Contract Directly With Owner
Last updated on February 20, 2026
If you have a written construction contract directly with a property owner in Massachusetts, securing your payment through a mechanic’s lien demands precise and prompt action. To protect your rights, you must timely manner.
- Record your Notice of Contract at the appropriate Registry of Deeds (“Registry”) after the signing of the written contract by you and the owner, before or after the completion date, regardless of whether you finished the work in the written contract.
- Record your Statement of Account at the Registry
The Law Offices of Alan M. Cohen & Associates LLC can help you navigate these crucial steps. This includes preparing and sending the necessary Notice of Contract on your behalf, and ensuring all required filings are accurate and within the strict deadlines, protecting your right to payment.
Do Mechanics’ Liens Allow You To Recover Interest And Attorneys’ Fees From The Property Owner?
On January 22, 2004, the SJC said no. Massachusetts mechanics’ liens are now limited to labor and materials and do not include attorneys’ fees or interest. So, how do you more fully protect yourself from the financial impact of deadbeatitis?
Success Story: A contractor ran up a large bill at a material supply house to the tune of almost $70,000.00. The contractor, unfortunately, could not carry that tune. Our client called us.
Upon careful review of the situation, we concluded that filing a Massachusetts mechanic’s lien was our client’s best and most economical bet for getting paid. We immediately obtained a copy of the deed to the property where the contractor had used our client’s materials to renovate an apartment building. Within days, we prepared the Notice of Contract and Statement of Account, two of the three steps necessary to create and enforce a mechanic’s lien. We then promptly sued to perfect the lien (step three).
The timing of the lien was perfect. The owner was selling the renovated apartments as condominiums. After intensive negotiations with the owner and the bank’s counsel, we agreed that our client would receive some of the sales proceeds from each unit in exchange for partial releases. Within forty days, our client received the full amount of its principal and interest.
Absent the Massachusetts mechanic’s lien, the only music our client would have heard was the “deadbeat shuffle.”
Be wary of those online companies that charge you little for preparing a mechanic’s lien. M.G.L.c 254, the mechanic’s lien statute, is a very complicated and unforgiving statute. Do you want to trust your receivables to a company that is not licensed to practice law in Massachusetts or that may not know all of the statutory law and court decisions concerning mechanics’ liens? Our clients don’t.
Contact our law firm to prepare and enforce a mechanics’ lien to protect your money. From our office in Framingham, we serve clients throughout Greater Boston and all of Massachusetts.
To learn more about how the Massachusetts mechanic’s lien law can help you collect your business debts, call 508-763-6604 or email us today.