Court Opinion on Mechanic's Liens for public "purposed" property
Category: Construction Credit | Posted on 01/12/2007
Please see the below link for a Pennsylvania Commonwealth Court opinion we found interesting and thought we would share it with you.
http://www.courts.state.pa.us/OpPosting/CWealth/out/868CD06_12-29-06.pdf
In short, this opinion supports the proposition that even though a private, non-profit entity (in this case, the Northwestern PA Humane Society) owns the property to which labor and/or material was supplied (making it privately owned property), if the property serves a purely public purpose (in this instance, animal control) it is exempt from mechanic's liens.
While the court addressed the exemption from the mechanic's lien statute, it did not provide for any other remedy, such as a requirement that the prime contractor obtain a payment bond, as they would be required to do on a publicly owned project.
As always, we stand ready to assist you. For any questions about this service or the information in this notification, please call us at (800) 770-8221 or e-mail us at liens@ncscredit.com.