Preliminary notice window

Definition

The notice served early on a private job to keep a lien or bond claim available later.

Why It Matters

California makes it a prerequisite to any lien claim or stop payment notice, sets the window at twenty days from first furnishing work, and lets a late notice reach backwards only twenty days. Everything earned before that is unsecured. A seller with sloppy notice practice has silently written off part of its own aging without any entry saying so, which is why this belongs in diligence and not in the first hundred days.