Effective January 1, 2012, pursuant to subchapter L, Chapter 53, TEXAS Property Code, statutory forms are required for any waiver and release of a lien or payment bond claim. An excellent reference for these changes can be found on the TEXAS Construction Association website at the following link: http://www.texcon.org/index.php/resources
The following notices have significant new updates:
-Conditional Waiver And Release Upon Final Payment
-Conditional Waiver And Release Upon Progress Payment
-Unconditional Waiver And Release Upon Final Payment
-Unconditional Waiver And Release Upon Progress Payment
Current customers EAST TEXAS REFRIGERATION and LEHIGH-HANSON gave us external reminders recently about the upcoming change. While we are always working hard to proactively be informed about pending law changes, I always appreciate that our customers expect our software solution to work reliably and be legal so that they can count on it when needed.
The new PreLien2Lien V. 16.01.01, to be released on Friday, December 30th, will have these notices in the software. Word document versions for $12.95 each were uploaded to our online store today.
Use of a Notary for these Waivers is highly suggested. Additionally, use of added language, through dates, special instructions, invoice numbers and other added text is strongly discouraged, as any variation in text will deviate from the statuatory language. While you might not have a problem 99% of the time, the time your added language gets challenged in a lawsuit could make you learn a very difficult lesson. Our opinion is always to keep a document as clean, brief and statuatory as possible. Don’t give someone an opening to challenge you.