Ohio Mechanics Lien (Original Contractor)

An Ohio contractor who built, repaired, or improved real property under a contract directly with the owner and has not been paid can secure the unpaid balance with a mechanics' lien on the improved property. This fill-in-the-blank affidavit for mechanics' lien is drafted for that claimant, the original contractor of Ohio Revised Code Section 1311.01(E), and it carries the sworn statements that Section 1311.06 makes the lien of record when the affidavit is filed with the county recorder.

A lien perfected by affidavit, not by lawsuit

Section 1311.02 gives a person who performs labor or furnishes material in furtherance of an improvement, under a contract with the owner, part owner, or lessee, a lien upon the improvement and upon every interest the owner has or later acquires in the land. The lien becomes a matter of record through one sworn document filed with the county recorder of each county in which the improved property lies. The recorder indorses the date and hour of filing on it, and from that filing the lien continues in force for six years under Section 1311.13(C).

Section 1311.06(C) prints a form the affidavit may follow, and this product carries that form's operative language, including the statement that there is justly and truly due the claimant, over and above all legal setoffs, the sum stated, for which amount the lien claimant claims a lien on the land, building, or leasehold.

What makes the original contractor different

The claimant this affidavit recites contracted directly with the owner, part owner, or lessee. A subcontractor or material supplier that dealt with the general contractor preserves its lien by serving a notice of furnishing within the window Sections 1311.04 and 1311.05 allow; Section 1311.05(A) states in so many words that no original contractor has to serve a notice of furnishing to preserve lien rights arising from a contract with an owner, part owner, or lessee. The affidavit is therefore the original contractor's one recorded step, and the form carries a fixed recital that the claimant is an original contractor under Section 1311.01(E) who undertook the improvement under a contract with the owner, part owner, or lessee it names.

The affidavit is sworn by one natural person. Where the contractor is an individual, that person is the affiant; where the contractor is a company, the affiant signs as its agent and the form records that capacity, in the style of the completed example's managing member of a limited liability company. The certificate is a jurat, the sworn-to-and-subscribed certificate of Section 147.542, and Section 1311.06(A) permits the oath to be administered by any person authorized to administer oaths, including an agent or attorney for the claimant.

Sixty days, seventy-five days, or one hundred twenty

The filing deadline runs from the last date the claimant performed labor or work or furnished material. Section 1311.06(B) allows sixty days where the lien arises in connection with a one- or two-family dwelling or a residential condominium unit, one hundred twenty days for a lien on an oil or gas well under Section 1311.021, and seventy-five days for every other improvement. Within thirty days after filing, Section 1311.07 requires a copy of the affidavit to reach the owner by one of the means Section 1311.19 lists, with posting on the premises as the fallback where service cannot be made. On a home construction contract, Section 1311.011 adds that no lien exists if the owner paid the original contractor in full before receiving that copy, and that a lienholder who receives written notice of full payment and does not release the lien within thirty days answers for the resulting damages.

Built for the Ohio recorder

The affidavit is laid out to the standard format of Section 317.114: a three-inch blank margin at the top of the first page for the recorder's indorsement, one-inch side and bottom margins, a one-and-one-half-inch top margin on later pages, and twelve-point body type above the ten-point minimum. It ends with the prepared-by statement Section 317.111 requires on an instrument creating a lien and a return block for the recorded original.

The package includes the fillable affidavit, a completed example filled in for a realistic Franklin County fact pattern, and the guide that walks through every numbered section, the filing periods, the service of a copy on the owner, and the later events that can discharge or release a recorded lien. This description and the guide describe the form and the governing Ohio statutes in general terms; they are not legal advice.