Builders’ liens and prompt payment

Outside Quebec, every province and territory has a lien act. If you supply work, services or materials to improve land and are not paid, you can claim a lien against the owner’s interest in that land, whether or not the owner hired you directly. It is a security interest: it can stop a sale or a mortgage advance until it is dealt with.

The deadlines are short and they do not bend. A lien must be preserved or registered within a set number of days after a triggering event, and then enforced by starting a court action within a further period, or it expires. In Ontario a lien is preserved within 60 days and perfected within 90 days after that. In Newfoundland and Labrador and in Yukon the registration window is 30 days. The holdback guide has every province’s period and section.

How much a lien actually recovers depends on the holdback the owner kept and on what was still owing. That is why holdback, trust rules and liens are best read together. Quebec uses a legal hypothec under the Civil Code instead, covered in the holdback guide.

Do not register a lien without advice. A lien registered late, against the wrong property or for an inflated amount can leave you paying the owner’s costs.

Prompt payment laws make payment deadlines statutory. The pattern is the same where they exist. The contractor gives the owner a proper invoice, usually monthly. The owner pays within 28 days or gives a notice saying what it disputes. The contractor then has a short window to pay its subs, or to give its own notice. Disputes can go to a fast adjudication rather than to court.

Proper invoices go to the owner monthly unless the contract says otherwise (s. 6.3). A clause making the invoice conditional on an architect’s certificate or the owner’s prior approval has no effect. A proper invoice must contain set information: your name and address, the date and the period it covers, the contract it relates to, a description of what was supplied, the amount and payment terms, and where to send payment (s. 6.1).

Since 1 January 2026, an invoice that is missing something is deemed proper unless the owner tells you in writing within 7 days what is wrong and what is needed (s. 6.1(2)). The owner pays within 28 days, or gives a notice of non-payment within 14 days that sets out the amount it will not pay and all of its reasons (s. 6.4).

When you are paid, you pay your subs their share within 7 days. If the owner does not pay, you still pay your subs by day 35 after you invoiced, unless you give them a notice of non-payment that undertakes to refer the dispute to adjudication (s. 6.5).

Adjudication through ODACC is quick: the adjudicator decides within 30 days after receiving the documents, and an amount awarded must be paid within 15 days of the decision (s. 13.19). The decision binds until a court, an arbitrator or the parties’ written agreement says otherwise. From 2026, an adjudication on a contract can start up to 90 days after the contract is completed, abandoned or terminated (s. 13.5).

All three copied the Ontario shape: monthly proper invoices (Alberta says at least every 31 days), 28 days for the owner, 14 days to dispute, 7 days to pay subs, and 30-day adjudication decisions. The differences are in the details, the names of the notices and the adjudication bodies.

Manitoba is the newest. Its prompt payment division came into force on 1 April 2025 and applies to contracts and sub-contracts made on or after that date (s. 80). Adjudication runs through the Manitoba Prompt Payment Adjudication Authority, decisions are due within 30 days, and an award is payable within 10 days.

Alberta adjudication must start within 30 days of final payment (s. 33.4). Saskatchewan adjudications run through SCDRO. Each province’s start date and transition rules decide whether your contract is covered, so check the date your contract was made against the act.

Prompt payment shortens every argument to a few weeks. A notice of non-payment must give reasons, and an adjudicator decides on the documents in front of them within about a month. The builder with signed change orders, dated daily logs and a clean invoice history wins those. The builder with a text message saying "go ahead with the extra framing" usually does not.

Liens work the same way. The amount you can claim is what you can show you supplied and were not paid for. An unsigned extra is a dispute about whether it was ever part of the contract.

• Get every change signed before the work is done, with the price and the effect on the schedule.
• Keep a daily log: who was on site, what was done, weather, delays and their causes, with photos.
• Invoice on a regular cycle, with the information a proper invoice needs, and keep the date you sent it.
• Diarize the 14-day and 7-day notice windows the day an invoice goes out. Missing a notice can cost you the right to dispute.
• Keep the date of substantial performance and of your last supply. Lien periods run from them.