I didn't serve my Notice of Furnishing on time

ALWAYS SERVE A NOTICE OF FURNISHING to get paid on time.  Even if you are late, serve your Notice of Furnishing NOW.  Do NOT count on the contractor or surety not noticing that you didn’t serve the NOF, they always notice.  Additionally, if you are paid anything on the project, you will likely be able to apply it to your earliest pay applications, the ones not covered by your late NOF, so the more that you are paid, the more that the problem with your late NOF is cured. I serve a lot of NOFs for clients and file a lot of Ohio Mechanic’s Liens and bond claims.  Serving your NOF after the 21-day time limit hurts you, because you won’t have full lien or bond rights, but at least you will have SOME lien and bond rights.  Even more, the contractor will always be concerned about liens being filed.  Even if your NOF is late, they will start asking the subcontractor that hired you for your lien waiver.  Of course, you are only giving your lien waiver in return for payment, so, problem solved. As a sub-subcontractor, you actually have to attach a copy of your NOF to your lien on a public project.  Without it, your lien will likely be rejected by the public authority.  Even if they don’t reject it, the contractor, or its attorneys, will catch the problem and demand that you release the lien immediately or sue you for damages caused by an improper filing. Rather than doing this yourself, especially as you don’t normally serve Notices of Furnishing, call your construction law attorney to be sure that you get this one done right and quickly.  An experienced Ohio attorney who represents construction subcontractors will likely be able to get it served for you the same day. SERVE NOTICES OF FURNISHING ON ALL OF YOUR PROEJCTS.  You are right about it not being NECESSARY for a first tier subcontractor on a PUBLIC project to serve an NOF.  Having said that, it is a good idea to serve your NOF and get a copy of the Notice of Commencement, it just doesn’t cost that much and it is good insurance to get you paid on time.  Serving the NOF will bring you to the attention of the person writing the checks.  When I serve NOFs for clients, I also serve the public authority, even though you don’t need to because it is just one more person looking out to be sure that you are paid or at least that they have your lien waiver.  You are more likely to get paid on time if you serve an NOF, even if you don’t need to.  At the same time you serve the NOF, ask for a copy of the NOC.  You will need it later if you want to file a lien or serve a bond claim because you have to send your lien to a specific person at the public authority to assure that it is a good lien and you have to know the name and address of the surety supplied the payment bond.  All of that information is in the NOC. A lot of your construction law questions can be answered on my website www.OhioConstructionLawyer.com in both the FAQ and Video sections.  In fact, there is a Notice of Furnishing video right on my Home page.