Alabama: Mechanic's Lien Deadlines & Notice Requirements

The short answer

Alabama's mechanic's lien law is one of the oldest in this survey, tracing
back to an 1876 statute and still recognizable in that form today. It
splits the filing deadline three ways by claimant type — 6 months for the
original contractor, 4 months for everyone else, and just 30 days for a
journeyman or day laborer — all measured from that claimant's own last day
of work or delivery. Everyone except the original contractor has to send
the owner written notice claiming a lien before filing, and a material
supplier who warns the owner in advance of exactly what they'll furnish and
at what price can secure a full-price lien instead of one capped at
whatever the owner still owes the contractor. Once the verified statement
is filed with the county's probate judge, a claimant has six months from
when the underlying debt matured — not from the filing date — to sue to
enforce the lien.

Requirements one by one

Governing law

Alabama's private-improvement lien law is Title 35, Chapter 11, Article 5,
Division 8 of the Code of Alabama, "Mechanics and Materialmen" (§§ 35-11-210
to 35-11-234). Its core provisions date to the Code of 1876 and have
remained substantially the same through the 1940 recompilation and since,
with only isolated later amendments (most recently in 1996, which added
"waste disposal services and equipment" to the list of lienable
contributions in § 35-11-210).

Who can claim

Section 35-11-210 gives a lien to "every mechanic, person, firm, or
corporation" who does work or furnishes material, fixtures, or machinery
for a building or improvement, whether under contract with the owner
directly or with the owner's "agent, architect, trustee, contractor, or
subcontractor." The lien's size depends on privity: someone contracting
directly with the owner gets a lien on the full value of their
contribution, but "employees of the contractor or persons furnishing
material to him" — subcontractors and suppliers without a direct owner
contract — get a lien "only to the amount of any unpaid balance due the
contractor by the owner." A material supplier can escape that cap by
notifying the owner in writing, in advance, of the specific material and
price; unless the owner objects in writing before the material is used,
that supplier gets "a lien for the full price thereof ... without regard to
whether or not the amount of the claim ... exceeds the unpaid balance due
the contractor."

Preliminary notice

Alabama doesn't have one universal notice that every claimant sends before
starting work. Instead, two distinct notice mechanisms operate depending on
the claimant's position, and both are conditions on the lien, not
formalities. First, the advance-notice-of-materials mechanism inside
§ 35-11-210 (described above) is optional but valuable — it's what converts
a capped lien into a full-price one. Second, § 35-11-218 requires "every
person, except the original contractor" to give the owner written notice
"that he claims a lien," stating the amount, for what, and from whom it's
owed, before filing the verified statement — after that notice, "any unpaid
balance in the hands of the owner ... shall be held subject to such lien."
That second notice doesn't apply to material already advance-noticed under
§ 35-11-210. Separately, § 35-11-219 lets an owner demand a complete list
of every materialman, laborer, and employee from the original contractor;
refusing to supply it, or failing to pay any of them under a special
contract with the owner, "forfeit[s] his right to a lien" entirely.

Deadline to file the lien

Section 35-11-215 splits the filing deadline three ways, all measured from
"the last item of work or labor ... performed or the last item of any
material ... furnished": "six months" for "every original contractor,"
"30 days" for "every journeyman and day laborer," and "four months" for
"every other person entitled to such lien" — the broad middle category that
covers most subcontractors and suppliers. Filing itself means submitting a
verified statement to "the judge of probate of the county in which the
property ... is situated" (§ 35-11-213); missing the deadline means, in the
statute's own words, the lien "shall be deemed lost."

Notice of completion effect

Alabama has no mechanism here at all. Nothing in Division 8 lets an owner
record a notice of completion or cessation that shortens any claimant's
filing deadline; the clock always runs from that claimant's own last day of
work or delivery, regardless of when the overall project actually
finished.

Serving the lien on the owner

There's no step where the claimant serves a copy of the recorded verified
statement on the owner. Filing itself happens directly with the probate
judge, who "indorse[s] on such statement the date of its filing" and
records it (§ 35-11-216) — there is no additional owner-facing service
requirement tied to that recording. The only point at which most claimants
must reach the owner directly is earlier in the process, through the
pre-filing notice under § 35-11-218, which the original contractor doesn't
have to send at all.

Deadline to sue to foreclose

Section 35-11-221 gives a claimant six months to bring an enforcement
action, but the clock here runs differently than the filing deadline: it's
measured "after the maturity of the entire indebtedness secured" by the
lien, not from the last day of work or from when the statement was filed.
That maturity date depends on the underlying payment terms — for example, a
final invoice due 30 days after submission matures on that 30th day, and
the six months for suit runs from there.

Homestead/residential extras

Division 8 draws no distinction at all based on whether the property is a
personal residence or commercial property. The same filing deadlines,
notice requirements, and foreclosure window in §§ 35-11-210 through -234
apply regardless of what kind of building or improvement is involved.

What trips people up

Because the foreclosure deadline in § 35-11-221 runs from "maturity of the
entire indebtedness" rather than from the last day of work, it's easy to
calculate the wrong date — a claimant who assumes it mirrors the filing
deadline's last-furnished trigger can miscount by weeks or months depending
on the contract's payment terms. Separately, subcontractors and suppliers
sometimes skip the advance-notice option in § 35-11-210 without realizing
what it costs them: without it, their lien is capped at whatever the owner
still owes the contractor at the time notice under § 35-11-218 is given, no
matter how much they're actually owed for their own work.

Common questions

Do I need to send a notice before I even start the job?
Not to preserve a basic lien. The only truly optional notice is the
advance-materials notice under § 35-11-210, which upgrades a supplier's
lien from capped to full-price; the § 35-11-218 notice is required, but
only right before filing, not at the start of work, and only for claimants
other than the original contractor.

I'm a subcontractor — is my lien capped at what I'm owed, or at something
else?
Without the advance notice under § 35-11-210, your lien is capped at "the
amount of any unpaid balance due the contractor by the owner," which may be
less than what you're personally owed if the contractor already collected
most of the contract price.

Does the 6-month deadline to sue run from when I filed the lien?
No — § 35-11-221 measures it from when the underlying debt matured under
the payment terms of the contract, which can be well before or after the
date the lien statement was recorded.

Statutes and sources

• Ala. Code § 35-11-210 (lien declared; privity-based cap; advance-notice
  full-price lien) —
  https://law.justia.com/codes/alabama/title-35/chapter-11/article-5/division-8/section-35-11-210/
  (accessed 2026-07-05)
• Ala. Code § 35-11-218 (pre-filing notice for non-original-contractors) —
  https://law.justia.com/codes/alabama/title-35/chapter-11/article-5/division-8/section-35-11-218/
  (accessed 2026-07-05)
• Ala. Code § 35-11-219 (list of materialmen; forfeiture for nonpayment) —
  https://law.justia.com/codes/alabama/title-35/chapter-11/article-5/division-8/section-35-11-219/
  (accessed 2026-07-05)
• Ala. Code § 35-11-215 (tiered filing deadlines: 6mo/30da/4mo) —
  https://law.justia.com/codes/alabama/title-35/chapter-11/article-5/division-8/section-35-11-215/
  (accessed 2026-07-05)
• Ala. Code § 35-11-213 (verified statement; duty to file with probate
  judge) —
  https://law.justia.com/codes/alabama/title-35/chapter-11/article-5/division-8/section-35-11-213/
  (accessed 2026-07-05)
• Ala. Code § 35-11-216 (probate judge's indorsement and recordation) —
  https://law.justia.com/codes/alabama/title-35/chapter-11/article-5/division-8/section-35-11-216/
  (accessed 2026-07-05)
• Ala. Code § 35-11-221 (6-month deadline to sue, from debt maturity) —
  https://law.justia.com/codes/alabama/title-35/chapter-11/article-5/division-8/section-35-11-221/
  (accessed 2026-07-05)