Ohio Conditional Lien Waiver

An Ohio conditional waiver of mechanic's lien gives up lien rights only when the money actually arrives. This form prepares that waiver for one claimant who furnished labor, work, or materials to an Ohio improvement: it names the payment and the through date, and states that until the payment is received in collected funds the instrument waives and releases nothing.

A waiver that waits for collected funds

The operative section ties everything to one event. Upon, and only upon, the claimant's receipt of the stated payment in collected funds, the claimant waives and releases any mechanic's lien, right to a mechanic's lien, and claim of lien under sections 1311.01 to 1311.22 of the Ohio Revised Code against the described property for the labor, work, or materials furnished through the stated date. A check or draft counts as payment only when the bank on which it is drawn has paid it. A subcontractor or supplier can therefore hand over the signed waiver as the check changes hands without giving up anything if the check later fails. An Ohio lien waiver written this way is also searched for as a conditional lien release or a progress payment lien waiver.

What stays outside the waiver

The form prints its exceptions as fixed text. The waiver does not extend to retainage withheld, in an amount the form states; to disputed claims for extras or changes, in an amount the form states; or to labor, work, or materials furnished after the through date. The instrument also says that it waives lien rights only and releases no one from the obligation to pay the stated amount. Section 4113.62(B) of the Revised Code makes void any construction contract provision that waives a pending or asserted claim on the basis of final payment once the payer has notice of the claim, and a waiver that carves disputed claims out by amount records what was and was not released.

Ohio has no statutory waiver form

Ohio's mechanic's lien chapter prescribes forms for the notice of commencement, the notice of furnishing, and the affidavit for mechanics' lien, but no form of lien waiver, though it treats lien releases as part of paying for a job. On a home construction contract, section 1311.011 lets an owner or lender pay the original contractor and a subcontractor jointly as a condition of getting lien releases, directs the owner or lender to withhold a disputed amount when a subcontractor refuses to sign a release, and makes a lien release given under that section valid without separate consideration. This form is the written release that framework contemplates, with the condition and the exceptions spelled out.

One claimant, one signature, one certificate

The form identifies exactly one claimant, a natural person signing in the claimant's own right, including a sole proprietor signing under a trade name. The instrument records the claimant's place in the contract chain by naming the customer who hired the claimant, the owner, and the original contractor, so it carries an original contractor's waiver toward the owner as readily as a subcontractor's or supplier's waiver toward the party above it. The claimant signs once under the heading CLAIMANT, and the form carries one acknowledgment certificate for that signature in the Ohio statutory short form of section 147.55(A). The form is not set up as a waiver by a corporation, limited liability company, or partnership signing through an officer or member, as a waiver by two or more claimants on one instrument, as an unconditional waiver that operates on delivery, or as a release of record of a lien affidavit already recorded, which Ohio treats as a separate instrument under section 1311.20.

Delivered, not usually recorded

A conditional waiver is delivered to the person paying and kept with the project's payment records; it is not an instrument the county recorder's list in section 317.08 names, and it is not ordinarily recorded. It is nonetheless laid out to the standard recording format of section 317.114, with the three inch first page margin and one inch side and bottom margins, and carries the preparer block of section 317.111, so it conforms if presented with a related instrument.

The package contains the fillable conditional waiver form, a completed example showing a masonry subcontractor's progress waiver on a Franklin County residential addition, and a guide that walks through each section and the Ohio statutes behind the instrument. This description and the guide describe the form and the law in general terms and are not legal advice.