Michigan Notice of Furnishing: Deadlines, Service, and Contents

A Michigan Notice of Furnishing is a written notice that subcontractors, suppliers, and unpaid laborers must serve to preserve the right to file a construction lien on a project. Under MCL 570.1109, subcontractors and suppliers have 20 days after first providing labor or materials to send it.¹ Miss it, and you may keep some lien rights on paper but lose the leverage that makes a lien worth having.

Who Has to File

The rule tracks your contractual relationship with the property owner.

Subcontractors and suppliers who do not have a direct contract with the property owner or lessee must file. This is the group the statute is aimed at.
Laborers who have not been paid on time must also file, though their deadlines and service rules are different.
Contractors who contracted directly with the owner or lessee do not need to file. The direct contract itself puts the owner on notice.¹

The reason is practical. The owner already knows about the general contractor. The owner usually has no idea who the general hired below that, or where the drywall or steel is coming from. The notice fills that gap.

Deadlines

The deadline depends on your role and what you’re owed:

Subcontractors and suppliers: within 20 days after first furnishing labor or materials to the project.
Laborers claiming unpaid wages: within 30 days after wages were contractually due but not paid.
Laborers claiming unpaid fringe benefits or wage withholdings: by the fifth day of the second month following the month the benefits or withholdings were contractually due but not paid.¹

The 20-day clock is the one people miss. Day one is the date you first delivered materials or first showed up to work. Not the date you signed the contract. Not the date you sent your first invoice. On an active site it’s easy to lose track, so mark the first day of work on the job file as soon as it happens.

Where to Send It

Before you file, look for the Notice of Commencement. The property owner or lessee typically records this document before construction begins. It identifies the property, the owner, the owner’s designee (the person appointed to receive notices), and the general contractor.²

Your Notice of Furnishing goes to the designee named there, at the address listed. If no designee was named, or the designee has died, send it to the property owner or lessee instead.¹ The general contractor, if one is named in the Notice of Commencement, must also receive a copy. Sending it to only one recipient is a common oversight.

How to Serve It

Service rules turn on who you are. Subcontractors and suppliers must serve the notice either personally or by certified mail. Laborers claiming unpaid wages can use regular first-class mail with prepaid postage. Laborers claiming unpaid fringe benefits or withholdings must use personal delivery or certified mail.¹

For any method involving mail, service is complete on the date of mailing, not the date of receipt. Even so, certified mail with a return receipt is the practical choice. Months later, a signed postal receipt beats a vague recollection of dropping something in the mailbox. As of 2026, USPS charges $5.30 for certified mail plus $4.40 for a physical return receipt, totaling about $9.70 per recipient.³

What the Notice Must Contain

Michigan law provides a statutory form. If you don’t use the form attached to the Notice of Commencement, your notice must be in “substantially” the statutory format, which means exact wording isn’t required but every required element must be present.¹ Include:

The name and address of the designee (or owner or lessee, if no designee was named) taken from the Notice of Commencement.
The name and address of the person or company that hired you.
A description of the labor or materials you are furnishing.
A reference to the real property described in the Notice of Commencement, with the recording information (liber and page) or a copy of the Notice of Commencement attached.
Your own name and address, and the name and capacity of the person signing on your behalf.
The statutory warning to the owner that the notice is required by the Michigan Construction Lien Act and that the owner should consult an attorney to avoid the possibility of paying twice for the same improvements.¹

Leaving out the statutory warning is the kind of small omission that gives an opponent something to challenge later.

What Happens If You File Late

The statute is more forgiving than most people assume. A late Notice of Furnishing does not automatically wipe out your lien rights. The consequences split by timing:

For work performed after you finally serve the notice, your lien rights are intact. The late filing has no effect on that portion of the claim.
For work performed before you served the notice, your lien rights are also preserved, with one exception: you lose rights to the extent the owner or lessee already made payments to the contractor based on a sworn statement or lien waiver covering your work.¹

Put plainly: if you file late but the owner hasn’t yet paid the contractor for your portion of the work, you’re largely fine. If the owner already paid the contractor based on a sworn statement that didn’t list you, because the owner didn’t yet know you were on the job, you can’t reach that money through a lien. That’s the real risk of missing the 20-day window.

What Happens If You Never File

Skipping the notice altogether is a different situation. Without it, you lose the statutory protections tied to lien rights, and you lose a practical protection built into the payment process.

Under MCL 570.1110, when the contractor gives the owner a sworn statement listing subcontractors and amounts owed, the owner can withhold funds from the contractor and pay listed subcontractors directly. The statute ties this mechanism to lien claimants who have provided a Notice of Furnishing. Without one, the owner has no statutory obligation to hold back funds for you.⁴ The statute also tells owners in plain terms that they cannot rely on a sworn statement to escape the claim of a subcontractor who has served a Notice of Furnishing, which is what gives your notice its weight once it arrives.

Without a lien position, you’re an unsecured creditor standing in line behind everyone who filed. On a distressed project, that is often the difference between getting paid and writing off the loss.

Where the Notice Fits in the Lien Timeline

The Notice of Furnishing is the first move, not the whole game. The full sequence:

Before construction begins, the owner or lessee files a Notice of Commencement.
Within 20 days of first furnishing labor or materials, subcontractors and suppliers send the Notice of Furnishing to the designee and the general contractor.
Within 90 days of last furnishing labor or materials, you must record a claim of lien with the register of deeds in the county where the property is located. Missing this deadline extinguishes your lien right entirely.⁵
Within 15 days of recording, you must serve a copy of the recorded claim of lien on the designee (or owner) personally or by certified mail with return receipt requested.⁵
To enforce the lien, you must file a foreclosure lawsuit within the time set by MCL 570.1117. Missing that final deadline renders the recorded lien unenforceable.

Each step depends on the one before it. A perfectly recorded lien means nothing without the Notice of Furnishing, and a timely Notice of Furnishing is wasted work if the 90-day recording deadline slips.

Residential and Commercial Projects

The Construction Lien Act treats residential and commercial projects differently at the Notice of Commencement stage. MCL 570.1108 governs commercial projects and expressly does not apply to improvements to residential structures.⁶ Residential projects fall under MCL 570.1108a, which carries its own requirements and homeowner-oriented warnings.²

MCL 570.1109 opens with the phrase “Except as otherwise provided in sections 108 and 108a,” which means the rules for the Notice of Furnishing itself can vary by project type. On a residential job, check which Notice of Commencement section applies before you copy names, addresses, and property descriptions onto your notice. Sending the correct notice to the wrong person is the kind of error that shows up only when your lien is being challenged.

1
Michigan Legislature. Michigan Code MCL 570.1109 – Notice of Furnishing
2
Michigan Legislature. Michigan Code MCL 570.1108a – Residential Notice of Commencement
3
USPS. Insurance and Extra Services
4
Michigan Legislature. Michigan Code MCL 570.1110 – Sworn Statement
5
Michigan Legislature. Michigan Code MCL 570.1111 – Claim of Lien
6
Michigan Legislature. Michigan Code MCL 570.1108 – Notice of Commencement