A.R.S. 33-992.01: The Twenty Day Preliminary Notice Explained

If you are building a home in Arizona, expect official-looking notices in the mail early in the job warning that the sender could lien your property. That is the preliminary twenty day notice, and A.R.S. 33-992.01 makes it a near-universal requirement. A subcontractor or supplier who skips it usually loses the right to lien you. Read these notices instead of tossing them: they are your map of everyone who could come after the house if your contractor fails to pay them.

What the notice is and when it is due

The notice is a written heads-up that the sender has started furnishing labor, materials, or professional services to your project and intends to keep its lien rights. The deadline is tight:

the preliminary twenty day notice referred to in section 33-981... shall be given not later than twenty days after the claimant has first furnished labor, professional services, materials, machinery, fixtures or tools to the jobsite.

There is no minimum dollar amount that triggers it. A $300 supplier and a $300,000 framing sub are both subject to the rule. The notice has to identify the claimant, the party who hired them, the property, and a general description and estimate of what they are providing. It also carries a blunt statutory warning to you, the owner, that a lien could be recorded and that paying the contractor does not always clear it.

Why "late" still matters to a claimant

A claimant who misses the twenty day window does not lose everything, but they lose a lot. The lien shrinks to a rolling twenty day lookback:

If a notice is not given within the twenty day period... the claimant may give the notice at any later time, and the claimant is entitled to claim a lien only for such labor, professional services, materials, machinery, fixtures or tools furnished within twenty days prior to the service of the notice and at any time thereafter.

So a supplier who furnished $40,000 of materials over three months but served the notice late can lien only for what it provided in the twenty days before mailing, not the full $40,000. That is a real reason the notice gets sent fast.

For example, on a Fountain Hills custom build, your electrician's supply house mails a twenty day notice in week two listing a $22,000 estimate. That notice does not mean anyone is unpaid yet. It means the supplier preserved its right to lien for up to $22,000 if your contractor never pays it. Your job is to make sure the contractor actually pays that bill, often by asking for a lien waiver when you release each draw.

How this connects to the rest of the process

The twenty day notice is step one in a chain. The lien right it protects comes from A.R.S. 33-981 . If the claimant does proceed, the actual lien is recorded under the rules and deadline in A.R.S. 33-993 . One smart owner move when you get a notice: tell your contractor to provide a lien waiver from that sender as a condition of the next payment, governed by A.R.S. 33-1008 . Tracking notices and waivers together is how you keep from paying twice . For setting up clean payment terms from day one, see what to include in a custom home contract .

Full text and source

Read the full section, including the exact notice language and service rules, on the legislature's site: View A.R.S. 33-992.01 on azleg.gov .

A preliminary notice is normal paperwork, not a lawsuit, but it does flag a future lien risk, so keep every notice you receive and match it against your contractor's lien waivers before each draw.