Alabama Lien Waiver & Release — The Statute Never Regulates the Document, It Regulates the Number (Ala. Code § 35-11-210) (2026)
✓ Verified against Alabama statutes · Reviewed September 2026 · By Michael Evan — Founder · 50 states · 799 rules
Alabama mechanics lien deadlines at a glance
Preliminary Notice
None (sub) — No pre-lien required for subs
Mechanics Lien
6 months — From last date of furnishing
Enforcement
6 months — From filing
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Alabama Regulates the Wrong Document, on Purpose
A lien waiver and release is the document a contractor, subcontractor, or supplier signs to give up lien rights, normally in exchange for a payment. States regulate two things about it — when it may be given, and what it must say. New York regulates timing absolutely: Lien Law section 34 voids every advance waiver as against public policy. South Carolina regulates proportion, requiring in S.C. Code section 29-7-20 that payment substantially equal to the amount waived actually be made. Arizona and Nevada regulate both, supplying four templates each. Alabama regulates neither. Division 8 of Title 35, Chapter 11 creates the lien, sets the notices, fixes the filing periods, and provides for enforcement — and never restricts a waiver. There is no Alabama analogue to N.Y. Lien Law section 34, to 770 ILCS 60/1(d), or to S.C. Code section 29-7-20. A no-lien clause in an Alabama subcontract is read as an ordinary contract term and can be enforced where the language clearly expresses an intent to waive lien rights. There is an irony inside that silence worth noticing. Alabama does prescribe a statutory form in this division — just not for the waiver. Section 35-11-210 sets out the text of the notice a materialman serves on the owner before furnishing materials, beginning: Take notice, that the undersigned is about to furnish. The legislature wrote a form for the document that creates leverage and left the document that surrenders it entirely to private drafting.
The Two-Tier Lien Decides What Your Waiver Releases
Alabama's consequential rule is not about the release at all. Under Ala. Code section 35-11-210, every mechanic, person, firm, or corporation that performs work or furnishes material for a building or improvement has a lien on the building, the improvements, and the land, to the extent of all the right, title, and interest of the owner or proprietor. But the amount that lien secures splits in two. The default is the unpaid balance lien: employees of the contractor and materialmen have a lien only to the amount of any unpaid balance due the contractor by the owner. The size of the claim is therefore set by somebody else's payment history. If the owner has already paid the general contractor in full, the lien attaches to an empty fund and secures nothing, however clean the claimant's own paperwork is. The upgrade is the full price lien. A materialman that gives the owner written notice before furnishing the materials may claim a lien for the full price specified in that notice, without regard to whether the amount of the claim exceeds the unpaid balance due the contractor. That single notice moves the claim from being capped by an upstream payment record to being measured by the claimant's own invoice — which is the whole ballgame on a job where the owner is current with the general contractor and the general contractor is not current with anyone else.
The Owner's Written Rejection
Alabama then gives the owner a counter-move, and it is the provision suppliers most often miss. After receiving the pre-furnishing notice, the owner or proprietor may respond in writing, before the material is used, stating that it will not be responsible for the price. That written rejection defeats the full price lien. A supplier that serves the section 35-11-210 notice, receives a written rejection, and then delivers material on credit anyway has made a credit decision without knowing it. Confirm whether an answer came back before the first load leaves the yard — the rejection has to be given before the material is used, so the timing is knowable. A rejection is not a catastrophe. The ordinary unpaid balance lien survives it, and so does the claimant's contract claim against whoever it dealt with. What disappears is the upgrade, and with it the reason the job was priced as an unsecured extension of credit in the first place.
How Alabama Waiver Law Applies, Scenario by Scenario
A no-lien clause in a subcontract signed before work begins faces no statutory bar in Alabama, because Division 8 contains no anti-waiver provision; enforceability turns on whether the language clearly expresses an intent to waive lien rights. A materialman that furnishes without serving the section 35-11-210 pre-furnishing notice holds an unpaid balance lien only, limited to the amount of any unpaid balance due the contractor by the owner. A materialman that serves the notice and hears nothing back holds a full price lien for the amount specified in the notice, without regard to whether it exceeds the unpaid balance. An owner that answers the notice in writing before the material is used, declining responsibility, defeats the full price lien and leaves the unpaid balance lien in place. Where the owner has already paid the contractor in full when the sub claims, an unpaid balance lien attaches to nothing, because a fully paid job leaves no fund. A subcontractor that files a verified statement without first noticing the owner under section 35-11-218 has filed defectively, since every claimant other than the original contractor must give written notice of the claim before filing. And a waiver that is not notarized, witnessed, or recorded carries no defect, because the chapter imposes no form requirement on a release. Ohio and Alabama end up in similar territory by opposite routes: Ohio Rev. Code section 1311.011(B)(1) extinguishes the residential lien outright where the owner paid the contractor in full before receiving an affidavit copy, while Alabama extinguishes nothing and simply measures the unpaid balance lien against a fund that is now empty.
Two Notices, Three Filing Deadlines, One Enforcement Clock
Alabama requires two separate written notices, and claimants collapse them constantly. The section 35-11-210 notice goes to the owner before the materials are furnished and controls how much the lien can secure. The section 35-11-218 notice goes to the owner before the verified statement is filed, states that a lien is claimed along with the amount, the work it is for, and from whom the money is owing, and is required of every claimant except the original contractor. Serving the second does not retroactively supply the first, and no amount of section 35-11-218 compliance converts an unpaid balance lien into a full price lien. The filing rule in section 35-11-215 is three rules. Every original contractor files its verified statement in the probate office within six months; every journeyman and day laborer within thirty days; every other person entitled to a lien within four months — all measured from the last item of work performed or the last item of material furnished, and the lien is deemed lost if the statement is not filed inside the applicable period. Then section 35-11-221 requires suit within six months after the maturity of the entire indebtedness secured by the lien, which is fixed by the payment terms of the underlying agreement rather than by the filing date. Two claimants on the same Alabama project, filing on the same day, can therefore hold different enforcement deadlines.
Generating and Tracking Alabama Waivers
Because Alabama supplies no waiver template and its real leverage is set weeks before any release circulates, the useful work is capturing the upstream facts. The Mechanics Lien Management Method records whether the section 35-11-210 pre-furnishing notice was served and whether a written rejection came back, so the claim is valued correctly before anything is signed; states the payment received and the through date on the face of the release; and carves out retainage, pending change orders, and disputed items rather than leaving them inside a blanket release. The Mechanics Lien Management State System calendars the section 35-11-218 notice, the applicable thirty-day, four-month, or six-month filing window, and the section 35-11-221 enforcement date from the same project record, alongside the county probate office where the verified statement is filed.
Frequently Asked Questions
Are advance lien waivers enforceable in Alabama?
Alabama has no statute prohibiting them. Division 8 of Title 35, Chapter 11 creates the lien, sets the notice and filing requirements, and fixes the enforcement period, but it contains no provision voiding a waiver signed in advance of performance — nothing corresponding to N.Y. Lien Law section 34 or to 770 ILCS 60/1(d), and no proportionality rule of the kind South Carolina put in S.C. Code section 29-7-20. A no-lien clause in an Alabama subcontract is therefore analyzed as an ordinary contract term, and it may be enforced where the language clearly expresses the parties' intent to waive lien rights. An Alabama subcontractor that signs one has made a real concession, not agreed to unenforceable boilerplate.
Does Alabama have a statutory lien waiver form?
No. Alabama prescribes no waiver or release template — no conditional-versus-unconditional matrix of the sort Arizona and Nevada supply, no progress-versus-final split, no mandatory legend, no required content, and no notarization requirement. Notably, the chapter does prescribe a form for something else: section 35-11-210 sets out the text of the notice a materialman gives the owner before furnishing materials, beginning Take notice, that the undersigned is about to furnish. Alabama wrote a statutory form for the document that creates leverage and left the document that gives leverage away entirely to private drafting.
What is the difference between an unpaid balance lien and a full price lien in Alabama?
It is the difference between being owed what the owner still holds and being owed what you are actually owed. Under Ala. Code section 35-11-210, employees of the contractor and materialmen have a lien only to the amount of any unpaid balance due the contractor by the owner — so if the owner has already paid the contractor in full, the lien secures nothing. A materialman who gives the owner written notice before furnishing the materials may instead claim a lien for the full price specified in that notice, without regard to whether the claim exceeds the unpaid balance due the contractor. The notice is what converts a claim capped by someone else's payment history into a claim measured by your own invoice.
Can an Alabama owner defeat a full price lien after receiving notice?
Yes, and this is the part of section 35-11-210 most often missed. After receiving the materialman's pre-furnishing notice, the owner or proprietor may respond in writing, before the material is used, stating that it will not be responsible for the price. That written rejection defeats the full price lien. The supplier is not left without rights — the unpaid balance lien remains available on the ordinary terms — but the upgrade is gone. The practical consequence is that an Alabama supplier should treat the notice as the opening of a decision window rather than the end of a task, and should know whether a rejection came back before it delivers material on credit.
What are the Alabama mechanics lien filing deadlines?
Three different periods, all measured from the last item of work performed or the last item of material furnished, and all set by Ala. Code section 35-11-215. Every original contractor files its verified statement in the probate office within six months. Every journeyman and day laborer files within thirty days. Every other person entitled to a lien — the category that holds most subcontractors and suppliers — files within four months. The statute states the consequence directly: the lien is deemed lost unless the statement is filed inside the applicable period. A subcontractor working from the six-month figure it heard on a previous job is working from the wrong number by two months.
How long does an Alabama claimant have to enforce a lien?
Six months. Under Ala. Code section 35-11-221, any action to enforce the lien declared in this division must be commenced within six months after the maturity of the entire indebtedness secured by it, except as otherwise provided in the division. Maturity is driven by the payment terms of the underlying agreement, not by the date the verified statement was filed — which makes the Alabama enforcement clock harder to calendar than the filing clock, because it is set by a contract term rather than by an event on the jobsite. It is also short: Louisiana allows a year from filing under La. R.S. 9:4823.
Does an Alabama subcontractor have to give notice before filing a lien?
Yes. Ala. Code section 35-11-218 requires any person entitled to a lien other than the original contractor to give the owner or proprietor written notice before filing the verified statement. The notice states that a lien is claimed, sets out the amount, identifies the work or materials it is for, and identifies from whom the money is owing. This is a separate document from the pre-furnishing notice in section 35-11-210 that unlocks the full price lien, and the two are frequently confused. One is served before the materials are furnished and controls how much the lien can secure; the other is served before the statement is filed and is a condition of filing at all.