E418: Collecting Lien Waivers
Collecting lien waivers may take some effort but the results are well worth the time.
- Liens and lien waivers
- Liens are legal filings against a property that contractors and suppliers place when they have not been properly paid
- Lien Waivers are documents that release the rights to file a lien
- Conditional – a conditional release is based on a payment
- Unconditional – is a full release that should only be signed in exchange for final payments
- Filing requirements – they vary by location and you need to follow the proper rules – we will discuss filing notices associated with liens on a future Coachcast
- Collect lien waivers is you are paying
- If you are paying any vendors, suppliers, subcontractors, etc. you should be collecting waivers
- You may already be providing waivers to your clients – are you collecting them from your vendors too
- If you do this well you can promote it as one of your unique selling propositions
- Teach potential clients of the hassles associated with liens and let them know how you protect them
- Get the rigth stuff without too much effort
- Make sure you are collecting waivers with the proper language for your project location
- Zlien launched an amazing site for this at https://app.zlien.com/waiver_exchange/
- You can create standard pay request forms that contain the appropriate conditional waiver language so all pay-aps have a lien attached
- Collect them for your files and pass along to your clients as well
- At the end, collect an unconditional waiver
- Make sure you are collecting waivers with the proper language for your project location