Michigan Notice of Commencement

Michigan runs its construction lien system off a document recorded before the work starts. Under MCL 570.1108, section 108 of Michigan's construction lien act, the owner or lessee contracting for an improvement records a notice of commencement with the register of deeds in each county where the property to be improved sits, before the commencement of any improvements. What that recorded page says drives everything after it: the parcel, the contracting party and its capacity, the fee owner where a land contract vendee or a lessee is doing the contracting, the general contractor, and the designee whose address becomes the delivery point for lien notices. Michigan calls its mechanics lien a construction lien, and this is the instrument that opens the file.

The designee line is the working part

MCL 570.1109(1) directs a subcontractor or supplier to deliver a notice of furnishing to the designee and the general contractor named in the notice of commencement, at the address shown there, within 20 days after first furnishing labor or material; that notice of furnishing is the claimant's own instrument, prepared separately and not included in this package. A laborer's deadline runs by the fifth day of the second month after unpaid fringe benefits or withholdings came due, MCL 570.1109(3). Where no designee is named, or the designee has died, delivery goes to the owner or lessee named in the notice.

Not recording it costs time, not validity

Michigan does not void a project over a missing notice; it moves the other side's deadlines. MCL 570.1108(10) extends a subcontractor's or supplier's notice of furnishing period until 20 days after the notice of commencement has been recorded, MCL 570.1108(11) does the same where the notice was not provided on written request, and MCL 570.1108(13) gives a laborer 30 days after it has been provided. Subsections (9), (14), (15), and (16) attach liability for the actual expenses another party sustains in tracking down the same information, and MCL 570.1108(4) adds that incorrect information does not adversely affect a lien claimant's rights against the property.

A notice that is sworn

Section 108 of the construction lien act, 1980 PA 497, ends its contents list with a sworn item. MCL 570.1108(2)(h) makes an affidavit of the owner or lessee, or of the agent of the owner or lessee, verifying the notice one of the required contents, so the certificate at the end is a jurat rather than an acknowledgment. The signer swears to the verification in front of a notary public, who completes the certificate under the Michigan Law on Notarial Acts, MCL 55.261 to 55.315, carrying the county of commission, the county of the act, and the expiration date under MCL 55.287.

Recording, posting, and copies on request

Recording is the first of three duties. MCL 570.1112(2) charges the notice the same as a real estate mortgage, which MCL 600.2567(1) fixes at $30.00 without regard to page count, subject to a charter county's own ordinance schedule under MCL 600.2567(3). MCL 570.1108(8) calls for a copy posted and kept posted in a conspicuous place on the property during the improvement, and MCL 570.1108(5) calls for a copy, with a detachable blank notice of furnishing attached, within 10 days after a written request mailed by certified mail. Page format follows MCL 565.201: a 2-1/2 inch unprinted space at the top of page one, 10 point type, and a first line identifying the single recordable event.

What this form is set up as

The form is the recorded section 108 notice for an improvement other than an improvement to a residential structure, the line MCL 570.1108(18) draws; residential work runs under MCL 570.1108a, where the notice is prepared and handed over on written request rather than recorded, and MCL 570.1106(4) defines the residential structure that sorts one project from the other. One signature block and one notarial certificate appear, matching the single verifying affiant the statute names, and that block takes the owner or lessee or an agent of either. Commercial and industrial improvements, apartment work above two units, and construction on property the contracting owner will not occupy are the patterns that present this recorded form, and the statutory contents print as fixed text, including the full statement to lien claimants and subsequent purchasers under MCL 570.1108(2)(f).

The package contains the fillable notice of commencement, a completed example filled out for an Ottawa County commercial project, and a guide covering the statute, the form, the verification, and recording. The material is informational and is not legal advice.