Three names, one statute
Contractors say pre-lien notice. Suppliers' credit departments say preliminary lien notice or just prelien. Everyone who has met the deadline says 20-day notice. The Civil Code says neither pre-lien nor lien in the name. Section 8200(a) reads:
Except as otherwise provided by statute, before recording a lien claim, giving a stop payment notice, or asserting a claim against a payment bond, a claimant shall give preliminary notice to the following persons:
That is the document. If you have been told to send a pre-lien notice on a California job, this is the notice being described, and every rule on this site's California pages applies to it: the recipients in §8200(a), the contents in §8102 and §8202, the twenty days in §8204(a), the deposit rule in §8116. Nothing about the pre-lien name changes any of it.
Why people say "pre-lien"
The trade name is accurate about one thing: order. The notice comes before the lien, and not merely in time. Two subdivisions of §8200 make it a condition:
Compliance with this section is a necessary prerequisite to the validity of a lien claim or stop payment notice under this title.
Compliance with this section or with Section 8612 is a necessary prerequisite to the validity of a claim against a payment bond under this title.
A pre-lien notice is pre-lien because a claimant who never gives one has not passed the prerequisite for a valid lien claim. It is also pre-stop-notice and pre-bond-claim, which is why the statute's own name is the broader one. People shorten it to the remedy they have in mind.
What it is not: a lien, or a threat of one
The word lien in the trade name causes the most trouble, because owners who receive a preliminary lien notice sometimes read it as a lien, or as a warning that one is coming. The statute wrote the notice to say otherwise, in the statement §8202(a)(3) requires the notice to carry to the owner:
This notice is required by law to be served by the undersigned as a statement of your legal rights.
This notice is not intended to reflect upon the financial condition of the contractor or the person employed by you on the construction project.
Nothing is recorded, nothing attaches to the property, and the notice does not say the claimant is unpaid; on most jobs it is given in the first weeks, before an invoice is even due. The document that does announce an unpaid claim and a coming lien is a different one, the Notice of Intent to Lien, a customary demand letter sent late in a dispute rather than a statutory notice given at the start of the work. The two are not interchangeable: the demand letter does not satisfy §8200, and the preliminary notice makes no demand.
Who must give a pre-lien notice
Section 8200(a) names the recipients, and the same section carves out who need not give the notice at all. The three recipients:
The owner or reputed owner.
The direct contractor or reputed direct contractor to which the claimant provides work, either directly or through one or more subcontractors.
The construction lender or reputed construction lender, if any.
The two exceptions in §8200(e):
A laborer is not required to give preliminary notice.
A claimant with a direct contractual relationship with an owner or reputed owner is required to give preliminary notice only to the construction lender or reputed construction lender, if any.
So a subcontractor or supplier with no contract with the owner gives the notice to all three; a contractor hired by the owner gives it to the lender, if there is one; a laborer gives none. The who-receives page takes each role in turn, including what reputed means for a name you are not certain of.
What the pre-lien notice preserves
The value of the notice is in the twenty days. Section 8204(a) sets the deadline and then says what a notice given after it still does:
A preliminary notice shall be given not later than 20 days after the claimant has first furnished work on the work of improvement.
The claimant shall, however, be entitled to record a lien, give a stop payment notice, and assert a claim against a payment bond only for work performed within 20 days prior to the service of the preliminary notice, and at any time thereafter.
A pre-lien notice given inside the window preserves the claimant's path to all three remedies for the work from the first day forward. A pre-lien notice given later preserves it for the work inside a window that opens twenty days before service. The 20-day page shows how to count the days and the late-notice page shows how the window moves; either way, the notice is the thing that is preserved by giving it, and giving it sooner preserves more.
What a prelien service actually does
Searches for prelien services are usually from people who know the form is free and want to know what they would be paying for. The honest answer is the other ninety percent of the job. A service prints the notice with the §8102 contents and the boldface §8202(a)(3) statement; addresses one to each of the §8200(a) recipients you name; mails each by a method §8110 allows, with the deposit date captured; and keeps the notice, the addresses and the tracking numbers where they can be found a year later. NoticeSent does exactly that for one flat $39 with no per-recipient charge. It does not look up owners, contractors or lenders for you, and it does not decide whether your position on the job requires a notice; you verify every name and address before paying, and an attorney answers the second question.
Preliminary lien notice, lien waiver, stop payment notice
Three documents share a word and get confused. The preliminary lien notice is the preliminary notice on this page, given at the start of the work. A lien waiver runs the other way: it is a release the claimant signs when paid, on the statutory forms in §8132 through §8138, and this site's California waiver generator prints those forms free. A stop payment notice is one of the three remedies §8200(a) lists as requiring the preliminary notice first; it is not the preliminary notice and is not prepared on this site. Keeping the three apart is most of what a first-time claimant needs to know.
Frequently asked
Is a pre-lien notice the same as a preliminary notice in California?
Yes. The Civil Code's name for the document is preliminary notice (§8200). Pre-lien notice, preliminary lien notice, prelien and 20-day notice are trade names for the same document, given to the same recipients, on the same 20-day deadline in §8204(a). There is no separate California document called a pre-lien notice.
Does a pre-lien notice cost anything to give?
The notice itself is words on paper; the statute prescribes its contents in §8102 and §8202, and nothing in the pinned text charges a fee for giving it. What costs money is doing it: identifying the owner, direct contractor and construction lender, printing the notice with every required line, certified mail to each of them, and keeping the deposit evidence. NoticeSent charges one flat $39 for those steps, with the form itself free on this site.
Can I give a pre-lien notice after the 20 days?
Section 8204(a) says a claimant who did not give a preliminary notice shall not be precluded from giving a preliminary notice at any time thereafter, and then limits the lien, stop payment notice and payment bond rights to work performed within 20 days prior to the service of the preliminary notice, and at any time thereafter. So yes, with a smaller reach; the late-notice page works through what the window covers.