Your skills and expertise are typically what clients covet when they bring you in to provide work on a construction or property improvement project. It is the application of that labor that is typically the subject of a mechanic’s lien (indeed, the use of the word “mechanic” when describing such a lien essentially implies that it is expressly your labor such a lien addresses).
Yet what the materials used in a project? You typically cannot perform your work with them. Furthermore, what if your primary role in a project is to provide said materials? The design, fabrication and delivery of these resources are often costly. What legal recourses might be available to you to recover these costs in the event you are not paid in a timely manner?
Materials covered under a mechanic’s lien
Again, it is a mechanic’s lien that gives you the leverage needed to collect for goods and materials you furnish. Per Section 1311.12 of Ohio’s Revised Code, a mechanic’s lien covers all of the following materials:
- Any materials delivered to a job site furnished with the intent for use in a construction or improvement project
- Any materials used as normal wastage in a construction or improvement project
- Any materials not used in a project that you cannot then readily resale to reuse
- Any materials used for the improvement and repair of tools and/or machinery employed in a construction or improvement project
- The aforementioned tools and/or machinery
Compensation for tools and/or machinery used in a project
Specifically in regards to the tools and/or machinery used in a project, the cost you can recover through a mechanic’s lien cannot exceed either their purchase price (if you bought them) or their rental price (if you leased them).
