As an inside hint to the lien process, most states have very strict guidelines that must be followed before filing a lien (like others mentioned). In the states we work in (MI, IN, OH), the interested party must file for a Notice of Commencement within 30 days of providing material or labor. This form needs to be filled out by the homeowner and returned to the party that requested it. That must be followed up by a Notice of Furnishing which needs to be filed within 20 days of providing material to the jobsite. In order to file a lien, the supplier/laborer must file for a Claim of Lien within 90 days of last furnishing material/labor to the jobsite. Sometimes a threat of a lien scares the homeowner into paying without realizing that the manufacturer did not follow appropriate steps and cause the lien to be invalid anyway. As a distributor ourselves, I can understand the manufacturer wanting to get his money any way he can. However, he knows whether his lien would be valid. If you know your rights, he may be more willing to work with you to make sure the job is completed correctly. There is no way he doesn't know of a competent applicator who would work with you. Manufacturer reps usually have excellent relationships with their applicators. As for going after the sub -- I completely agree that he is responsible. However if this guy does as bad a job as it seems going after him would probably be an effort in futility (and probably a waste of money). Almost every time we go after our subs for material payment they are broke, they've lost their insurance for nonpayment and their personal bank accounts are empty.

I would echo everything the others have said. The most important part is finding out if you received the lien notification from the sub within the timeframe specified by your state. Hopefully, you saved it and have it in a file somewhere, but if the sub never sent you a lien notification, they have no right to lien your property and you should not be bullied into double-paying for the work. Also, in addition, you should find your state's Contractor's Licensing Board website, which in my state (CA) has tons of information about liens, both how to avoid them and how to deal with them once you've got them. Back in the 80's, when we were building our first home, we had a GC (highly recommended by our architect and others) who we soon realized was having personal financial problems during our job and basically stopped paying his subs, even though we were paying him for the subs' work. Then, he stopped showing up on the job, and the subs starting asking us to be paid for work that we had already paid the GC for...the classic old story! Some of them we paid (basically double-paying) to finish the job, but by the end of the job, several of the subs had liened the property for part of the compensation that they lost due to the GC taking off with our money. The subs had an absolute right to drag us into court, which two of them did, and we had to plead our case and show the judge several cancelled checks that we had made out to the GC that were intended to pay for the various subs who had liened the house. We had some very flimsy invoices and backup, but it was just enough to prove that the cancelled checks we had written to the GC should have covered the subs who were liening us. The real shame of it was that those subs never got fully paid for their work...for most of them we ended up kind of splitting the difference and paying them partially just so they wouldn't be totally uncompensated. We clearly learned our painful lesson about liens! Since then, although we've never quite figured out a way to write a check to both the GC and sub without making it a major hassle for them, now we make absolutely certain to match up every single lien notice with lien waivers (both conditional during progress payments and then unconditional at end of job) anytime we give our GC a progress payment. Our current GC knows how paranoid we are about this, having been burned once before, and pays close attention to it for us! Good luck.

Your attorney is advising you to pay the sub to remove the lien, then sue the GC to collect what you are owe. This is the most sensible approach. Not sure how lien laws are written in your state, but in mine, a lienholder can actually force the sale of the house in a Sheriff Sale to satisfy the lien amount. But since the sub is not the primary lienholder against the property (your mortgage lender is) this can end up like a "foreclosure" with the bank ending up owning your house and land. It is therefore in your best interest to resolve this issue quickly. Your builder does not have your best interest in mind at this point, but rather his. So do what you need to do to protect yours. Luck

Blame the sub? For the lien? I assume exactly what you said: the GC didn't pay the sub. Washington State Bar's model contract wording: 2.7 Lien Release. Owner shall not be required to make any payment to Contractor unless and until Contractor provides Owner with an unconditional waiver and lien release form signed by Contractor and by each subcontractor and supplier who is claiming Two Thousand Five Hundred Dollars ($2,500.00) or more in payment ... I've wondered about this: does the GC usually pay out of pocket and then get reimbursed? That can be a big float. But otherwise, there's a chicken-and-egg: how does the GC get a lien release without paying the sub?