Corridor Notes · Due Diligence & Title
A Kentucky mechanics lien is the one closing risk that can attach to a commercial building after you own it, for work you never ordered, on a date that precedes your deed. Every guide that ranks for this topic is written for the contractor filing the lien or for a homeowner. Almost none of it is written for the person on the other side of the table — the buyer who is about to wire money for a building somebody just finished renovating. That is the version below, read straight out of the statute.
What is a Kentucky mechanics lien, and why should a commercial buyer care?
It is a statutory claim against the property itself for unpaid labor or materials. It follows the real estate, not the person who ordered the work.
Kentucky’s version lives in KRS 376.010, effective June 29, 2023 in its current form. It gives anyone who performs labor or furnishes materials for “the erection, altering, or repairing of a house or other structure or for any fixture or machinery therein” a lien on the improvement “and upon the land upon which the improvements were made, or on any interest the owner or lessee has therein.”
The word doing the work there is upon the land. A contractor’s dispute is with whoever hired them. Their lien is against your building.
Can a contractor lien a building after you have already bought it?
Yes — and if it is filed correctly it does not take its priority from the filing date. It reaches back to the day the first labor or material arrived on site.
This is the subsection almost nothing else on this topic quotes to a buyer. KRS 376.010(1)(c) says the lien “shall be superior to any mortgage or encumbrance created subsequent to the beginning of the labor or the furnishing of the materials, and the lien, if asserted as hereinafter provided, shall relate back and take effect from the time of the commencement of the labor or the furnishing of the materials.”
Relation back is the whole problem. A renovation that started in March, a closing in July, a lien statement filed in September — and the lien’s effective date is March. Nothing appears in the clerk’s records on your closing date, because nothing has been filed yet.
The clock on a mechanics lien does not start when it is filed. It starts when the first truck showed up.
What actually protects a buyer, then?
The next subsection. A recorded, good-faith purchase for value without notice outranks the lien — unless the claimant filed a warning statement with the county clerk first.
KRS 376.010(2)(a) provides that the lien “shall not take precedence over a mortgage or other contract lien or bona fide conveyance for value without notice, duly recorded or lodged for record according to law, unless the person claiming the prior lien shall, before the recording of the mortgage or other contract lien or conveyance, file in the office of the county clerk of the county where he or she has furnished or expects to furnish labor or materials, a statement showing that he or she has furnished or expects to furnish labor or materials, and the amount.”
Three conditions are doing the work in that sentence, and a buyer can influence all three:
- For value. An arm’s-length purchase price, documented.
- Without notice. This is the one buyers hand away. Notice is not only what is recorded — it is also what you were told, what you saw, and what a reasonable inspection would have shown. Fresh drywall and a half-finished build-out are facts you now know.
- Duly recorded. Priority here is measured against recording, so the gap between signing and recording your deed is exposure, not paperwork.
The pre-filed statement in that subsection is also the thing to search for. It is not a lien; it is a supplier announcing that it expects to furnish materials. It is filed in the county clerk’s records ahead of your closing, and it is the one document that can defeat the protection above.
How long does a contractor have to file a lien in Kentucky?
Six months from the day that claimant stopped working or stopped supplying — and a copy must reach the owner by mail within seven days of the filing.
KRS 376.080, effective July 13, 1990, dissolves the lien “unless the claimant, within six (6) months after he ceases to labor or furnish materials, files in the office of the county clerk of the county in which the building or improvement is situated a statement of the amount due.” The same subsection adds a second kill switch: the claimant “shall send by regular mail a copy of the statement to the property owner at his last known address within seven (7) days of filing,” and “any lien provided for in KRS 376.010 shall be dissolved if a copy of the statement is not sent to the property owner as provided in this subsection.”
Two practical consequences for a buyer. First, six months runs from each claimant’s own last day, so a job with a dozen subcontractors has a dozen different clocks. Second, once you own the building you are the property owner that copy must be mailed to — which is why the address of record and who opens that mail matter more than they sound like they should.
| The deadline | What it is | Source |
|---|---|---|
| 75 days | Written notice to the owner from a claimant with no direct contract, on claims under $1,000 | KRS 376.010(4)(a) |
| 120 days | Same notice, on claims over $1,000 — the commercial default | KRS 376.010(4)(a) |
| 6 months | Lien statement filed with the county clerk, from that claimant’s last labor or materials | KRS 376.080(1) |
| 7 days | Copy of the filed statement mailed to the property owner, or the lien dissolves | KRS 376.080(1) |
What if the work was ordered by a tenant instead of the seller?
Then the lien normally reaches only the tenant’s interest — unless the build-out was done under an agreement with the landlord, in which case it reaches the fee too.
KRS 376.010(3)(a) limits the lien to “the right, title, and interest of the person who contracts for the improvements as the right, title, and interest exist at the commencement of the improvements or as thereafter acquired.” Then it adds the exception that matters in a leased investment property: “When improvements to property are made by a lessee in accordance with an agreement between the lessee and his or her lessor, the lien shall also extend to the interest of the lessor.”
That is a lease-review question disguised as a lien question. A tenant improvement allowance, a landlord-approved plan set, a work letter — those are the kind of documents that turn a tenant’s contractor into a claimant against the building you are buying. If you are underwriting a leased asset, this belongs next to your rent roll review; our note on lease versus buy for commercial space in Lexington covers where those lease documents sit in a transaction.
Subsection (3)(b) runs the other direction and is worth knowing on the sell side: where a lease “expressly provides that the interest of the lessor shall not be subject to liens for improvements made by the lessee,” the lessee has to tell the contractor, and a knowing or willing failure to give that notice makes the lessee’s contract with the contractor voidable at the contractor’s option.
One limitation on all of subsection (3) is easy to miss and changes the answer building by building. The Legislative Research Commission note printed at the foot of the statute records that “2023 Ky. Acts ch. 177, sec. 6, provides that the provisions of subsection (3) of this statute shall not apply to any lease or agreement entered into prior to June 29, 2023.” So the lessee-and-lessor rules above govern leases signed on or after that date. A multi-tenant building carrying a mix of older renewals and newer originals has to be read lease by lease rather than as a single position, and that analysis lives in the lease abstracts and estoppel certificates rather than in the title work.
Does the homeowner protection in the statute help a commercial buyer?
No. The shorter notice window and the payment defense in subsection (5) are written for owner-occupied one- and two-family dwellings, not for commercial buildings.
KRS 376.010(5) gives an owner-occupant of a single or double family dwelling a 75-day notice requirement and, more usefully, a defense to the extent the owner already paid the contractor before receiving that notice. Subsection (5)(f) states the limit plainly: it “shall apply to the construction of single or double family homes constructed pursuant to a construction contract with a property owner and intended for use as the property owner’s dwelling.”
Read that as a warning rather than a footnote. Kentucky wrote a paid-once-is-enough protection into this statute and deliberately gave it only to homeowners. A commercial buyer who paid the seller in full has no equivalent shield in the text. And the bona fide purchaser rule is narrower than it sounds. Subsection (2)(a) only protects a recorded mortgage, contract lien or conveyance against a claimant who did not pre-file a statement of intent with the county clerk. Once a claimant perfects on time, a different statute takes over and points the other way: KRS 376.090, at subsection (2), says a lien whose holder complied with the filing and enforcement requirements within the time fixed shall “be valid and effectual against any creditor of, or bona fide or other purchaser from, the owner of the property.” Buying in good faith, for value, without notice does not by itself defeat a perfected Kentucky lien. Your real protection is the chronology work below, done before you close.
What should be in the file before you close?
Anything that lets you date the last day of work and identify everyone who touched the building in the six months before it.
Working the buy side, the pattern I keep coming back to is that the lien question is really a chronology question, and chronology is cheap to assemble while the seller still wants to close. A building with recent work is not a problem — an undocumented recent work history is. The requests below cost nothing to make and are ordinary to ask for:
- A schedule of every improvement in the last twelve months, with each contractor, supplier and the date of last work.
- Signed lien waivers and releases from each of them, matched to that schedule rather than to invoices.
- Copies of any building permits, which date the work independently of what the seller remembers.
- A clerk’s records search that includes pre-filed statements of intent to furnish, not only recorded liens.
- Tenant work letters and improvement allowances for any build-out in the same period.
- A seller affidavit and indemnity, and a conversation with your title company about mechanics lien coverage on the policy.
Where this goes in the timeline is the same place the rest of the records requests go — see our commercial due diligence checklist for Lexington, and how long it takes to close on commercial property in Kentucky for how much room a normal contract period leaves you. What the seller does and does not have to volunteer is a separate question, covered in Kentucky seller disclosure on commercial property.
Does a title search show a mechanics lien that has not been filed yet?
No. A search shows what is on record on the day it is run. Because KRS 376.080 gives a claimant six months from their last work to file, a lien can be recorded months after your closing and still relate back under KRS 376.010(1)(c) to the day the work began. This is why the work chronology matters more than the search date.
Is a mechanics lien the same as a materialman’s lien in Kentucky?
They are the same statutory lien. KRS 376.010 is captioned “Mechanics’ and materialman’s liens” and covers both labor and furnished materials, including specified items such as concrete pipe, crushed rock and fencing materials. The distinction people draw is between someone who performed labor and someone who supplied goods, not between two different liens.
What is a notice of intent to furnish materials?
It is the statement described in KRS 376.010(2)(a), filed with the county clerk by someone who has furnished or expects to furnish labor or materials. Filed before your conveyance is recorded, it removes the “without notice” protection a bona fide purchaser would otherwise have. It is a public record, so it can be searched for before closing.
Last updated: September 2, 2026
This is general information about Kentucky lien statutes for commercial buyers, not legal advice. Lien priority turns on the specific facts, dates and documents of your transaction — have your attorney and your title company review them before you close.
By Marcos Gil, REALTOR® — Keller Williams Commonwealth · KY Real Estate License No. 296259 · Call or text (859) 310-1209.
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