Notice of Contract: Deadlines, Form Contents, and Penalties

A Notice of Contract in North Carolina is a form that a property owner or general contractor files with the Clerk of Superior Court and posts at the job site to limit the ability of second- and third-tier subcontractors to enforce liens against the property. It must be filed and posted within 30 days of the later of the building permit date or the contract award date, and its protection holds only if the lower-tier subcontractor does not respond with a Notice of Subcontract.¹

What the Notice Actually Does

Under G.S. 44A-23(b), a second- or third-tier subcontractor can normally enforce the general contractor’s lien on the property to collect unpaid bills. A properly filed and posted Notice of Contract takes that right away, but only if the lower-tier subcontractor fails to serve a Notice of Subcontract in response.¹

So the shield is conditional. The targets are the subcontractors further down the chain: the supplier who sells materials to your electrical subcontractor, or the laborer hired by your framing crew’s sub. First-tier subcontractors have separate lien rights under G.S. 44A-23(a) through subrogation, and the Notice of Contract does not affect those rights.

Who Can File

Either the property owner or the contractor can post and file.¹ On large commercial projects, owners sometimes handle this directly as part of their risk management. On residential work, it is almost always the contractor. What matters is that one of them does it, correctly and on time.

The 30-Day Deadline

You have 30 days to both file and post. The clock starts on whichever of these two dates falls later:

On most jobs the permit is issued after the contract is signed, so the permit date controls. If permitting is unusually slow or the contract is finalized after a permit was already pulled, the award date can be the later event. Always measure from the more recent of the two.

When no permit is required, the contract award date is the only trigger. The statute includes the qualifier “if a permit is required” when it describes the posting location adjacent to the permit, recognizing that not every project needs one.¹ You still post the notice in a visible location on the property.

Day 31 is too late. A notice filed or posted after the window has no power to block second- or third-tier lien claims, and the statute provides no cure for a missed deadline.

What the Form Must Contain

Section 44A-23(b)(2) prescribes a form that must be “substantially” in the statutory format. The required fields are straightforward:

Contractor name and address.
Property owner name and address, as listed on the recorded deed at the time of filing.
A property description sufficient to reasonably identify the property, such as a street address, tax map lot and block number, or reference to a recorded instrument.
The name and address of the person or entity actually filing the notice, which may differ from the contractor when the owner files.

The form also requires a date, the contractor’s signature, and the Clerk of Superior Court’s filing stamp.¹ Minor layout variations will not invalidate the notice; missing one of the four core fields will. The property description causes the most problems. Match it to the county records rather than relying on a casual street address.

Filing and Posting

Both steps are required. Filing without posting fails. Posting without filing fails.

File with the Clerk of Superior Court in each county where the property sits. If the project crosses a county line, you file in both. The filing fee is the same as the fee for filing a claim of lien on real property, so check with the local Clerk for the current amount.¹ Keep the stamped copy. It is your proof of the filing date and time.

Post a copy at the job site in a visible location adjacent to the building permit.¹ “Adjacent to the posted permit” is the statutory standard, not a suggestion. Any subcontractor walking onto the site should be able to see the notice before starting work. If the posting blows down or gets buried under other paperwork, replace it. The statute requires it to be there, not just to have been there once.

If a Subcontractor Serves a Notice of Subcontract

A second- or third-tier subcontractor can preserve lien rights by serving a Notice of Subcontract on the contractor. The form, also prescribed by G.S. 44A-23(b)(3), identifies the subcontractor, describes the property, identifies the subcontract and the parties to it, and generally describes the labor and materials furnished. Service uses the methods specified in G.S. 44A-19(d), which generally require verifiable proof of delivery.

Once a valid Notice of Subcontract is served, the contractor picks up a continuing obligation for the rest of the project. Within five days of each payment made to the first-tier subcontractor, the contractor must send the second- or third-tier sub a written notice identifying the payment date and the period the payment covers.¹

This is the second path to blocking lien enforcement. Even after a subcontractor serves a Notice of Subcontract, faithful on-time payment notices keep lien claims at bay. On a project with monthly draws, that means a payment notice every month, delivered through the methods in G.S. 44A-19(d) with records that will hold up if a dispute reaches court. Miss one, and lien rights for that period may come back into play.

Seven Days to Answer a Request for a Copy

When a potential lien claimant submits a written request for a copy of the Notice of Contract, the owner must respond within seven days. Treat any written inquiry from a subcontractor or supplier as triggering that clock. Keep copies at the site office and in your main files so a request that arrives by mail and sits unopened for a few days does not eat the window. Ignoring the request or missing the deadline risks restoring the lien rights the notice was meant to limit.

What a Missed Deadline Costs

A contractor who fails to file and post within 30 days loses the ability to use the Notice of Contract to block lower-tier lien claims on that project, and the consequences spread from there. If a first-tier subcontractor collects payment from the contractor but fails to pay a supplier or a sub-sub, that unpaid party can enforce the contractor’s lien against the property. The owner then faces a lien for work that was already paid for through the general contract, and the contractor faces demands to clear it.

No statutory mechanism allows a late filing to be made good after the fact. The 30-day window is hard, and the most expensive version of this problem is the one that surfaces months into a job, when a material supplier that nobody at the general contractor’s office knew about files a claim of lien.

1
North Carolina General Assembly. North Carolina Code 44A-23 – Contractor’s Claim of Lien on Real Property; Perfection of Subrogation Rights of Subcontractor