Vermont: Mechanic's Lien Waiver Form and Advance-Waiver Rules
The short answer
Vermont bars advance lien waivers: a contractor's lien 'may not be waived in advance of the time such labor is performed or materials are furnished,' and any provision calling for an advance waiver is unenforceable. The line is drawn at doing the work, not at payment, so a waiver signed after the labor or materials are furnished is allowed even if payment is still outstanding. Vermont prescribes no statutory waiver form and no separate conditional, unconditional, progress, or final forms.
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This is the general rule in Vermont. Ezel applies current Vermont law to your specific facts and answers with citations to the statutes.
| Governing law and project scope | Contractors' Liens for Labor or Material, 9 V.S.A. ch. 51, subch. 1 (§§ 1921-1928). Private real-property improvements; a direct-contract claimant gets a lien automatically (§ 1921(a)), while one working through an agent, contractor, or subcontractor gets a lien only by giving the owner written notice (§ 1921(b)). No separate residential track. |
|---|---|
| Advance or prospective waiver | Barred: 'A lien under this section may not be waived in advance of the time such labor is performed or materials are furnished, and any provision calling for such advance waiver shall not be enforceable' (§ 1921(f)). The cutoff is doing the work, not payment. |
| Statutory form requirement | No statutory form. Subchapter 1 contains no waiver or release form and prescribes no conditional/unconditional or progress/final form or safe-harbor language. |
| Waiver types and payment stage | No statutory conditional/unconditional or progress/final forms. A waiver is permitted once the labor is performed or materials are furnished; the parties supply their own terms (§ 1921(f)). |
| Payment and effectiveness | Timing turns on performance, not payment: an advance waiver is unenforceable, but a waiver given after the labor or materials are furnished is effective even if payment is still outstanding. No statutory cleared-check, joint-check, or evidence-of-payment condition (§ 1921(f)). |
| Required contents, exceptions, and through date | None prescribed. The statute sets no required claimant, project, amount, through-date, retainage, or extras-exception fields for a waiver; a private waiver's scope depends on its own wording (§ 1921). |
| Rights released and reserved | § 1921(f) governs 'a lien under this section' — the contractors' lien for labor or material. It prescribes no release or reservation language and does not address payment-bond or stop-notice rights, which Vermont's short chapter does not create. |
| Signature, authority, notary, and format | No statutory signature, authority, notary, warning, type-size, electronic-form, or attachment rule for a waiver. |
| Noncompliance, remedies, and transition traps | A provision waiving the lien in advance of performance 'shall not be enforceable' (§ 1921(f), as amended 2003, No. 144 (Adj. Sess.)). There is no statutory form to fall short of. Keep the waiver distinct from the separate recording, enforcement, and foreclosure steps in §§ 1923-1925, which this page does not cover. |
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Requirements one by one
An advance waiver is unenforceable
Vermont's rule fits its short lien chapter in one sentence. Section 1921(f)
says a contractor's lien "may not be waived in advance of the time such labor is
performed or materials are furnished, and any provision calling for such advance
waiver shall not be enforceable." A "no-lien" clause a contractor or supplier
signs before doing the work is void, so the lien rights survive despite the
signature.
The cutoff is performance, not payment. Once the labor is performed or the
materials are furnished, the statute no longer bars a waiver — a claimant may
give one at that point even if it has not yet been paid. That is a different line
from states that void a waiver until payment is actually received.
There is no statutory waiver form
Vermont prescribes no waiver form. Subchapter 1 (Sections 1921 through 1928)
creates the lien, sets the owner-notice requirement, and lays out recording,
enforcement, and foreclosure, but it contains no conditional/unconditional or
progress/final form, no required fields, and no warning or notary rule for a
waiver. A claimant who waives after the work is done uses a privately drafted
document, and its words control what is released and what is reserved.
What trips people up
The performance line is easy to misread. Because Section 1921(f) keys the ban to
when "labor is performed or materials are furnished," a waiver signed after the
work is not blocked even if the check has not arrived. A claimant who signs a
broad waiver at the end of a job, expecting payment to follow, can therefore give
up the lien before being paid — Vermont supplies no statutory "conditional on
payment" default, so the document itself has to hold anything back.
Keep the waiver separate from the lien's other deadlines. Perfecting and
enforcing a Vermont contractor's lien involves a written owner notice, recording
with the town clerk within 180 days, and a suit-and-attachment step under
Sections 1923 through 1925. Those are the mechanics of asserting a lien, not of
waiving it, and they run on their own clocks.
Common questions
Can a contract make a subcontractor waive lien rights before starting work?
No. Section 1921(f) makes any provision calling for an advance waiver — one given
before the labor is performed or materials furnished — unenforceable.
Is a lien waiver signed after the work is finished valid in Vermont?
Yes. The statutory bar applies only to advance waivers; once the labor or
materials have been furnished, a waiver is allowed, even before payment.
Does Vermont have an official lien-waiver form?
No. The Contractors' Liens subchapter prescribes no waiver form, so parties draft
their own.
Statutes and sources
- 9 V.S.A. § 1921 (contractor's lien; owner-notice for downstream claimants at
subsection (b); advance-waiver bar at subsection (f)) —
https://legislature.vermont.gov/statutes/section/09/051/01921 (accessed
2026-07-23)
Source links
Every statute quoted above, linked, with the date we checked it.
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