Lien Waiver and Release Forms for Painting Contractors

Painters...

In some states, California for instance, lien waivers or lien release forms are required to be given after and sometimes before a payment to the painting contractor is made. Many states define exactly what must be included in a lien waiver/release by state law.

Even if not required by law, most commercial customers, for their own protection, will ask for a lien release before making a payment. The same is true on jobs where there is funding control such as controls on payments from a construction lender, and jobs where the work is being paid from insurance proceeds. And if you pick up the latest copy of AARP or some other magazine, it is hard not to find an article about contracting for improvement work on your home that does not recommend getting lien waivers when making any progress or final payment on the contract for the work.

There is nothing worse than, during a time when cash flow is tight, depending on receiving a check so that you can make payroll that week and being informed that your payment is delayed until you submit lien waivers on forms you do not have. Every painting contractor should have these forms available so that when this situation happens, and it will, they don't have to scramble around trying to find a legal lien waiver for their state so they can get paid... just in case!

And why are Completion Certificates important? Simple, the completion certificate sets a point in time when the interested parties in a painting project, have inspected and acknowledge satisfaction with the work done. This is important from a legal standpoint as well as from the "mental" standpoint of the customer. A customer who has acknowledged their satisfaction at the date of their signature on a completion certificate is not likely to come back at a later date and say, "well the job was never really done right but..." , which is a common statement made during a dispute without a completion being signed and is hard for the contractor to answer.

Experience has found that the best time to get a signature on a completion certificate is at the same time you give the customer a lien waiver. Why? Because it is then a "I give and you give back" situation. You give the customer a waiver on your rights to lien their property and they give you an acknowledgement that you did the work properly. Win-Win

There are basically 5 different types of lien waivers...

Two types of "conditional" lien releases. A "conditional" lien release or waiver is named this because the lien waiver and release goes into effect on condition payment is received... if the check bounces, the lien rights of the painting contractor remain in effect. There is one lien release/waiver for progress payments and one lien waiver/release for the final payment.
Two types of "unconditional" lien releases. An "unconditional" lien release/waiver is in effect immediately when signed by the painting contractor unconditionally... even if the check bounces, the lien waiver/release is in effect and the contractor has no lien rights for the work covered under the scope of the lien release/waiver. This type of lien waiver/release is primarily given only after payment has been received and the funds are in the painting contractor's bank account. Like the conditional lien waiver/release, there is one unconditional lien waiver/release for progress payments and one for the final payment.
The fifth type of lien release/waiver is for workers on the painting job and is called the Labor Lien Release. Some property owners will want to make sure all the people working on their property are being paid by the painting contractor and to insure this, will require each worker to certify that they have been paid for their work and that they will not seek a laborer's lien on the property. Again, this is a form recommended by magazine writers, that every home owner get signed when having painting work done on their home to prevent labor liens from unpaid workers.
ACT Contractors Forms Software includes all 5 lien waiver/release forms and completion certificates so when you are asked for these by a property owner, payments to you will never be delayed while you try and find one of these hard to find forms.

Act Contractors Forms

Act Contractors Forms Offers the Following 6 Painting Project Lien Waiver and Release Forms and Completion Certificate Forms for Painting Contractors

The forms below are included in the full version of ACT Contractors Forms Software and most are also available as fillable pdf forms and as printed multi-part paper forms.