labor was performed or the last of the material was furnished, for which his claim is made' (section 137(3)). LIEN: a window that opens at the start of the job and closes 30 days after acceptance - 'At any time before the construction or demolition of a public improvement is completed and accepted by the state or by the public corporation, and within thirty days after such completion and acceptance' (Lien Law section 12). The lien clock therefore runs off the OWNER'S completion and acceptance while the bond notice clock runs off the CLAIMANT'S last day; the two rarely coincide.
How it must be served
BOND: 'The notice shall be served by delivering the same personally to the contractor or by mailing the same by registered mail, postage prepaid, in an envelope addressed to the contractor at any place where he maintains an office or conducts his business or at his residence; provided, however, that where such notice is actually received by the contractor by other means, such notice shall be deemed sufficient' (section 137(3)). That final proviso is unusually forgiving - actual receipt cures a defective method, so a fax or email that demonstrably reached the contractor can satisfy the statute. LIEN: filing with the two offices; 'The notice must be verified by the lienor or his agent, to the effect that the statements therein contained are true to his own knowledge, except as to the matters therein stated to be alleged on information and belief, and that as to those matters he believes it to be true.'
What it has to say
BOND: two items only - 'stating with substantial accuracy the amount claimed and the name of the party to whom the material was furnished or for whom the labor was performed' (section 137(3)). LIEN (Lien Law section 12), a much longer list: 'the name and residence of the lienor, the name of the contractor or subcontractor for whom the labor was performed or materials furnished, the amount claimed to be due or to become due, the date when due, a description of the public improvement upon which the labor was performed and materials expended, the kind of labor performed and materials furnished, and materials actually manufactured for but not delivered to such public improvement, and give a general description of the contract pursuant to which such public improvement was constructed or demolished. If the lienor is a partnership or a corporation, the notice shall state the business address of such partnership or corporation, the names of the partners, and if a foreign corporation, its principal place of business within the state.' The section forgives one error: 'If the name of the contractor or subcontractor is not known to the lienor, it may be so stated in the notice, and a failure to state correctly the name of the contractor or subcontractor shall not affect the validity of the lien.'
If the notice is late, or never given
BOND: the whole bond claim for the non-privity claimant - such a person 'shall not have a right of action upon the bond' absent the 120-day notice. It costs nothing else; the claimant's contract rights against its own customer are untouched. LIEN: no lien on the public moneys. Because the two remedies are independent, losing the 120-day bond notice does not defeat a timely public improvement lien, and losing the lien does not defeat a timely bond claim - which is the practical reason to preserve both.
When the suit clock starts
BOND: the OWNER'S completion and acceptance of the whole improvement - 'Except as provided in section two hundred twenty-g of the labor law, no action on a payment bond furnished pursuant to this section shall be commenced after the expiration of one year from the date on which the public improvement has been completed and accepted by the public owner' (section 137(4)(b)). Note also the floor on the other side: no claimant may sue until it 'has not been paid in full therefor before the expiration of a period of ninety days after the day on which the last of the labor was performed or material was furnished by him' (section 137(3)). LIEN: the date the NOTICE OF LIEN was filed - Lien Law section 18.
How long you have to sue
BOND: 1 year from completion and acceptance by the public owner, with a 90-day waiting period after the claimant's own last furnishing. LIEN: 1 year from the filing of the notice of lien, and the lien lapses unless within that year either (a) a foreclosure action is commenced AND 'a notice of the pendency of such action is filed with the comptroller of the state or the financial officer of the public corporation with whom the notice of such lien was filed', or (b) an extension is filed with that same officer within one year of the original filing, whereupon 'such lien shall be redocketed as of the date of filing such extension'. 'No lien shall be continued by such extension for more than one year from the filing thereof.' After the extended period the lien is extinguished unless a court order continues it, and 'No lien shall be continued by such order for more than one year from the granting thereof, but a new order and entry may be made in each of two successive years.' A lienor made a defendant in another lienor's foreclosure has its lien continued if a notice of pendency was timely filed.
Where suit is brought
BOND: not fixed by statute - fixed by the BOND, if the bond says so. Section 137(4)(a): 'A payment bond required pursuant to this section may provide that the place of trial of an action on the bond shall be in the county in which the contract of the contractor who furnished the bond was to be performed or if such contract was to be performed in more than one county, then in any such county, and not elsewhere.' Read the bond before choosing a county. LIEN: an action to foreclose the lien, with the notice of pendency filed with the same officer who holds the lien; Lien Law section 21 sets out the discharge routes, including deposit of a sum not less than the amount claimed plus a year's interest and costs (21(4)) and a bond or undertaking 'in an amount equal to one hundred ten percent of such lien' (21(5)).
The trap
The bond's one-year bar runs from the public owner's completion and acceptance of the whole improvement while the 120-day bond notice runs from the claimant's own last day, and the Lien Law public improvement lien is a wholly separate remedy against the public moneys with its own filing window closing 30 days after that same completion and acceptance - so a claimant that perfects the bond claim has preserved nothing of the lien, and vice versa.
The act itself
New York's Little Miller Act is State Finance Law section 137. It is NOT the Lien Law. A claimant on New York public work may hold TWO SEPARATE AND INDEPENDENT REMEDIES, with different triggers, different recipients and different clocks: (1) the PAYMENT BOND CLAIM under State Finance Law section 137, against the surety; and (2) the PUBLIC IMPROVEMENT LIEN under Lien Law article 2, which attaches to the public MONEYS applicable to the improvement, never to the public property. Perfecting one does nothing for the other.
Where this comes from
BOND: N.Y. State Fin. Law section 137 (Bond to secure payment of certain claims arising from a public improvement; enforcement), subdivisions 1-5. LIEN: N.Y. Lien Law sections 5 (liens under contracts for public improvements), 12 (notice of lien on account of public improvements), 18 (duration), 21 (discharge). See also Labor Law sections 220 and 220-g, cross-referenced by section 137.
N.Y. Lien Law art. 2 — Mechanics’ Liens — published by the New York State Senate.
Statutory summary as of 29 July 2026. Not legal advice; confirm with a lawyer licensed in New York.