Out here I believe you need to file a "preliminary lien notice" at the start of a job, which simply notifies the owner (who does not know you or contract directly with you) that you're working on his project and you have lien rights should you not be paid. Without a preliminary notice, you loose some or all of your lien rights.
You can try to submit your invoice to the owner but he has a contract with the GC. You can also try a modification of the "stop payment notice" with the owner, even though he's financing this out of his pocket (i.e. not bank financing).
Steps you can take now:
1. Try to file a lien
2. Try submitting your invoice to the owner
3. Try a modified Stop Payment Notice with the owner
Steps for the future:
1. (Obviously) don't work for known loosers
2. Learn to front load
3. Aggressively learn and apply lien laws
4. Save a critical work task for the last step (knowing you cannot generally remove any installed material)
Ya gotta be creative to stay ahead of these guys. Good luck with this,
Radar
