Electure
You make a good point about the Mechanics Lien, but what about for smaller jobs, say a residential service your talking on average 650-700 dollars for say a 100 amp service.
In my state you have so much time to send via registered mail a Notice of Furnishing, there is a filing fee of course and the time required to do this. For a large job I would be all for it but its the small jobs one tends to get burned on. I have tried Small claims but they are the pits here. Once the PoCo taps the customer in permanently there isnt much a contractor can do.
This was one of the reasons I have resorted to a letter of aggreement and require payment at least partial up front. After posting the above two posts, I decided to not require the payment upfront going against my better judgement and sure enough I havnt heard 'hide nor hair' from the landlord whose service I just had inspected.
We work hard for what we get and in all kinds of weather and to have to up wiht non-payment is really the pits.
