Tennessee mechanics’ lien and bond deadlines
Work on Private Property
Tennessee lien deadline
Filing deadline
Remote contractors must serve on the owner and record with the county Register of Deeds a Notice of Lien and Sworn Statement within 90 days after completion of the improvement. Prime contractors need no formal lien notice against the owner (unless a Notice of Completion is recorded) but, to beat third-party purchasers/encumbrancers, must record the contract or a Notice of Lien and Sworn Statement within 90 days of completion or abandonment. READ § 66-11-112(a) FOR WHAT THAT NINETY DAYS ACTUALLY PROTECTS, because it is not the lien. It preserves PRIORITY ‘as concerns subsequent purchasers or encumbrancers for a valuable consideration without notice of the lien, THOUGH NOT AS CONCERNS THE OWNER’, and the penalty for missing it is graded rather than fatal: ‘If the sworn statement is not recorded within that time, the lien’s priority as to subsequent purchasers or encumbrancers shall be determined as if it attached as of the time the sworn statement is recorded.’ A prime contractor who records late still has a lien against the owner; what it loses is the relation back. Deadlines run from project completion/abandonment, not the claimant's own last work — and § 66-11-112(b) defines abandonment, which nothing else does: ‘a cessation of operation for a period of ninety (90) days AND an intent on the part of the owner or prime contractor to cease operations permanently, or at least for an indefinite period.’ Both limbs. A ninety-day pause with an intention to resume is not abandonment and does not start the clock.
Notice prerequisites
Before contracting for or starting work on owner-occupied residential property, a prime contractor must give the owner the written notice set out in Tenn. Code Ann. § 66-11-203. The statute does not say that a missing notice defeats the lien, but give it: some practitioners treat it as essential. A prime contractor's lien lasts one year after the improvement is complete or abandoned (§ 66-11-106). Remote contractors (anyone who did not contract with the owner) must serve a notice of nonpayment on the owner and on the prime contractor in contractual privity with them within 90 days after the last day of each month in which work or materials were furnished and remain unpaid. This does not apply to one- to four-family residential units (§ 66-11-145(a)). Optional pre-work certified-mail notice to a mortgagee can win lien priority over the mortgage if the mortgagee consents or fails to object within 10 days. Before transferring any interest to a subsequent purchaser or encumbrancer for value, the owner must give 30 days’ notice to prime contractors and to every lienor who has served a § 66-11-145 notice (§ 66-11-112(a)); serving that notice puts you on the list.
Service on the owner
The Notice of Lien and Sworn Statement must be both served on the owner and filed with the Register of Deeds within the same 90-day window. Permitted service methods: registered/certified mail return receipt requested, hand delivery proven by notarized sworn statement, or a commercial delivery service giving written delivery confirmation.
Enforcement
Remote contractors must sue within 90 days of giving/filing the Notice of Lien and Sworn Statement; prime contractors within 1 year after completion or abandonment. Suit must include a Writ of Attachment, Fiat, and Attachment Bond (lesser of $1,000 or the lien amount); a timely-filed suit seeking attachment suffices even if the attachment issues later. The owner is a necessary party. Once suit is filed the lien persists until final decree.
T.C.A. 66-11-101 through 66-11-208; Prompt Pay Act T.C.A. 66-34-101 et seq.; public work bonds T.C.A. 12-4-201 et seq.
Tennessee Code Unannotated — Free Public Access — published by LexisNexis, for the Tennessee Code Commission. This state publishes no code on its own servers; this is the free public access it points to.
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 — EITHER the contractor who executed the bond OR the public official in charge — one is enough. § 12-4-205.
- When — 90 days — but from COMPLETION OF THE PUBLIC WORK, not from your last day. § 12-4-205.
- How — Return-receipt certified mail, or personal delivery. § 12-4-205.
- If late — You lose the benefit of §§ 12-4-201 to 12-4-206 — which is what creates the claim.
- Sue by — 6 months on city, county and state authority work. 1 year on Department work. § 12-4-206.
Is there a bond at all?
'No contract shall be let for any public work in this state, by any city, county or state authority, until the contractor shall have first executed a good and solvent bond to the effect that the contractor will pay for all the labor and materials used by the contractor, or any immediate or remote subcontractor under the contractor, in such contract, in lawful money of the United States. THE BOND TO BE SO GIVEN SHALL BE FOR NO LESS THAN TWENTY-FIVE PERCENT (25%) OF THE CONTRACT PRICE on all contracts in excess of one hundred thousand dollars ($100,000). Where advertisement is made, the condition of the bond shall be stated in the advertisement; provided, that §§ 12-4-201 - 12-4-206 shall not apply to contracts of one hundred thousand dollars ($100,000) or less.' (§ 12-4-201(a)(1)). Two things to hold onto: the statutory minimum is TWENTY-FIVE PERCENT, not 100%, so the penal sum can be exhausted long before the claimants are paid; and the whole of §§ 12-4-201 through 12-4-206 - including the right of action and the notice - simply does not apply at or below $100,000. § 12-4-201(a)(2)-(5) add solvency requirements (a Treasury-listed surety, within its listed underwriting limit, licensed in Tennessee) and provide that 'Any bond which is not in accordance with this section shall be null and void as against the public policy of this state and shall be rejected by the building or bidding authority.' § 12-4-201(c) allows Treasury securities, Tennessee general obligation bonds, certificates of deposit, a letter of credit, or cash to be substituted 'at the percentage rate required for such bond' - so there may be no surety at all. § 12-4-201(b) forbids the awarding authority from steering the bond to a particular surety, agent, broker or producer. For DOT work the amount is discretionary: § 54-5-119(a) requires 'good and solvent surety bond in an amount fixed by the department'.
Who can claim on it
Expressly including REMOTE tiers, with no cut-off. § 12-4-201(a)(1) conditions the bond on payment for 'all the labor and materials used by the contractor, OR ANY IMMEDIATE OR REMOTE SUBCONTRACTOR UNDER THE CONTRACTOR'. § 12-4-204: 'Any laborer or furnisher of labor or material to the contractor, or to any immediate or remote subcontractor under the contractor, may bring an action on the bond, and have recovery in such laborer's or furnisher's own name, upon giving security, or taking the oath prescribed for poor persons as provided by law; but in the event of such suit, the city, county, or state shall not be liable for any costs accruing thereunder.' Note the price of admission: the claimant must give security for costs or take the pauper's oath. On DOT work § 54-5-119(a) conditions the bond on 'the payment for all materials purchased and for all labor employed in the contemplated work', without tier language.
What notice you owe
EVERY claimant, including one in direct contract with the bonded prime. § 12-4-205 opens 'Such furnisher of labor or material, or such laborer, TO SECURE THE ADVANTAGE OF §§ 12-4-201 - 12-4-206, SHALL ... give written notice' and never distinguishes privity from non-privity. The statute does not limit the notice to remote claimants. Assume the prime's own subcontractor and the prime's own supplier each owe the § 12-4-205 notice.
Who it goes to
EITHER of two recipients, in the alternative - one is enough: 'either to the contractor who executed the bond, or to the public official who had charge of the letting or awarding of the contract'. The statute then makes the second limb concrete: 'In the case of public work undertaken by a municipality, or any of its commissions, notice, or statement herein required, so mailed or delivered TO THE MAYOR thereof, shall be deemed sufficient. In the case of public work by any county or any of its commissions, notice or statement herein required, so mailed, or delivered TO THE COUNTY MAYOR of such county, shall be deemed sufficient. In the case of public work by the state, or any of its commissions, notice and statement herein required, so mailed, or delivered TO THE GOVERNOR, shall be deemed sufficient.' No notice to the surety is required. On DOT work the analogous step is filing a notice of claim with the department AND the contractor's surety in response to the § 54-5-122 published notice.
By when
Ninety (90) days - but NOT from the claimant's last furnishing. The clock runs from COMPLETION OF THE PUBLIC WORK: the claimant 'shall, after such labor or material is furnished, or such labor is done, and WITHIN NINETY (90) DAYS AFTER THE COMPLETION OF SUCH PUBLIC WORK, give written notice...' (§ 12-4-205). The notice may not be given before the claimant's labor or material is furnished, and it must be given within ninety days after the project itself is complete. Practically the window can be much longer than ninety days from the claimant's own last day (an early-trade sub) or, if the claimant is still finishing punch work near completion, almost exactly ninety days. On DOT work the timing is different again and is set by publication: § 54-5-122(1) requires the department to publish thirty (30) days' notice in a newspaper in the county where the work is done 'that final settlement is about to be made and notifying all claimants to file notice of their claims with the department and the contractor's surety', and 'The period for filing a notice of claim shall not be less than thirty (30) days after the last published notice. No notice of claim shall be valid unless it is verified by oath and filed after the publication of the first notice.'
How it must be served
'written notice by return receipt certified mail, or by personal delivery' (§ 12-4-205). Return-receipt certified mail or hand delivery; registered mail is not listed. On DOT work, a § 54-5-122 notice of claim 'shall be valid' only if 'verified by oath and filed after the publication of the first notice'.
What it has to say
More demanding than the two-item 'substantial accuracy' notices of most states - Tennessee wants an account. The notice must set forth 'the nature, AN ITEMIZED ACCOUNT of the material furnished or labor done, and the balance due therefor; AND A DESCRIPTION OF THE PROPERTY IMPROVED' (§ 12-4-205). Four elements: nature, itemized account, balance due, and a description of the improved property. A one-line demand for a lump sum does not comply.
If the notice is late, or never given
The whole benefit of the statute. § 12-4-205 conditions 'the advantage of §§ 12-4-201 - 12-4-206' on the notice, and those are the sections that create the bond right, the right of action and the joinder machinery. Because the notice obligation is not limited to remote claimants, a first-tier subcontractor that gives no notice is at risk of losing the statutory bond claim entirely.
The small-claim floor
Contracts of one hundred thousand dollars ($100,000) or less - '§§ 12-4-201 - 12-4-206 shall not apply to contracts of one hundred thousand dollars ($100,000) or less' (§ 12-4-201(a)(1)). That is not merely a bond exemption; it switches off the entire statutory claim mechanism. No dollar floor applies to an individual claim.
When the suit clock starts
Completion of the public work, or the furnishing of the labor or materials - the statute offers both and does not say which controls: § 12-4-206 requires that 'action shall be brought or claims so filed WITHIN SIX (6) MONTHS FOLLOWING THE COMPLETION OF SUCH PUBLIC WORK, OR OF THE FURNISHING OF SUCH LABOR OR MATERIALS'. On DOT work the trigger is different and is publication-based: § 54-5-119(b) - 'no action on bonds shall be commenced after the expiration of one (1) year following the date of the first publication of the notice provided for in § 54-5-122 with respect to the involved project.'
How long you have to sue
Six (6) months on city, county and state authority work under § 12-4-206. One (1) year on Department of Transportation work under § 54-5-119(b). Tennessee's ordinary public-work suit window is among the shortest in the country and is only three months longer than the notice period itself.
Where suit is brought
Part 2 prescribes no court or venue. § 12-4-204 provides only that the claimant may 'bring an action on the bond, and have recovery in such laborer's or furnisher's own name, upon giving security, or taking the oath prescribed for poor persons as provided by law', with the city, county or state not liable for costs. § 12-4-206 provides for consolidation: 'Several persons entitled may join in one (1) suit on such bond, or one (1) of them may file a bill in equity in behalf of all such, who may, upon execution of a bond for costs, by petition assert their rights in the proceeding'. On DOT work § 54-5-119(b) is express: 'All actions on bonds furnished under this section shall name the commissioner as a party-defendant and may be instituted in any court of competent jurisdiction in this state'.
The trap
Tennessee's ninety-day notice runs from COMPLETION OF THE PUBLIC WORK rather than from the claimant's last furnishing, it is owed by every claimant including one in privity with the prime, and it must contain an itemized account and a description of the property - and the suit must follow within six months of completion, on a bond that need only be twenty-five percent of the contract price.
The act itself
Commonly called Tennessee's Little Miller Act, but it is older than the Miller Act and does not follow it: Acts 1925, ch. 121, now T.C.A. title 12, chapter 4, part 2, 'Surety Bonds'. State HIGHWAY work is not under it at all - that is T.C.A. §§ 54-5-119 and 54-5-122, a separate and differently-timed regime.
Where this comes from
T.C.A. §§ 12-4-201 to 12-4-208. Claim core: § 12-4-201 (contractors' bonds; securities or cash in lieu; the $100,000 threshold and the 25% bond), § 12-4-202 (failure to require bond), § 12-4-203 (contractor disclaiming subcontractor's liability), § 12-4-204 (action on bond by laborer or furnisher), § 12-4-205 (notice of claim), § 12-4-206 (joinder of parties; limitation of actions). Also §§ 12-4-207 and 12-4-208 (bond to pay taxes, licenses and other amounts due; action thereon). Department of Transportation work: T.C.A. § 54-5-119 (bond; one-year limitation) with § 54-5-122 (published notice of final settlement and filing of claims).
Tennessee Code Unannotated — Free Public Access — published by LexisNexis, for the Tennessee Code Commission.
Statutory summary as of 31 July 2026. Not legal advice; confirm with a lawyer licensed in Tennessee.