Georgia: Mechanic's Lien Deadlines & Notice Requirements

The short answer

Georgia runs one of the tightest lien clocks in the country. A claimant has
only 90 days after finishing work (or after the last material or machinery
is furnished) to file a claim of lien with the clerk of superior court.
Almost immediately after that, the claimant has to mail the owner a copy —
within just 2 business days of filing. Whether any earlier notice is
required depends entirely on whether the owner or contractor bothered to
file a "Notice of Commencement": if one was filed, most subcontractors and
suppliers without a direct contract with the general contractor must send
a separate notice within 30 days; if none was filed, that step simply
doesn't apply. Once the lien is on file, suit to enforce it has to start
within 365 days, though the owner or contractor can force that down to 60
days with a formal Notice of Contest of Lien.

Requirements one by one

Governing law

Georgia's mechanics' and materialmen's lien statute lives in O.C.G.A.
Title 44, Chapter 14, Article 8, Part 3 (§§ 44-14-360 to 44-14-369), a
"special lien" scheme dating to an 1878 act and amended repeatedly since,
most recently in 2021 to add registered interior designers to the list of
lienable service providers.

Who can claim

Section 44-14-361(a) lists ten categories of claimant, including
"mechanics of every sort," "contractors, all subcontractors and all
materialmen furnishing material to subcontractors," registered architects,
foresters, land surveyors, professional engineers, and interior designers,
machinists and manufacturers of machinery, railroad contractors, and
suppliers of rental construction equipment. Georgia case law has long
excluded a "supplier of a supplier" — someone who sells materials to a
materialman rather than to the owner, contractor, or subcontractor
directly gets no lien under this statute.

Preliminary notice

Georgia has no mandatory notice before work begins. A claimant may
optionally record a "preliminary notice of lien rights" within 30 days of
first delivering labor or material, but § 44-14-361.3(d) makes clear a
claimant "may enforce the lien without filing a preliminary notice of
lien" at all — it's a convenience, not a requirement. The real notice
obligation is different: if the owner or contractor recorded a "Notice of
Commencement" for the project, any claimant without a direct contract with
the general contractor must send a "notice to contractor" within 30 days
of that filing or 30 days after first furnishing labor or material,
whichever is later. Critically, § 44-14-361.5(d) says plainly that
"failure to file a notice of commencement shall render the provisions of
this Code section inapplicable" — so if the owner never files one, no
non-privity claimant has to send this notice either.

Deadline to file the lien

The claim of lien must be filed "within 90 days after the completion of
the work... or within 90 days after the material or machinery is
furnished" with the clerk of superior court in the county where the
property sits. This is the same 90-day count for every claimant tier —
Georgia doesn't split the deadline by contractor versus subcontractor the
way some states do.

Notice of completion effect

Georgia has no owner-filed notice of completion that shortens the 90-day
lien-filing deadline. There is a related device that looks similar but
does something narrower: an owner or contractor can send a "demand for
filing of claim of lien," but that demand only dissolves an already-filed
optional preliminary notice of lien rights if the claimant doesn't
actually record a claim of lien within 10 days — it cancels a voluntary
early filing, not the substantive 90-day right to file a lien in the first
place.

Serving the lien on the owner

Once filed, the claimant has to move fast: "no later than two business
days after the date the claim of lien is filed of record," a true and
accurate copy must go to the property owner by registered or certified
mail or statutory overnight delivery (or to the contractor, as the
owner's agent, if the owner's address can't be found). This 2-business-day
window is far shorter than the 15-to-30-day windows common in other
states.

Deadline to sue to foreclose

A lien action to recover the claim must start "within 365 days from the
date of filing for record" of the claim of lien, and the claimant must
also file a separate notice with the clerk within 30 days of starting that
action. An owner, contractor, or either one's agent or attorney can force
an earlier fight by recording and serving a "Notice of Contest of Lien";
once served, the claimant has only 60 days to commence suit or the lien
"shall be extinguished by law."

Homestead/residential extras

Georgia doesn't layer extra formality onto residential property the way
some states do — the 90-day filing deadline, 2-business-day service rule,
and 365-day suit deadline apply identically to a house and a shopping
center. The one narrow difference sits in the optional demand-to-file
mechanism: on residential property, an owner can send that demand at any
time, while on any other property the demand can't be sent "until the
contractor's contract is substantially complete or until the potential
lien claimant's contract has been terminated or the potential lien
claimant has abandoned the contract."

What trips people up

The 2-business-day deadline to mail the owner a copy of the filed lien is
easy to miss because it runs so much faster than the analogous step in
most other states' statutes — by the time a claimant remembers to notify
the owner the way they would in a neighboring state, the Georgia clock may
already have run. People also conflate the optional "preliminary notice of
lien rights" with the "notice to contractor" that's actually required for
non-privity claimants on projects with a recorded Notice of Commencement —
the first is never mandatory, the second can be essential, and whether it
applies at all turns entirely on whether the owner bothered to file the
Notice of Commencement in the first place.

Common questions

Do I have to send a notice before I start work in Georgia?
No. There's no notice required before or during work. Whether you owe a
notice at all depends on whether the owner filed a Notice of Commencement
and whether you're in direct contract with the general contractor.

What if the project never had a Notice of Commencement filed?
Then the "notice to contractor" requirement for non-privity claimants
doesn't apply at all — you can go straight to filing the 90-day claim of
lien without sending any earlier notice.

Can the owner force me to sue faster than 365 days?
Yes. A recorded and served Notice of Contest of Lien cuts the deadline to
60 days from receipt; missing that window extinguishes the lien by
operation of law.

Statutes and sources

• O.C.G.A. § 44-14-361(a) (who has a special lien) —
  https://archive.org/download/gov.ga.ocga.2024/T44%20Ch8-15%20%28V32%29%202022_djvu.txt
  (accessed 2026-07-04)
• O.C.G.A. § 44-14-361.1(a)(2) (90-day filing deadline; 2-day service on
  owner) —
  https://archive.org/download/gov.ga.ocga.2024/T44%20Ch8-15%20%28V32%29%202022_djvu.txt
  (accessed 2026-07-04)
• O.C.G.A. § 44-14-361.1(a)(3) (365-day suit deadline) —
  https://archive.org/download/gov.ga.ocga.2024/T44%20Ch8-15%20%28V32%29%202022_djvu.txt
  (accessed 2026-07-04)
• O.C.G.A. § 44-14-361.3(a), (d) (optional preliminary notice of lien
  rights) —
  https://archive.org/download/gov.ga.ocga.2024/T44%20Ch8-15%20%28V32%29%202022_djvu.txt
  (accessed 2026-07-04)
• O.C.G.A. § 44-14-361.4(a)(3)-(4) (residential vs. other property demand
  timing) —
  https://archive.org/download/gov.ga.ocga.2024/T44%20Ch8-15%20%28V32%29%202022_djvu.txt
  (accessed 2026-07-04)
• O.C.G.A. § 44-14-361.5(a), (d) (notice to contractor for non-privity
  claimants) —
  https://archive.org/download/gov.ga.ocga.2024/T44%20Ch8-15%20%28V32%29%202022_djvu.txt
  (accessed 2026-07-04)
• O.C.G.A. § 44-14-368(a), (c) (Notice of Contest of Lien) —
  https://archive.org/download/gov.ga.ocga.2024/T44%20Ch8-15%20%28V32%29%202022_djvu.txt
  (accessed 2026-07-04)