Preliminary notices and lien waivers are easy to lump together — both are lien paperwork — but they do opposite jobs at opposite ends of a project. Understanding how they relate helps you see who might be able to lien your project, and how waivers close that exposure off.
Two ends of the same timeline
- A preliminary notice (also called a pre-lien notice, notice to owner, or 20-day notice depending on the state) is sent near the start of work. It’s how a sub or supplier preserves their right to file a mechanic’s lien later. In many states, if a party doesn’t serve a preliminary notice, they lose or limit their lien rights entirely.
- A lien waiver comes at payment time. It’s how that same party gives up their lien rights in exchange for getting paid.
So a preliminary notice opens the door to a lien; a waiver closes it. The notice says “I’ve done work here and I’m preserving my right to lien if I’m not paid.” The waiver says “I’ve been paid for this, and I’m releasing that right.”
Why the notice matters to a GC
Preliminary notices are the early-warning system for who can actually lien your project. When you receive one, it’s telling you: this party is in the chain, they’ve protected their rights, and they’ll need to be covered by a waiver before this job closes.
The parties that surprise general contractors are the ones they never paid directly — a sub’s material supplier, or a lower-tier sub. Those parties can lien the property even though your contract is with someone else. Preliminary notices are often your first visibility into them. Treat every notice you receive as a name that needs to end up in your waiver file.
Notices in, waivers out
A clean process pairs the two:
- Log preliminary notices as they arrive. Each one is a party with live lien rights on your project. Keep them tied to the project they name.
- Collect waivers at each payment. As you pay, gather waivers that cover the parties who sent notices — including, on bigger jobs, waivers from your subs’ suppliers.
- Reconcile at closeout. Before final payment, every party that sent a notice should have a corresponding signed waiver. Gaps are exactly where a lien can still come from.
Where GCs get exposed
The exposure isn’t usually your direct subs — it’s the tiers below them. You pay your framing sub; their lumber supplier sends a preliminary notice; you pay the sub in full and close the job; the supplier never got paid by the sub and records a lien against the owner’s property. Now you’re dealing with a lien for money you already paid out.
Waivers from lower-tier suppliers — collected as a condition of paying the sub who hired them — are what prevent that. The preliminary notice is what tells you the supplier is there in the first place.
The takeaway
Don’t think of preliminary notices and lien waivers as two separate piles of paperwork. They’re the bookends of one process: notices tell you who can lien, waivers confirm they’ve been paid and released. Track both, reconcile them against each other before you release final funds, and pay special attention to the tiers you don’t pay directly. That’s where the risk actually lives — and it’s exactly the risk a disciplined waiver process is designed to close.