Kentucky: Mechanic's Lien Deadlines & Notice Requirements

The short answer

Kentucky runs one of the simpler lien deadlines in this survey: every
claimant, whatever their tier, has the same 6 months from their own last day
of work or delivery to file a sworn lien statement with the county clerk.
Whether you need to send a notice before that filing depends on your
relationship to the owner. If you contracted directly with the owner, the
owner's agent, or a lessee, you don't need to send one at all. If you
didn't, the general rule gives you 75 days (claims under $1,000) or 120
days (claims over $1,000) after your last day of work to warn the owner in
writing that you intend to claim a lien -- except that work on an
owner-occupied single or double family home always uses a flat 75-day
notice instead, one that also protects the owner for anything already paid
to the contractor before the notice arrives. After filing, the claimant
must mail a copy of the statement to the owner within 7 days -- skipping
that step dissolves the lien, full stop. From the filing date, a claimant
then has 12 months to sue to enforce the lien.

Requirements one by one

Governing law

Kentucky's private-improvement mechanic's and materialman's lien law lives
in KRS Chapter 376, "Statutory Liens," specifically §§ 376.010 through
376.100. The chapter was recodified in 1942 from older Kentucky Statutes
sections and has been amended piecemeal since, most recently in 2023.
Public-improvement projects run under a separate track, §§ 376.210 through
376.260, which is outside this survey's scope.

Who can claim

Section 376.010(1)(a) gives a lien to "any person who performs labor or
furnishes materials" for erecting, altering, or repairing a structure, for
excavation work, or for improving real property more generally -- but only
if that work happens "by contract with, or by the written consent of, the
owner, lessee, contractor, subcontractor, architect, or authorized agent."
A 2023 amendment added lessee-driven improvements to the statute directly:
when a lessee contracts for improvements under an agreement with the
lessor, the lien can reach the lessor's interest too, unless the lease bars
that and the lessee failed to warn the contractor of the restriction (in
which case the lessee's own contract with the contractor becomes voidable).
Licensed design professionals -- engineers, architects, landscape
architects, and land surveyors -- have their own separate lien under
§ 376.075; that statute isn't covered by this cell.

Preliminary notice

Whether you need to send a notice before filing turns on whether you dealt
with the owner directly. If you contracted "directly with the owner, the
owner's agent, or the lessee," no pre-filing notice is required at all.
Everyone else has to send one under § 376.010(4): written notice of "his or
her intention to hold the property liable and the amount for which he or
she will claim a lien," within "seventy-five (75) days on claims amounting
to less than one thousand dollars ($1,000) and one hundred twenty (120)
days on claims in excess of one thousand dollars ($1,000)" after the last
item of labor or material was furnished. Mailing the notice to the owner's
last known address is enough proof of delivery. There's a separate,
stricter rule for residential work -- see Homestead/residential extras
below -- that replaces this one when it applies.

Deadline to file the lien

Section 376.080(1) sets a single flat deadline for every claimant, with no
tiering by claimant type: file a sworn statement with "the county clerk of
the county in which the building or improvement is situated ... within six
(6) months after he ceases to labor or furnish materials." The statement
has to include the amount due, credits and set-offs already known, a
description of the property, and the owner's name if known. Miss the
six-month window and, in the statute's own words, the lien "shall be
dissolved."

Notice of completion effect

Kentucky has no mechanism here. Nothing in Chapter 376's private-improvement
sections lets an owner record a notice of completion or cessation that
shortens any claimant's six-month filing window. The clock always starts
from that claimant's own last day of work or delivery, not from when the
overall project wrapped up.

Serving the lien on the owner

Filing with the county clerk isn't the last step -- § 376.080(1) also
requires the claimant to "send by regular mail a copy of the statement to
the property owner at his last known address within seven (7) days of
filing the statement with the county clerk." This isn't a minor formality:
the same subsection says the lien "shall be dissolved if a copy of the
statement is not sent to the property owner as provided in this
subsection," full stop, regardless of whether the owner was actually
prejudiced by the delay.

Deadline to sue to foreclose

Once filed, § 376.090(1) gives a claimant "twelve (12) months from the day
of filing the statement in the clerk's office" to bring an action enforcing
the lien, or it's "deemed dissolved." If the property owner dies before
that year runs out, the statute adds "a further period of six (6) months
from the date of the qualification of his personal representative" to sue.

Homestead/residential extras

Section 376.010(5) swaps in a different notice rule for anyone claiming a
lien on "an owner-occupied single or double family dwelling," its
appurtenances, or related agricultural or personal-use improvements on
contiguous land held by the same owner, when the claimant didn't contract
directly with the owner or the owner's agent. Instead of the amount-based
75/120-day split under subsection (4), this claimant always gets a flat 75
days after the last item of labor or material to notify the owner --
described by the statute as "in lieu of the notice provided for in
subsection (4)." Two more protections come with it: the lien "shall not be
applicable" to the extent the owner already paid the contractor for work
done before the notice arrived, and "the contractor or subcontractor cannot
be the authorized agent" for purposes of receiving this notice, which
closes off a claimant using the very party who owes them money to accept
notice on the owner's behalf.

What trips people up

The 75/120-day notice under § 376.010(4) looks straightforward until a
claimant realizes their work was on an owner-occupied home -- in that case
the amount-based split doesn't apply at all, and the flat 75-day
residential notice under subsection (5) governs instead, even for a claim
well over $1,000. Missing that distinction can mean sending the wrong
notice on the wrong timeline. Separately, the service requirement in
§ 376.080(1) is easy to treat as a formality once the lien statement is
filed with the county clerk, but the statute is explicit that skipping the
7-day mailing to the owner dissolves the lien -- there's no prejudice
analysis to fall back on.

Common questions

Do I need to send a notice before I file my lien?
Only if you didn't contract directly with the owner, the owner's agent, or
a lessee. Direct contractors can go straight to filing within the 6-month
window.

I'm owed more than $1,000 for work on someone's house they live in --
which notice deadline applies?
The residential rule in § 376.010(5), not the general 120-day rule. Because
the property is an owner-occupied single or double family dwelling, you
get a flat 75 days from your last day of work to send notice, regardless of
how much you're owed.

Does the 12-month deadline to sue run from when I finished the work?
No -- § 376.090(1) measures it from the day you filed the lien statement
with the county clerk, which is itself already up to 6 months after your
last day of work.

Statutes and sources

• KRS 376.010 (lien grant; who can claim; preliminary notice; residential
  notice and protections) —
  https://apps.legislature.ky.gov/law/statutes/statute.aspx?id=54156
  (accessed 2026-07-05)
• KRS 376.080 (filing deadline; form of statement; mailing to owner) —
  https://apps.legislature.ky.gov/law/statutes/statute.aspx?id=35289
  (accessed 2026-07-05)
• KRS 376.090 (12-month deadline to sue to enforce; priority) —
  https://apps.legislature.ky.gov/law/statutes/statute.aspx?id=35290
  (accessed 2026-07-05)