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Texas

Texas lien rights and deadlines

Texas counts to the 15th of the month, and a month you fail to send notice on is a month you can no longer lien for. These guides cover the monthly notice that traps the owner’s money, the affidavit deadline behind it, retainage, and the clock on getting paid at all.

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6 guides on this

How to run the businessMake the owner hold your moneyA Texas sub or supplier who sends one page a month puts the owner on the hook for holding money back against the claim. Commercial notice is due the 15th of the third month after the work, residential the second, and the month worked is a bucket you can miss. Worked 2026 dates inside.How to run the businessTexas lien dates that do not come backTexas counts your lien deadline in whole months and lands it on the 15th, so settle your role once and the date falls out. Deadline table for original contractors and subs, commercial and residential, plus the five day copy rule under s.53.055 and the one year you get to sue under s.53.158.How to run the businessGet paid in 35 days, or stop workTexas Property Code Chapter 28 gives a private owner 35 days to pay your written payment request, then 1.5 percent a month on what is late. Ten days after one written notice you can suspend work without breaching the contract, and bill demobilization and remobilization before you come back.How to run the businessGet your Texas retainage backTexas makes the owner reserve 10 percent under Prop. Code s.53.101, through the job and for 30 days past completion. The retainage written into your own contract is a second claim with its own notice under s.53.057. Two piles, two notices, two clocks, with the dates counted for you.How to run the businessWhen a Texas client stops payingFive moves in order, cheapest first: the Chapter 28 interest line at 1.5 percent a month, the ten day letter that lets you stop work and bill remobilization, the monthly notice that makes the owner hold your money, the lien affidavit, then suit. Homestead jobs run their own path.How to run the businessPayment bonds on Texas public jobsTexas mechanic's liens do not attach to public property, so a school, city or state job is protected by the prime's payment bond under Government Code Chapter 2253. Covers the $25,000 and $50,000 bond thresholds, the 15th-of-the-month notice sequence, day 61 suit rights, and the Miller Act on federal work.

Count it instead of estimating it

Texas lien deadline calculatorTexas counts to the 15th of a month. Tell it the month you did the work and it counts the notice that traps the owner money, the affidavit, and the day the lien has to be sued on.Free, no signup.Texas prompt payment calculatorOne date in: the day you sent the payment request. Out comes the day the owner was legally late, the day the money reaches you through the general, and the day you can put the tools down without breaching.Free, no signup.
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The rest of the Texas library

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