Texas Guide
You Did the Work.Get Paid for It — in Texas.
File your Texas Monthly Lien Notice in 2 minutes and lock in your lien rights. Already owed and getting stonewalled? Send an attorney-vetted demand letter — certified mail, same day.
•THE RULE: On commercial Texas projects, subcontractors and suppliers not under a direct contract with the owner must serve a monthly notice (Property Code § 53.056) on BOTH the owner and the original contractor — by the 15th day of the third month after each month they furnish labor or materials.
—THE RISK: Each month stands alone. Miss a single month's deadline and the labor and materials you furnished that month can fall outside your lien claim — permanently.
The Texas Clock
How the Texas deadline actually works
You furnish
Any day in a calendar month that you provide labor or materials.
Count 3 months forward
The clock runs by month, not by day. The exact furnishing date does not matter.
File by the 15th
Your notice is due the 15th of that third month, rolled forward off Texas weekends and holidays.
Every month you work creates its own deadline.
Find your exact Texas deadline
Pick the month you furnished — we do the § 53.056 month-math for you.
Why Texas is different
Texas has some of the most punishing notice rules in the country. That is exactly why you should not do it by hand.
Every rule below is a place a manual filing goes wrong. LienFlash turns each one into something you never have to think about.
Month math, not day math
There is no ‘30 days from furnishing.’ It is the 15th of the third month after — and a weekend or state holiday rolls it forward. We compute the exact statutory date for you.
Two certified mailings, every time
§ 53.056 requires service on the owner AND the original contractor. We generate and mail both, separately, via USPS Certified Mail with Return Receipt.
A new deadline every month
Ongoing job? Each month you furnish creates its own notice deadline. We track the cadence so none slip through.
Built for the post-2022 rules (HB 2237)
For prime contracts signed on or after January 1, 2022, Texas replaced the old two-notice system with this single monthly notice. Our templates follow the current statute.
Why DIY Filing Fails in Texas
Three traps that void a Texas notice
The Two-Recipient Trap
Serving only the owner is not enough. Texas requires the original contractor be served too. Miss either party and the notice can fail.
The Month-Math Trap
It is not a day count. The deadline is the 15th of the third month after you furnish — and a weekend or state holiday pushes it forward, never earlier.
The Monthly-Cadence Trap
One notice does not cover a whole job. Every month you furnish and are not paid needs its own notice on its own deadline.
Working a Texas job for months? You have months of deadlines.
Because Texas requires a fresh notice every month you furnish, a single ongoing job can mean six, eight, or ten separate deadlines. LienFlash Pro covers unlimited notices, so every month stays protected without you tracking the month-math yourself.
See how Pro covers an ongoing jobTrusted across 8 states
LienFlash files compliant preliminary notices in eight states — Florida, California, Arizona, Nevada, Washington, Oregon, New Mexico, and now Texas.
“LienFlash mailed my Notice to Owner the same day, tracking number in my inbox by lunch, right before the 15th-of-the-3rd-month Texas deadline, with full USPS proof. Took all the risk off my plate.”
Jake Morales
Hill Country Framing · TX
The $280 billion mistake
This is not a small problem.
A plumbing contractor did a $40,000 job. Quality work. On time. The GC went quiet after the final invoice. By the time a lawyer looked at it, the contractor had missed his preliminary notice deadline by two weeks. No lien rights. No leverage. No recourse.
He did not lose that money because he did bad work. He lost it because nobody told him the clock was running from day one.
There are two ways that story ends better. The first is a piece of paper filed before the job even starts. The second — if you're already past that point — is a certified demand letter that puts the other side on notice: this contractor is documenting everything, and he's not going away. Either way, the contractors who get paid aren't the ones with better lawyers. They're the ones who put it in writing first.
Most contractors think a lien is what you use when a GC doesn't pay you. So they wait — for the invoice to go past due, for the ignored voicemail, until they're angry enough to do something.
But lien law doesn't work that way. The window to protect your rights opens the moment you step on site — and it closes on a hard deadline, whether you know it or not.
The contractors who never fight to get paid don't have better lawyers. They file a piece of paper before the job even starts.
"Storm season means we're running 10 jobs a week. I missed one notice on a tear-off and lost $8,500. LienFlash is my insurance policy. $39.99 is nothing compared to losing a paycheck."
Owed money right now?
Already owed and getting the runaround?
Ignored invoices. "Net 30" that turned into net 90. A GC who answered every call until the final bill came due. If that's where you are, a preliminary notice isn't the tool — a payment demand is.
LienFlash sends an attorney-vetted demand letter by USPS Certified Mail, same day. It states what you're owed, sets a deadline to pay, and creates the paper trail that changes the conversation — because a certified letter from a contractor who's documenting everything reads very differently than another unpaid invoice.
$79 flat. Preview free before anything mails. No lawyer's retainer, no waiting.
The two-minute fix
LienFlash files before you leave the job site.
Enter your job details
Property address, owner name, job amount, first day on site. We calculate your exact deadline automatically based on your state's law.
Takes 2 minutesReview your state-compliant notice
We generate the correct legal form for your state — including any verbatim statutory warning language required by law. Review it once and approve.
Takes 5 secondsWe print, mail, and track it
We send your notice via USPS Certified Mail and save your tracking number and Certificate of Mailing to your dashboard. You never stand in a post office line.
We do itWorried About the Legal Stuff?
Every template is attorney-reviewed for your state. We're not lawyers — we just make the paperwork disappear so you get paid.
You've been lucky so far.
Every job without a notice is a bet.
Eventually the bet loses.
A GC who knows you filed a notice on day one pays differently than a GC who knows you didn't. Not because of the law. Because of what the notice signals: this contractor knows their rights. That signal, sent before the first invoice, changes how fast you get paid. The contractors who never fight to get paid don't have better lawyers. They file a piece of paper before the job starts.
Miss the notice. Lose the money.