Construction liens in Ontario

A construction lien in Ontario is the strongest security an unpaid trade has, and it is lost more often to a miscounted date than to a bad case. Two periods run back to back, and the second one is counted from a day most people get wrong.

About this work

What does a construction lien actually give you?

Security. A construction lien in Ontario turns an unpaid invoice into a charge against the land the work improved, and against the holdback the owner is required to be sitting on. Without it you have a claim in contract against whoever hired you, which is worth whatever that party is worth. With it you have a claim against a property and a fund.

That is why the deadlines are enforced as strictly as they are. A lien takes priority over interests that came before the claim was registered, and the whole scheme only works because an owner and a lender can look at title, count the days, and know when the exposure has ended.

The right arises from supplying services or materials to an improvement. It is not a remedy for bad workmanship by somebody else, it is not available for a debt unconnected to an improvement, and registering it where no lien exists is not a costless bluff.

Losing the lien does not lose the debt. It loses the security, which on a project where the party who hired you has run out of money is usually the whole difference between being paid and not.

Written by the firm. Pending review by Kapil Rathod, Barrister and Solicitor, Law Society of Ontario licence 77122E.

The clock

Two periods, and the second is not counted from where you think

60 days, then 90

The 90 days to perfect does not run from your last day on site. It runs from the last day on which the lien could have been preserved, which is the end of the 60 day window. Counting it from the wrong day costs you three months in one direction or your lien in the other.

60 daysTo preserve the lien, by registering a claim for lien on title
90 daysTo perfect it, counted from the last day it could have been preserved
28 daysFor an owner to pay a proper invoice
14 daysFor an owner to give a notice of non-payment instead of paying
7 daysFor a contractor to pay its subcontractors after being paid
90 daysTo start an adjudication, from completion, abandonment or termination

Preservation and expiry are sections 34 and 31 of the Construction Act, perfection is section 36(2), and the prompt payment periods are sections 6.4 and 6.5. The adjudication window is section 13.5(3), as amended by 2024, c. 20, Sched. 4. A contract entered into or procured before 1 July 2018 is still governed by the Act as it read on 29 June 2018 under section 87.3, which is a different set of periods.

The other two routes

Prompt payment and adjudication, which run separately from the lien

The Construction Act carries a payment timetable and a binding interim dispute process alongside the lien. They are separate from it, they run on their own periods, and for a trade that is simply not being paid they are often faster than registering anything.

  1. An owner has 28 days to pay a proper invoice

    Section 6.4(1) requires payment no later than 28 days after receiving a proper invoice from the contractor. Section 6.1(1) sets out what makes an invoice proper: the contractor's name and address, the date and the period or milestone, information identifying the contract, a description of what was supplied, the amount and payment terms, and the name of the person to whom payment is to be made.

  2. Or 14 days to say why it is not paying

    Under section 6.4(2) an owner who disputes an invoice may refuse to pay only if, no later than 14 days after receiving it, it gives a notice of non-payment in the prescribed form specifying the amount withheld and detailing all of the reasons. Silence is not a defence to the 28 days, and anything not covered by the notice remains payable.

  3. Pay when paid clauses do not survive contact with section 6.3(2)

    A provision that makes the giving of a proper invoice conditional on the prior certification of a payment certifier or on the owner's prior approval is of no force or effect. A contractor who is paid must then pay its subcontractors within seven days under section 6.5(1), and within 35 days of giving the invoice even where the owner has not paid, under section 6.5(4), unless it gives its own notice of non-payment.

  4. Adjudication decides the dispute in weeks, on an interim basis

    A party may refer a prescribed dispute to a construction dispute interim adjudicator. The adjudicator determines it within 30 days of receiving the documents under section 13.13(1), the losing party pays within 15 days under section 13.19(2), and judicial review is available only with leave of the Divisional Court on a motion filed within 35 days under section 13.18. Notice of adjudication cannot be given more than 90 days after the contract is completed, abandoned or terminated.

Side by side

Whose sixty days is it?

5 points of difference

The Act does not give everybody the same trigger date. A contractor counts from the project. Everybody below the contractor counts from the earliest of several dates, and one of them is their own last day on site.

A contractor

Which subsection applies
Section 31(2), the lien of a contractor
Where there is a certificate or declaration of substantial performance
60 days from the earlier of its publication, and the day the contract is completed, abandoned or terminated
Where there is none
60 days from the earlier of completion, and abandonment or termination
What that means in practice
The date is set by the project, so it is usually the same for you as for the owner
If you supplied both before and after substantial performance
Section 31(4) treats the two as separate liens with separate periods

A subcontractor, supplier or worker

Which subsection applies
Section 31(3), the lien of any other person
Where there is a certificate or declaration of substantial performance
60 days from the earliest of its publication, the day you last supplied services or materials, the day the contract is completed, abandoned or terminated, and certification of the subcontract under section 33
Where there is none
60 days from the earliest of your own last supply, completion, abandonment or termination, and certification of the subcontract
What that means in practice
Your date can fall months before the project's. Finishing early starts your clock early
If you supplied both before and after substantial performance
The same. The lien for the earlier work expires without affecting the later one

The route

How does the process run?

6 stages, each with its own clock

Every period and rule below is set by the Construction Act and the provision is named beside it. This is the Act as consolidated for 2026. A project whose contract or procurement predates 1 July 2018 runs on the earlier version under section 87.3.

01

Preserve the lien, inside 60 days

s. 34(1), s. 34(3), (3.1)

Where the lien attaches to the premises, by registering a claim for lien on title in the proper land registry office. Where it does not, by giving the owner a copy of the claim for lien. Against a municipality the copy goes to the clerk, and against the Crown to the prescribed office.

02

Counted from the right trigger, which is not the same for everyone

s. 31(2) and s. 31(3)

A contractor counts from publication of the certificate or declaration of substantial performance, or from completion, abandonment or termination. Everybody else counts from the earliest of those and their own last supply of services or materials.

03

Perfect it inside a further 90 days

s. 36(2)

A preserved lien expires unless it is perfected before the end of the 90 day period following the last day on which the lien could have been preserved. Not 90 days from your last day on site. Ninety days from the end of the 60 day window, whether or not you used all of it.

04

Perfecting means starting an action, not filing a form

s. 36(3)

Where the lien attaches to the premises, you perfect by commencing an action to enforce the lien and registering a certificate of action on title. Where it does not attach, by commencing the action alone. A preserved lien that is never perfected expires exactly like one that was never registered.

05

Ten per cent is being held back the whole time

s. 22(1)

Every payer on a contract or subcontract under which a lien may arise must retain 10 per cent of the price of the services or materials as they are actually supplied, until the liens that may be claimed against it have expired or been satisfied. That holdback is the fund most lien claims are actually paid out of.

06

A lien comes off title on payment in of the amount plus security for costs

s. 44(1)

On a motion without notice the court shall vacate the registration where the moving party pays into court or posts security equal to the full amount claimed in the lien, plus the lesser of $250,000 or 25 per cent of that amount as security for costs. The lien claim continues against the money, and the property is free.

Before the meeting

What to bring to the first meeting

6 things to bring

Bring what you have and say what is missing. A meeting with the papers in front of it settles in one sitting what two telephone calls will not.

  • ✓The contract or subcontract, and any purchase orders or change orders
  • ✓Your invoices, and any notice of non-payment you were given
  • ✓The municipal address and, if you have it, the legal description of the property
  • ✓The date you last supplied services or materials to the site
  • ✓Any certificate or declaration of substantial performance you have seen published
  • ✓Who engaged you, and who you believe the owner on title actually is

Our approach

A clear path forward

The same four steps on every matter, whether it is a refusal at the Federal Court or a ticket at the Provincial Offences court.

Book a consultation
01

Understand

We take the full history and read the documents before offering an opinion. Most bad advice comes from acting on half the facts.

02

Assess

You get a candid read on strength, timeline and cost, including when the honest answer is that you do not need to hire anyone.

03

Act

We prepare the application, the defence or the appeal properly the first time, because fixing a weak record later is harder and dearer.

04

Report

You hear from us at each stage, and you hear what a wait actually means rather than a date chosen to sound better.

Reported decisions

What has this work produced?

7 allowed of 22 reported since 2023

Public judgments of the Federal Court with Kapil Rathod as counsel of record, each checkable by citation on the court's own site. The rest were dismissed and are listed with these ones.

All case outcomes, including the client accounts

Where to go next

A construction lien in Ontario is won or lost on two dates: which trigger starts your 60 days, and the fact that the 90 to perfect runs from the end of that window rather than from your last day on site.

Where the dates have gone, the trust claim, adjudication and the ordinary contract claim are all still open.

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Common questions

What do people ask about construction liens?

8 answered here

Written to be read once and acted on rather than to be rung about. Each answer is complete where the law allows a complete answer.

When does the sixty days start?

It depends on where you sit in the chain, and this is where liens are most often lost. The Act gives contractors one trigger and everybody else another.

Under section 31(2) a contractor's lien expires 60 days after the earlier of the publication of the certificate or declaration of substantial performance and the day the contract is completed, abandoned or terminated. That date belongs to the project, and it is the same date the owner and the lender are watching.

Under section 31(3) the lien of any other person expires 60 days after the earliest of a longer list, and that list includes the day on which that person last supplied services or materials to the improvement. A drywall subcontractor who finished in March on a project that reaches substantial performance in September has a lien that expired in May.

So a single rule of thumb, whether it is sixty days from substantial performance or sixty days from your last day, is right for some claimants and wrong for others on the same project. The question is always which subsection applies to you, and then which of the dates in it falls first. Section 31(4) adds one more wrinkle: where you supplied both before and after substantial performance, those are separate liens with separate periods.

How does a lien come off a property?

Three ways, and only one of them is quick. It is paid or otherwise satisfied and discharged. It expires because it was not preserved or not perfected in time. Or it is vacated by an order of the court.

Vacating is the route an owner or a developer with a closing to make actually uses. Under section 44(1) the court shall, on a motion brought without notice to anyone, make an order vacating the registration where the moving party pays into court or posts security equal to the full amount claimed as owing in the claim for lien, plus the lesser of $250,000 or 25 per cent of that amount as security for costs.

The 25 per cent is the security for costs, not an additional layer on top of it, and it is capped. On a lien claiming $4 million the security is $4.25 million rather than a quarter of a million more than that, because the cap in the section bites well before the percentage does.

Section 44(2) is the other door: on a motion, the court may vacate on payment in of an amount it determines to be reasonable in the circumstances to satisfy the lien. That is the argument where the lien amount is inflated, and it is a contested motion rather than an entitlement. In every case the money stands in place of the land and the fight continues against it.

What if the lien deadline has already passed?

The debt survives. What has gone is the security, and there is usually still more than one route to the money.

The trust provisions in Part II are the first. Amounts received by an owner, a contractor or a subcontractor on account of the price of a contract are impressed with a trust for those beneath them, and a trust claim does not depend on a lien having been preserved. It is also the one Construction Act claim that can run under the simplified procedure, because rule 76.01(1)(b) of the Rules of Civil Procedure excludes actions under the Act except trust claims.

Adjudication is the second, and it is quick. A dispute can be referred while the project is live or within 90 days of the contract being completed, abandoned or terminated, and the adjudicator determines it within 30 days of getting the documents. The determination binds on an interim basis and is paid within 15 days.

And there is the ordinary claim in contract or in quantum meruit against whoever engaged you, on the two year limitation period in section 4 of the Limitations Act, 2002. That is a longer clock than the lien periods by a wide margin, which is the reason a missed lien is a setback rather than the end of the matter.

How long do I have to register a construction lien in Ontario?

Sixty days, but from a date that depends on who you are. A contractor counts from publication of the certificate or declaration of substantial performance, or from completion, abandonment or termination, under section 31(2). A subcontractor, supplier or worker counts from the earliest of those and their own last supply of services or materials, under section 31(3).

Is it 90 days from my last day on site to perfect the lien?

No, and this is the most common miscount. Section 36(2) gives 90 days from the last day on which the lien could have been preserved, which is the end of the 60 day window, not from your last supply. Perfecting means commencing an action and, where the lien attaches to the premises, registering a certificate of action on title.

Can a lien be removed so a sale or a refinancing can close?

Yes, by paying into court or posting security under section 44(1): the full amount claimed in the lien plus the lesser of $250,000 or 25 per cent of it as security for costs. The motion is brought without notice and the court shall make the order. The lien claim then continues against the money rather than the land.

The owner has simply stopped paying. Do I have to wait for the lien process?

Not necessarily. Section 6.4(1) requires an owner to pay a proper invoice within 28 days unless it gives a notice of non-payment within 14 days detailing all of its reasons. Where it has done neither, adjudication under Part II.1 produces a determination within 30 days of the adjudicator receiving the documents, payable within 15 days.

Does the same Act apply to an older project?

Not always. Section 87.3 continues the Act and regulations as they read on 29 June 2018 where the contract for the improvement was entered into before 1 July 2018, or the owner commenced the procurement process before that date, and it applies regardless of when a subcontract under that contract was signed. The periods under the earlier version are different, so the first question on an old project is which version governs.

Speak to someone this week

Bring the contract, the invoices and the date you were last on site. A construction lien in Ontario is measured in days, so this is a conversation to have this week.

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