Illinois Mechanic Lien Deadlines for Contractors, Subcontractors, and Suppliers

Illinois mechanic lien law under 770 ILCS 60 requires subcontractors and material suppliers who do not have a direct contract with the property owner to serve notice on the owner before filing a lien. This notice must be served within 90 days of the last date of work or final delivery of materials. 770 ILCS 60/24. The notice must state the amount of the claim and the basis for it.

When Should I Send the 90-Day Notice?

Section 24(a) of the Illinois Mechanics Lien Act sets the statutory window in plain terms:

Subcontractors, or parties furnishing labor, materials, fixtures, apparatus, machinery, or services, may at any time after making his or her contract with the contractor, and shall within 90 days after the completion thereof, or, if extra or additional work or material is delivered thereafter, within 90 days after the date of completion of such extra or additional work or final delivery of such extra or additional material. 770 ILCS 60/24(a).

The statute opens two options. The subcontractor may send the 90-Day Notice any time after signing the subcontract with the general contractor, and must send it no later than 90 days after last furnishing labor or materials. The 90 days run from the claimant's last day of billable work under the contract. Punch list items, warranty corrections, and other trivial or gratuitous returns to the site do not extend the clock. The safe trigger date is the last day of work you actually invoiced for under the original contract or an executed change order, not a courtesy call-back.

Best practice is to serve the 90-Day Notice as soon as you first furnish labor or materials to the project, not at the back end of the 90-day window. Illinois caps a subcontractor's lien at the amount the owner still owes the general contractor at the time the owner receives the notice. 770 ILCS 60/21. Every dollar the owner pays the general contractor before the notice arrives is a dollar the owner can later assert as a defense of payment against the lien. Early notice preserves the broadest possible full-balance lien. A notice served months into the project, or served just before the 90-day deadline, risks reducing the lien to whatever residual balance remains in the owner's hands when the notice finally lands.

The same reasoning drives the separate 60-Day Notice required on owner-occupied, single-family residences. 770 ILCS 60/5, 60/21. There the clock runs from the date the claimant first furnishes labor or materials rather than last, and a missed 60-day window cuts the residential subcontractor's lien to whatever the owner still owes the contractor when the late notice eventually arrives. Treat the 60-day window as a pre-construction obligation, not a retrospective filing step.

A timely 90-Day Notice is also a collection tool, not just a lien-preservation step. Owners who receive a statutorily compliant notice routinely hold back payments from the general contractor until the subcontractor has been paid, which resolves many Illinois construction payment disputes before any lien is ever recorded with the county recorder.

How to Serve the 90-Day Notice and to Whom

Who Is Required to Receive the 90-Day Notice?

Two parties are required to receive the 90-Day Notice. 770 ILCS 60/24(a):

• The Owner
• The Lending Agency (if known)

Both are required recipients. A subcontractor who fails to serve a known lender cannot enforce the resulting lien against that lender. Parkway Bank & Trust Co. v. Meseljevic, 406 Ill. App. 3d 435, 940 N.E.2d 215, 227 (1st Dist. 2010). A lender is treated as "known" whenever its interest is discoverable through the title and recording records, which means the subcontractor is charged with constructive knowledge of any mortgagee whose interest is properly recorded. Petroline Co. v. Advanced Environmental Contractors, Inc., 305 Ill. App. 3d 234, 711 N.E.2d 1146, 1149 (1st Dist. 1999). Running a title search before sending the notice is the standard safeguard.

90-Day Notice Must be Sent to the Owner

For purposes of service, any of the following is deemed the owner:

• The owner of record
• The owner of record's agent or architect
• The superintendent having charge of the building or improvement

Methods of Service

Section 24(a) allows three methods of service:

• Registered or certified mail, return receipt requested
• A nationally recognized delivery company with tracking service
• Personal service

The notice is considered served at the time the written notice is placed with the delivery service or in the mail. 770 ILCS 60/24(a). A handful of Illinois decisions have excused minor service defects when the owner undisputedly received the notice, but those cases are the exception. See A.Y. McDonald Manufacturing Co. v. State Farm Mutual Automobile Insurance Co., 225 Ill. App. 3d 851, 587 N.E.2d 623, 627 (4th Dist. 1992). The prudent subcontractor complies strictly with every element of the statute and does not rely on judicial leniency.

The same mailbox rule applies to the 60-Day Notice required on owner-occupied single-family residences under 770 ILCS 60/5 and 60/21. The notice is considered served when deposited in the mail, provided it is sent by one of the statutory methods to a permissible recipient. Because the 60-day period runs from the first date of furnishing rather than the last, the service-on-mailing rule offers little practical cushion and the notice should be prepared and mailed as soon as the subcontractor begins work on the residence.

Section 24(a) of the Mechanics Lien Act includes a suggested form notice. The form is not mandatory, but a claimant who tracks the statutory template closely removes one line of attack in any future challenge to the notice. The legislature's form reads as follows:

Illinois 90-Day Notice (770 ILCS 60/24(a))

To (name of owner): You are hereby notified that I have been employed by (the name of contractor) to (state here what was the contract or what was done, or to be done, or what the claim is for) under his or her contract with you, on your property at (here give substantial description of the property) and that there was due to me, or is to become due (as the case may be) therefor, the sum of $______.

Dated at ______ this ______ day of ______, ______.

                                                                Signature ______

Although the original contractor (a party in direct contract with the owner) does not need to give a pre-lien notice, Illinois courts encourage contractors to send a written notice under §5 within 90 days of completing their contract, informing the owner of the amount due. While not technically a pre-lien notice, this notice can protect against disputes about the lien amount and help establish lien priority.

For Illinois public works projects, claims against the required payment bond under 30 ILCS 550 must be submitted to the prime contractor by certified mail. The claim must set forth the nature and amount owed and must be brought within 1 year of last performance. Failure to timely assert a bond claim can permanently extinguish recovery rights on public projects.

Recording the Illinois Mechanic Lien

The Act requires that the claim for lien be recorded no more than four months after the last day work was performed on or materials were supplied to the project. See 770 ILCS 60/7(a).

The verified Claim for Lien is recorded with the county recorder of deeds in the county where the improved property is located. A claim recorded within four months of last furnishing relates back to the commencement of the work and takes priority over mortgages, purchasers, and other encumbrances that attached after construction began. 770 ILCS 60/1, 60/7. A claim recorded after four months but within two years of the last date of furnishing remains enforceable against the original owner, but loses priority as to innocent third parties who recorded their interests before the lien.

The Claim for Lien must be a verified statement, signed under oath by the claimant or the claimant's authorized agent. At a minimum it must set out a brief statement of the contract, the total amount claimed after all just credits and offsets, the name of the owner of record and any other parties in interest known to the claimant, the name of the party with whom the claimant contracted, a description of the labor, services, or materials furnished, the dates of first and last furnishing, and a sufficiently correct description of the property. 770 ILCS 60/7.

Property description is the single most common technical ground for dismissal of an Illinois mechanic lien. A street address alone is inadequate. The claim should include the full legal description of the parcel and the Property Index Number (PIN) assigned by the county assessor. The legal description should be pulled from a current title report, not from the project's shipping or permit address. A quick practical shortcut is to review the last vesting deed; if there is a recorded mortgage, the PIN and legal description will typically appear on that instrument as well. The best practice, however, is to have a title company perform the search so the claim is anchored to verified, current records.

A claim that is fraudulently overstated is forfeited in its entirety. 770 ILCS 60/7. Honest computational errors will not defeat the lien, but speculative future charges, contractual attorney fees that were never agreed to, and charges for items the claimant knew to be non-lienable can be characterized as fraudulent overstatement. The claim should reflect only the unpaid contract balance plus change-order and extra-work amounts actually owed.

Two project-specific rules deserve attention. For owner-occupied single-family residences, the claimant must serve notice of the recording on the owner within 10 days after the Claim for Lien is recorded. 770 ILCS 60/7. And when the work crosses multiple parcels, or is performed at a condominium, the lien amount must be allocated and apportioned across the individual tracts or units and their common-element interests. Failure to apportion can invalidate the lien project-wide, not just as to the parcel where the arithmetic is off.

The practical rule is to identify the last day of furnishing immediately upon project completion, pull a current title search to confirm the owner and the legal description, and record the verified claim well before the four-month deadline. Aiming to record within 90 days leaves room to cure any recorder rejection within the statutory window.