Execute Your NJ Construction Lien Properly or Face Forfeiture

New Jersey’s Appellate Division has once again served a stark reminder to prospective construction lien claimants regarding who may validly sign a construction lien claim.  The consequences of failing to properly execute a construction lien claim are dire – not only because the lien claim is subject to discharge, but along with that discharge may come an order requiring the payment of the attorneys’ fees and costs of the party making application for such discharge.

In Diamond Beach, LLC v. March Associates, Inc., Docket No. A-1704-17T1 (N.J. App. Div. December 24, 2018) (approved for publication), the court determined that the 2011 revisions to the Construction Lien Law did not serve to clarify or limit the then-existing construction lien signatory requirements, and therefore the 2011 revisions did not apply retroactively to lien claims filed prior to 2011.  Before the 2011 revisions, Lien Law Section 6 explicitly required that a lien be executed by a corporation’s “duly authorized officer.”  The 2011 revisions to Section 6 removed the “duly authorized officer” language, and instead stated that the lien claim form, provided in Section 8, “be signed, acknowledged and verified by oath of the claimant[.]”  The form in Section 8, however, requires that an “officer/member” sign the form, and the suggested notary form provides that the notary be satisfied that the signatory is the “Secretary (or other officer/manager/agent) of the Corporation (partnership or limited liability company)” with “authority to act on behalf of the Corporation (partnership or limited liability company) and who, by virtue of its Bylaws, or Resolution of its Board of Directors (or partnership or operating agreement) executed the [lien claim] on its behalf.”

The trial court in Diamond Beach had ordered that the subject lien claim be discharged because it had been signed by the subcontractor lien claimant’s Accounting & Information Systems Manager, and there was insufficient evidence to support the claimant’s contention that that manager had been expressly authorized to execute lien claims by the claimant’s Board of Directors.  Thus, the court found, under the pre-2011 Lien Law, that the lien claim had not been executed by a “duly authorized officer” of the lien claimant.  The trial court further awarded attorneys’ fees to the project owner, which had sought the discharge of the lien.  The Appellate Division affirmed the trial court’s determinations, including the award of fees, reading broadly Lien Law Section 15’s language regarding the circumstances under which lien rights are forfeited and an affected party is entitled to a fee award for obtaining such a determination.

Even under the post-2011 Lien Law, the court signaled that the results would have been the same for essentially the same reasons.  In last year’s published decision, NRG REMA LLC v. Creative Environmental Solutions Corp., 454 N.J. Super. 578 (App. Div.), certif. denied, 234 N.J. 577 (2018), the court conducted much the same analysis under the current law, and held a lien claim unenforceable that had been signed by the claimant’s “financial director” without any written evidence presented that such “financial director” was a corporate officer or designated by the Board of Directors to execute such documents on behalf of the claimant.  In doing so, the court noted that the Lien Law’s “procedural requirements were intended to be stringently applied.”

The critical lesson from the foregoing cases is that any business entity, however formed, that seeks to file a New Jersey construction lien claim, must ensure that the person signing that lien claim, is authorized to do so by the governing documents of that business entity – or by a written resolution or authorization duly executed by the appropriate board, officer, member or partner of that business entity – as that entity’s business form dictates.  The failure to have a properly-authorized individual execute the lien claim will, if challenged, prove fatal to the lien claim and extremely costly to the lien claimant.