Commentary on All Matters Involving Real Estate and Construction Law in the Upper Midwest
Commentary on All Matters Involving Real Estate and Construction Law in the Upper Midwest
This series focuses on the means and methods businesses in the construction industry use to protect their right to payment. We touch on issues of contracts, collections, construction liens and the corresponding interests of the developers and property owners who build. Although the author is writing from Minnesota, the series will focus on a broader application allowing readers anywhere in the country to benefit.
There are clouds gathering now on the payment horizon for the construction industry. The clouds converging now and on into the fall call for even greater attention to protecting construction industry receivables. This applies to the industry from top to bottom.
Construction was an “essential business” allowed to continue operating in Minnesota. That designation allowed…
This is the third part in this series. Part Two of this series discussed purchase order contracts for materials which may have a force majeure clause of some description (including possibly in online terms). Where there is no explicit force majeure clause, suppliers should look to the Uniform Commercial Code (UCC) which provides an integrated…
Sometimes construction material or equipment the contractor buys turns out to be defective. It leaks. A part is missing. Something simply does not function straight from the box. Jumping on the defect claim may not seem to have highest priority in the middle of a construction project. “Back charge” may the automatic response, but it…
In each state, statutes govern the right to a construction lien. It is almost inevitable that someone, someday, will not meet a required step. The lien is lost, and with it, whatever leverage or payment security it represented.
There is still a balance to collect—unless the creditor has improvidently signed something that also waives the…
This continues our blog post series on protecting payment in the construction industry. In this post, we ask the question, “Can a Pay If Paid clause bar a Minnesota lien or bond claim?” Despite the contract language, the answer might be: no.
Contingent payment language is common in contracts between prime contractors and subcontractors. The…
This is a relevant concern not only for any project owner or developer that requires a certificate of insurance from the prime contractor. Certificates of insurance are used so commonly as proof of insurance that they may tend to be a “check the box” item that just goes into the project file without a careful…
This is the eighth in our series of posts on protecting the right to payment in the construction industry. I have recently seen a couple of blog posts highlighting a survey from late summer (Rabbet Partners and Procore; 2019 Construction Payments Report). The survey reported that the direct and indirect costs of slow payment to…
Lien waivers do not get the respect they deserve in the realm of protecting the rights to payment in construction. In a prior post in this series we shifted the focus to the owner’s perspective on the problems of liens and payment including the need for collecting lien waivers. Lien waivers are important to both…
This is the sixth post in our Construction series, Protecting Payment. In the last post I suggested surety bonds as one way an owner could either avoid or “remove” liens. Consistent with our focus on the theme of protecting the right to payment, this post will focus on payment bonds for private construction. Payment bonds…
This is the fifth in our series of blog posts regarding the protection of the right to payment in construction with a focus on mechanics and construction liens. This time the focus is reversed.
There are obviously two sides to the payment and lien equation. An owner’s perspective on lien claims is that there should…
