Mechanic's Lien Deadlines & Notice Requirements in Georgia

At a glance

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. The claim must fit a category enumerated in § 44-14-361(a).

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). If a notice of commencement was filed, § 44-14-361.1(a)(2) also requires a copy to the contractor at the address in that notice.

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 2026-10-06)
• 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 2026-10-06)
• 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 2026-10-06)
• 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 2026-10-06)
• 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 2026-10-06)
• 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 2026-10-06)
• 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 2026-10-06)