Background
Stax Building & Development, LLC performed contracting work on property owned by HHI Yacht Club Ventures, LLC in Beaufort County. When Stax sought to enforce a mechanic’s lien for payment, it ran into a statutory requirement it had overlooked: section 29-5-15(A) of the South Carolina Code requires that a contractor include its contractor license number on the face of the lien document at the time of filing. Stax had not done so when it filed its original lien.
Stax eventually included its contractor license number in a third amended lien — but by then, more than six months had elapsed since it last performed work or supplied materials on the project. Under section 29-5-90 of the South Carolina Code, a mechanic’s lien must be filed within 90 days after the claimant ceases to perform work or furnish materials. HHI moved to dismiss the lien for noncompliance, and the Beaufort County master-in-equity granted the motion. Stax appealed, arguing the statute did not expressly mandate dismissal for failure to include the license number and that amendment should have been permitted.
The Court’s Holding
Affirmed. The Court of Appeals held the master-in-equity correctly dismissed Stax’s mechanic’s lien. The court applied the established rule that “[a] mechanic’s lien is purely statutory” and therefore “the requirements of the statute must be strictly followed.” Butler Contracting, Inc. v. Court St., LLC, 369 S.C. 121 (2006).
The court rejected Stax’s argument that section 29-5-15(A) does not explicitly say the lien is void for failure to include the license number. The statute uses the word “must” — the contractor “must record his contractor license number or registration number on the lien document when the lien document is filed” — and the plain and unambiguous language of “must” is dispositive under South Carolina’s statutory interpretation principles. Where a statute’s language is plain and conveys a clear and definite meaning, the court has no right to impose another meaning.
The court also dispatched the amendment argument. Even if Stax could have cured the defect by filing an amended lien that included the license number, it missed its window to do so. Section 29-5-90 dissolves a mechanic’s lien unless the required statement is served within 90 days of the last work performed. Stax did not include the license number in any lien filed within that 90-day period — the third amended lien that finally added the number was filed over six months after Stax last worked on the project. Accordingly, any attempt to amend came too late.
Key Takeaways
- South Carolina mechanic’s liens are creatures of statute and require strict compliance. Failing to include a required element — even one the statute does not expressly make a basis for dismissal — will doom the lien if that element is clearly mandated by the word “must.”
- Section 29-5-15(A) requires that the contractor’s license number appear on the face of the lien document at filing. A contractor that files without its license number cannot cure that defect through amendment filed outside the 90-day window in section 29-5-90.
- The 90-day filing deadline in section 29-5-90 runs from the date the contractor last performed work or furnished materials, not from the date of any subsequent amending filing. Once the window closes, the lien is dissolved and cannot be revived by a later corrective filing.
- Contractors and their counsel should verify that every required statutory element — including the license number — appears on the original lien document filed within the 90-day window. Post-filing audits of lien documents are inexpensive; dismissal for a missing license number after the cure period has run is not.
Why It Matters
Stax Building v. HHI Yacht Club is a cautionary tale for South Carolina contractors pursuing mechanic’s liens. The case confirms that the strict-compliance rule applies to the license number requirement under section 29-5-15(A) and that the 90-day window under section 29-5-90 serves as a hard stop for any remedial amendment. Contractors who file a lien without their license number and discover the omission after the 90-day period has run have no straightforward path to cure — the lien is gone.
For construction and real estate practitioners in South Carolina, the decision reinforces that mechanic’s lien practice demands precision at the time of initial filing. A simple pre-filing checklist — confirming the contractor’s name, address, license number, a description of the work performed, the amount claimed, and the property owner’s name — is far less expensive than losing the lien and the security it represents.