A concrete contractor lien waiver is the receipt that says a specific party gave up the right to lien your property for a specific amount of work. There are 4 kinds, and using the wrong one is how an owner hands away his position for free. The fact that changes behavior: a ready-mix supplier you never met can generally lien your property after you paid your contractor in full.
Every other page in this series tells you what to check on the slab. This one is about how the money is structured, which is the part you have leverage over only while the checks are still in your book. It is written to be used against us as easily as against anybody else, and the requests in it are ordinary professional practice that a general contractor collects from his own subs every month of the year.
This is not legal advice. Lien law is state-specific and deadline-driven, and the last section says exactly where to take it.
What is a lien waiver actually doing?
A mechanic’s lien is a claim recorded against the property title by someone who supplied labor or material and did not get paid for it. The detail owner-builders miss is that the claim attaches to the real estate, not to the contractor. Your land is the collateral for somebody else’s unpaid invoice.
The amount does not have to be large to matter. A recorded claim for $4,000 in unpaid ready-mix holds up a refinance or a closing about as effectively as a claim for $40,000, because a title company treats both the same way: cleared, or nothing funds.
A waiver is that party’s signed statement giving up that claim, for a stated dollar amount, covering work through a stated date. It runs both directions. The contractor gets paid on a schedule he can plan around, and you get documented proof that the money you released cannot come back at your title.
Nobody should read the request as an accusation. On a commercial job, a general contractor collects waivers from every sub and supplier with every monthly pay application, and the owner’s lender will not fund the draw without them. All you are doing is running your own build the way a lender would.
Conditional or unconditional: which one are you signing?
Four forms, and the difference between two of them is the whole protection.
| Waiver type | Takes effect | When it belongs in the process |
|---|---|---|
| Conditional progress | Only when that specific payment clears | Ask for it with each draw request, before the check leaves your hand |
| Unconditional progress | On signature, whether the check clears or not | Only after those funds have actually cleared your account |
| Conditional final | Only when the final payment clears | With the final invoice |
| Unconditional final | On signature | After final payment clears, and this is the form that closes the job |
The trap runs in both directions. A contractor who signs an unconditional waiver in exchange for a check that then bounces has waived a claim for money he never got. An owner who collects a drawer full of conditional waivers and never gathers the unconditional versions at the end has a stack of paper that is entirely conditional on payments nobody documented.
The clean sequence is boring and it works: conditional waiver in, check out, funds clear, unconditional waiver in, next draw.
Read the top line before you sign anything
Every one of the 4 forms says which type it is in the first line or two, usually in the title. Read it out loud. An owner-builder who reads the word unconditional on a form handed to him at the tailgate on pour day, before the check has cleared, has just saved himself the only real exposure in this whole process, and it took about 15 seconds.
Why does the ready-mix supplier matter more than the contractor?
Because the contractor is the one party you can already see.
Everybody who puts labor or material into your property has potential lien rights, not only the person whose name is on your contract. On a concrete scope that list usually runs to 5 or 6 parties:
- The concrete contractor you hired
- The ready-mix producer who batched and delivered
- The rebar, mesh, or poly supplier
- A pump or conveyor service, if one was on site
- An equipment rental house
- Any crew the contractor subbed out for placement, finishing, or sawcutting
If your contractor takes your draw and does not pay the batch plant for 30 yards of 4,000 PSI mix, the plant’s claim is against your land. You paid. You can still end up paying twice, and the fact that you have a cancelled check does not by itself resolve it.
So the ask is simple and it is not rude: at each draw, waivers from the contractor and from anyone he identifies as supplying labor or material on that draw.
Most states also require those parties to send the owner a preliminary notice early in the job. If an official-looking letter shows up from a supplier you have never heard of, that is usually not trouble. It is that party preserving its rights, and it is also a free list of exactly who you need waivers from. File it rather than throwing it out.
What does a normal deposit look like on a concrete job?
A deposit exists to cover materials ordered and mobilization. It is not payment for labor that has not happened.
The materials on a slab are real money before anyone swings a hammer. A 40x60 shop pad at 5 inches is roughly 37 yards of concrete plus reinforcement, poly, and forming, and a contractor has to fund that order ahead of the pour. A deposit sized to that is doing what a deposit is for.
A request that covers most of the contract value before a truck rolls is not proof of anything bad about the contractor, and plenty of good crews ask for more than they need because that is how the last customer paid. It does move the risk onto your side of the table, and you should notice it before you sign rather than after. The polite version of the question works fine: what does the deposit cover, and what does the next payment release?
Several states cap what a residential contractor may collect up front, and the caps differ enough that a number on any website is worthless to you. Your state contractor licensing board publishes the real one for your state.
Our own posture is on the record because it is easier to hold a company to a written practice: we stage payments with the work. The deposit covers materials, and the balance comes at the walk-through. If you ask us the questions on this page, you get the same answers as everybody else, which is the only reason a page like this is worth publishing.
How should a draw schedule be tied to the work?
Tie each draw to something you can stand in front of and see. A date arrives whether the work did or not, so a date-based schedule pays for the calendar rather than the concrete.
On a slab, 5 milestones cover it:
- Subgrade compacted, forms set, vapor barrier placed. The membrane belongs directly against the underside of the slab per ACI 302, not under a gravel layer. This is the last hour of the entire project when anyone can see it, which is exactly why it deserves a draw and a photograph.
- Reinforcement set and chaired at the specified height. Rebar lying on the ground does nothing. Take the picture before the pour covers the answer.
- Placement complete, batch tickets delivered. The tickets are yours. They document the mix that showed up and how much water went in on site.
- Cure period complete. Curing practice is documented in ACI 308, and a 7-day wet cure is a common specification. Paying for a cure you did not get is invisible until year two.
- Final walk complete, punch list closed.
Ask that every draw request arrive with three things: the invoice, a conditional waiver from the contractor for that amount, and conditional waivers from any supplier billed in that period. That is one email with three attachments, and any outfit that runs commercial work already produces it monthly.
For what to look at on that final walk, how to inspect a new concrete slab before you pay covers the physical side of the same Monday morning.
What is retainage and when does it release?
Retainage is a percentage held back from each payment until the work is complete and the punch list is closed. It exists because the last 2 to 3 percent of any job is the part everybody wants to skip, and money is the only reliable reason to come back for it.
On commercial construction, 5 to 10 percent is common general practice, and many states regulate the figure on public projects. Treat those as background rather than as your number. On a single-scope residential slab, most owners are better served by skipping formal retainage entirely and simply structuring the last payment so it lands after the walk-through. Functionally identical, and it fits on one page instead of five.
Release condition, stated in the contract: retainage or final payment releases when the punch list closes and the unconditional final waivers are in hand. Both events, not either one.
What to ask for, in the order you will need it
Print this. It is the whole page in one column.
Before you sign anything
- A written scope naming slab thickness, PSI, reinforcement, vapor barrier placement, joint layout, and finish.
- A draw schedule tied to the 5 milestones above.
- A list of who else will be on the property supplying labor or material.
- Certificates of general liability and workers’ compensation insurance, listing your project.
With every draw request
- The invoice.
- A conditional waiver from the contractor for that amount.
- Conditional waivers from suppliers billed in that period.
After each payment clears
- The matching unconditional waiver.
At the end
- Unconditional final waivers from the contractor and every supplier and sub.
- Batch tickets, joint layout, and any workmanship paperwork the contract calls for.
None of that is an unusual request, and a contractor who runs commercial work will produce it without a conversation. If asking produces defensiveness rather than paperwork, that reaction is information you got for free, before the pour.
The one mistake worth avoiding entirely
Do not sign or accept an unconditional waiver against a payment that has not cleared. It is the only step in this process that is genuinely irreversible, it happens in about 5 seconds at a tailgate, and it is almost always an accident rather than a scheme. Every other item on this page can be corrected the following week.
Your state’s law is the part that actually settles a dispute
Everything above is how construction payment works as ordinary practice. The rules that decide a real dispute are state law, and they are unforgiving about dates.
Who has to send a preliminary notice, how many days they have to send it, how long a claimant has to record a lien after last furnishing labor or material, what the lien attaches to, and whether a homestead exemption changes any of it all vary by state. Do not take a deadline off a website, this one included.
3 places to take it, in order of how much they are worth for the money:
- The title company closing your construction loan. They handle waivers and payoffs professionally, they usually supply the forms, and on a financed build they are already doing most of this.
- Your own attorney. 1 hour of construction-law time before the first draw is cheap next to a title problem after the last one.
- Your state contractor licensing board. Deposit caps, license verification, and the complaint history of the crew you are considering all live here, and it costs nothing.
Ask us the same questions
The reason this page is worth publishing is that it works against us exactly as well as it works against anyone else. Ask for the conditional waiver. Ask what the deposit covers. Ask who else is going to have lien rights on your property when the trucks leave.
If you are still sorting out the slab itself, the barndominium slab spec guide covers what belongs in that written scope, our process covers how we sequence and document a job, and the concrete subcontractor page covers what running the pour and the finish under one contract changes about who owns the result.
Ask us the questions on this page
Deposit for materials, balance at the walk-through, waivers on request. Call and put us through the same list you would put anyone else through.
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