After a condominium is registered, it is a complicated and costly process to register a construction lien for work done on the condominium project. However, the Construction Lien Act now requires that developers and builders post a Notice of Intention to Register a Condominium in a construction trade magazine prior to taking the steps to register the condominium by sending the description to the municipality where the property is located. This Notice must be published between 5 and 15 days (not including Sundays and holidays) before the description is sent to the municipality. The published Notice gives lien claimants an opportunity to register a construction lien against the property prior to title of the individual units being registered.
It is much less expensive to register a construction lien prior to registration because it is a single property owned only by the developer/builder. After registration of the condominium, the common elements are owned collectively by all of the condominium unit owners and as such, a construction lien must be registered against every condominium unit for work pertaining to the common elements.
You can search to see if a Notice has been published on the Daily Commercial News website and Construction Record. Under the heading "CSPs", you can search to determine if a Notice of Intention to Register a Condominium has been published.
If an owner (builder/developer) fails to publish the required Notice, the owner is liable to any person entitled to a construction lien who has suffered damages as a result. If you did not file before the registration of the condominium, you will still want to look to see whether there were any Notices published in case the builder/developer forgot to file a Notice as this would mean you would be able to look to the builder/developer to cover any additional damages caused by the lack of Notice.
The content of this article is intended to provide a general guide to the subject matter. Specialist advice should be sought about your specific circumstances.
