Negotiate and sign the GC contract

The procedure in three parts

Washington's construction-lien procedure under RCW 60.04 has three working parts that operate together:

1. A 90-day filing window measured from the last day labor or materials were furnished.
2. A pre-claim notice that subs and suppliers (not the prime GC) have to deliver early in their work.
3. A two-stage waiver schedule — conditional waivers at each progress payment, unconditional final waivers at completion — using statutory forms in RCW 60.04.071.

Anyone who furnishes labor or materials to an improvement on your property — GC, sub, supplier — has lien rights under the chapter. Liens are recorded with the King County recorder and stay on title until released. The waiver schedule is how lien rights get released as payments flow through.

The 90-day clock

A claimant has 90 days from the date they last performed labor or supplied materials to record the lien. After 90 days with no recording, the lien right expires.

For a Seattle addition: substantial completion isn't the all-clear. Title is fully clear 90 days after the last sub leaves the site — usually the landscape, paving, or punch-list crew, not the GC.

Pre-claim notice (RCW 60.04.031)

For most subs and material suppliers (not the GC you contracted with directly), the lien right depends on first delivering a pre-claim notice to you within 60 days of starting work or supplying materials. Getting one of these during construction is routine — it's a procedural protection, not a dispute. Treat it as a signal that the sender is on the property and add them to the waiver list for upcoming draws.

The lien waiver schedule

Two waivers, two stages:

Waiver type	When	Who signs	What it does
Conditional waiver upon progress payment	At each progress payment	GC + every sub/supplier on that draw	Releases lien rights conditional on the check clearing. Standard practice.
Unconditional waiver upon final payment	At final payment	GC + every sub/supplier who worked the project	Releases lien rights absolutely. Get this from everyone before final disbursement.

Both forms are statutory in WA — RCW 60.04.071 prescribes the conditional/unconditional progress and final waiver language. Use the statutory form so it survives challenge.

How to operate the schedule

1. In the GC contract, require a current sub list with each progress draw.
2. For each progress draw, the GC delivers (a) signed conditional waivers from every sub/supplier on that draw plus (b) a signed conditional from the GC for their own scope. The bank/lender disbursement is conditioned on receipt.
3. At final payment, switch to unconditional final waivers from every sub and supplier who appeared on any draw, plus unconditional final from the GC. Hold final retainage until all are received.
4. Then run the 90-day clock anyway. Even with full waivers, monitor the King County recorder for liens for 90 days from the last on-site work. Recording a lien against a fully-waived project is rare but happens.

Why this matters more on additions

Additions tend to have more discovered-condition subs (abatement, knob-and-tube remediation, foundation specialists) than new-construction projects. More subs means more pre-claim notices to track and more waivers to collect. Build the schedule into the GC contract from the start.

When this matters most

• Cost-plus contracts without a tight waiver schedule. You pay the GC, the GC pays subs late, subs record liens. You've paid in full and still have clouded title.
• Refinancing or selling within a year of completion. Title companies ask about pending or recently-released liens. A clean waiver file at handoff makes it a 10-minute conversation.
• Bankruptcy of the GC during the project. Subs paid through the GC may not have been paid; their lien rights are against your property, not the GC's bankruptcy estate.

Informational framing

This is general information about Washington lien procedure. It's not legal advice and doesn't establish an attorney-client relationship. For waiver language specific to your contract, or if you receive a recorded lien, consult an attorney licensed in WA — verify via the WSBA Legal Directory.

Why this is the riskiest project type for owner-direct carve-outs

A Seattle second-story addition is the project type where you should be most reluctant to direct-hire trades alongside the GC. The reason is structural: every new piece of work attaches to the existing 1900–1930 house. Framing ties to existing walls. New MEP integrates with the panel and the plumbing stack. Drywall lands against existing finishes. When something fails 18 months in, the warranty-seam question — "was it the GC's tie-in or the owner-direct sub's work?" — is genuinely hard to answer and the most common dispute the trade press writes about.

Compared to a DADU (separate detached structure) or a whole-house remodel (the GC owns most surfaces), an addition has the most interleaving of new and existing work, and therefore the smallest set of trades you can safely carve out without creating a fight.

What you can carve out on an addition

Realistically: post-CofO work and finish-only items where the GC's envelope is fully complete first.

• Appliances procured directly, GC installs — fine.
• Cabinet pulls, lighting fixtures, plumbing fixtures procured directly and handed to the GC at finish stage — fine.
• Landscape and exterior hardscape after substantial completion — fine, with your usual landscaper.

What you do not carve out on a second-story addition: the foundation retrofit, the lift contractor, the framing, the abatement, the MEP rough, the drywall, or anything that touches the GC's structural envelope. The warranty risk and coordination overhead make it not worth the markup savings.

How the standard contracts handle it (when you do carve out)

AIA A201-2017 Article 6 (overview) calls them "Separate Contractors" — the owner has the right to award separate contracts, the GC and the Separate Contractors must coordinate, and the GC can claim added cost or time if a Separate Contractor's work damages or delays theirs. ConsensusDocs 200 §3.12 (product page) has equivalent language. If you're using AIA A105 (the short-form residential contract), the Separate Contractors framework is not included and has to be added as a custom rider — A105 does not incorporate A201.

The canonical trade-press write-up of how this goes wrong on residential remodels is Markup & Profit's Owners Supplying Their Own Materials. The pattern repeats across most failure cases: an owner-supplied item shows up wrong, damaged, or incompatible; the GC and the supplier each disclaim; the homeowner pays twice. On an addition where the GC has already framed and dried-in around an owner-supplied component, the damage seam is harder to attribute and the dispute is harder to settle.

What WA lien law adds

Every trade you contract with directly becomes its own "prime contractor" with full lien rights against your property — not a sub-tier claim that flows up through the GC. That's true everywhere. What's specific to WA is the no-notice path.

Under RCW 60.04.031(3)(a), persons who contract directly with the owner-occupier of an existing single-family residence for repair, alteration, or remodel are exempt from the pre-claim notice requirement that applies to subs and suppliers in the GC's chain. A second-story addition is exactly the project shape (alteration / remodel of an existing owner-occupied single-family residence) that the exemption covers, so each owner-direct trade has a no-notice lien path. They can record a lien against your house without ever sending you the pre-claim notice you'd get from a sub working under the GC.

On the disclosure side: every contractor (each owner-direct trade included) doing residential work of $1,000 or more must give you the statutory disclosure statement before starting under RCW 18.27.114. Subsection (4): a contractor who didn't deliver the disclosure can't bring a lien claim. So one defensive practice is to require the disclosure on every direct trade before any payment.

What to address in the GC contract before you sign

If you do carve out a narrow scope, ask a construction-savvy attorney to address these specific areas in the contract:

• Carve-out list. Name the specific scopes you reserve the right to contract separately (appliances, finish hardware, post-CofO landscape). What's not on the list flows through the GC.
• Coordination duties. Who schedules, who notifies whom, what happens if an owner-sourced delivery misses its window.
• Damage attribution. A201 §6.2.3 gives the GC cost/time relief for Separate Contractor damage; mirror that for owner-direct trade damage to GC work — and given the warranty-seam risk on an addition, make the attribution mechanism explicit (independent inspector, predefined remediation procedure).
• Insurance. Owner-sourced trades' CGL must name the homeowner as additional insured before they show up.
• Lien-waiver flow. Each owner-direct trade signs into the same conditional/unconditional waiver schedule the GC uses (see the previous expansion).
• No-markup acknowledgement. GC isn't responsible for warranty on owner-sourced equipment or installs.

Verify any attorney via the WSBA Legal Directory. Two to four hours of focused review on this section is typical.

The honest recommendation

On a second-story addition at $400K–$800K, the practical advice is: carve out one or two finish-only items at most, or don't carve out anything. The interleaving of new and existing work makes the warranty-seam risk on an addition materially worse than on a DADU or even a whole-house remodel. Most owners doing a second-story should stay single-prime and negotiate allowances inside the GC contract for the finish items they care about.

Informational framing

This is general information about how the standard contract frameworks and WA lien law treat owner-direct-contracted trades. It is not legal advice and does not establish an attorney-client relationship. For language specific to your contract, consult an attorney licensed in WA — verify via the WSBA Legal Directory.