Civ. Code, § 8304 · Chapter 3. Design Professionals Lien

Civ. Code, § 8304

Verbatim from the official edition

Text — As published in the Legislative Counsel's database, tables dated October 18, 2026 (pubinfo_2025.zip)

A design professional is not entitled to a lien under this chapter unless all of the following conditions are satisfied:

(a) The work of improvement for which the design professional provided services has not commenced.

(b) The landowner defaults in a payment required under the contract or refuses to pay the demand of the design professional made under the contract.

(c) Not less than 10 days before recording a claim of lien, the design professional gives the landowner notice making a demand for payment, and stating that a default has occurred under the contract and the amount of the default.

(d) The design professional records a claim of lien. The claim of lien shall include all of the following information:

(1) The name of the design professional.

(2) The amount of the claim.

(3) The current owner of record of the site.

(4) A legal description of the site.

(5) Identification of the building permit or other governmental approval for the work of improvement.

Notes and commentary — not statutory text

History

Added by Stats. 2010, Ch. 697, Sec. 20. (SB 189) Effective January 1, 2011. Operative July 1, 2012, by Sec. 105 of Ch. 697 and by Section 8052.

Source of truth

Edition: As published in the Legislative Counsel's database, tables dated October 18, 2026 (pubinfo_2025.zip)
Official file: https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/codes_displaySection.xhtml?lawCode=CIV&sectionNum=8304.
Text hash: sha256 0842d1e2fdc46633a7b21d606c4f9c2f15153b2eeaf155ceb8f87b43cd5d247c
Composed by: compose_ca.py 2026-10-22: the Legislative Counsel's CAML content files read by a tokenizer (caml_readers.reader_a); an independent xml.etree reading (caml_readers.reader_b) agrees on every section

Procedural information only. Not legal advice and not a substitute for the advice of an attorney. Confirm the current text with the official publisher before relying on it.