4 deadlines NoticeGuard models for Illinois: what each one counts from, the statute it was read from, and the statute text.
Information, not legal advice. This app reports what the statute says and cites the section it read. It is not legal advice, it does not file anything for you, and it does not tell you what to do.
Verify with the statute or an attorney. Statutes change, and courts reinterpret them. Every deadline in this app comes from a statute read on the date shown next to its citation - that snapshot can go out of date. Missing a mechanics lien deadline can extinguish your claim permanently, so confirm any deadline you are relying on with an attorney licensed in that state before you act on it.
Data verified: statute text retrieved 2026-09-21 to 2026-10-02 (each citation below carries its own date). Rule data from the NoticeGuard app, source commit 22f9300.
File the claim for lien or bring suit (to preserve priority against third parties)
Filed with the county recorder, or an action brought, counted from completion of the contract (or of any extra work/final delivery). Missing this date does not void the lien - it only loses priority against other creditors, encumbrancers, or purchasers who acquire an interest in the meantime.
What it counts from. 120 days after final completion of the original contract.
Applies to. Original contractor, Subcontractor, Supplier, Preconstruction service.
770 ILCS 60 § 7 (a) Official source · statute text retrieved 2026-09-21
“No contractor shall be allowed to enforce such lien against or to the prejudice of any other creditor or incumbrancer or purchaser, unless within 4 months after completion, or if extra or additional work is done or labor, services, material, fixtures, apparatus or machinery, forms or form work is delivered therefor within 4 months after the completion of such extra or additional work or the final delivery of such extra or additional labor, services, material, fixtures, apparatus or machinery, forms or form work, he or she shall either bring an action to enforce his or her lien therefor or shall file in the office of the recorder of the county in which the building, erection or other improvement to be charged with the lien is situated, a claim for lien...”
If the date is missed (the statute's own terms). The statute states the lien may not be enforced "against or to the prejudice of any other creditor or incumbrancer or purchaser" past this date - a real cost (loss of priority against intervening third parties), distinct from and shorter than the outer deadline against the owner directly (see the sibling rule below).
Also stated next to this deadline.
Approximated as 120 calendar days (4 months × 30), the same approximation style used throughout this app.
Missing this date is NOT fatal to the lien itself - it can still be recorded and remains good against the owner up to the longer 2-year deadline (the sibling rule below). This rule's consequence is narrower and easy to understate: read it as "lose priority against third parties," not "lose the lien."
A claim for lien may also be filed immediately, at any time after the contract is made - no minimum wait.
File the claim for lien as to the owner, and commence any foreclosure action
The outer deadline to record the claim so it remains good against the owner personally, and - confirmed to share the identical anchor and offset - the deadline to commence a foreclosure suit. Both run from completion of the contract (or of extra work/final delivery).
What it counts from. 730 days after final completion of the original contract.
Applies to. Original contractor, Subcontractor, Supplier, Preconstruction service.
770 ILCS 60 §§ 7 and 9 7(a); 9 (final sentence) Official source · statute text retrieved 2026-09-21
“[§ 7(a)] ...as to the owner may be filed at any time after the contract is made and within 2 years after the completion of the contract, or the completion of any extra work or the furnishing of any extra labor, services, material, fixtures, apparatus or machinery, forms or form work thereunder, and as to such owner may be amended at any time before the final judgment. [§ 9] Such suit shall be commenced or counterclaim filed within two years after the completion of the contract, or completion of the extra or additional work, or furnishing of extra or additional material thereunder.”
If the date is missed (the statute's own terms). Past this date, a claim for lien can no longer be filed even as to the owner (§ 7), and a foreclosure suit can no longer be commenced (§ 9) - this is the true outer bound on the lien, not merely a priority question.
Also stated next to this deadline.
Approximated as 730 calendar days (2 years × 365), the same approximation style Florida's 1-year (365-day) deadline already uses.
This app states both statutes on one rule deliberately, because reading § 9 directly confirmed it shares the identical anchor and offset as § 7's owner-facing deadline - presenting them as two separately-computed dates would show the same date twice under different labels.
A subcontractor shares this same clock by operation of § 21(a) ("from the same time... as provided for the contractor") - confirmed no shorter or longer recording/foreclosure window for subcontractors than for the contractor.
Subcontractor's written notice to owner
Sent to the owner of record (and the lending agency, if known), counted from completion of this subcontractor's own contract with the contractor - not the whole project's completion.
What it counts from. 90 days after final completion of your own work.
Applies to. Subcontractor, Supplier, Preconstruction service.
770 ILCS 60 § 24 (a) Official source · statute text retrieved 2026-09-21
“Subcontractors, or parties furnishing labor, materials, fixtures, apparatus, machinery, or services, may at any time after making his or her contract with the contractor, and shall within 90 days after the completion thereof, or, if extra or additional work or material is delivered thereafter, within 90 days after the date of completion of such extra or additional work or final delivery of such extra or additional material, cause a written notice of his or her claim and the amount due or to become due thereunder, to be provided to the owner of record or the owner of record's agent or architect, or the superintendent having charge of the building or improvement and to the lending agency, if known...”
If the date is missed (the statute's own terms). Mandatory ("shall") for every subcontractor - protects the subcontractor's right to be paid out of what the owner still owes the contractor. This does not itself record or perfect the lien (that is § 7); it is a separate, real deadline for payment priority.
Also stated next to this deadline.
Anchored to THIS subcontractor's own contract completion, confirmed different from the project-wide completion date that governs §§ 7 and 9 (the sibling rules above) - a subcontractor who finishes early should not use the project's later completion date for this notice.
Excused if a sworn statement (§ 5) already gave the owner the same information - not modeled; this app always shows the 90-day date.
The general contractor owes no equivalent notice - this rule applies only to subcontractors, suppliers, and preconstruction service providers, confirmed by the statute's own text ("subcontractors, or parties furnishing labor, materials...").
Notify the owner that you recorded the lien (owner-occupied single-family home)
A contractor improving an owner-occupied single-family residence must give the owner written notice within 10 days after recording the lien. Counted from the recording date, not from completion.
What it counts from. 10 days after notice of construction lien recorded.
Applies to. Original contractor (when you tick "This is a single-family residence that the owner lives in").
770 ILCS 60 § 7 (d) Official source · statute text retrieved 2026-10-02
“A contractor for improvements of an owner-occupied single-family residence must give the owner written notice within 10 days after recording a lien against any property of the owner. The notice is served when it is sent or personally delivered. If timely notice is not given and, as a result, the owner has suffered damages before notice is given, the lien is extinguished to the extent of the damages. The mere recording of the lien claim is not considered damages. This subsection does not apply to subcontractors, and it applies only to contracts entered into after the effective date of this amendatory Act of the 96th General Assembly.”
If the date is missed (the statute's own terms). In the statute's own words: "If timely notice is not given and, as a result, the owner has suffered damages before notice is given, the lien is extinguished to the extent of the damages." Partial, not total - and the statute adds that "the mere recording of the lien claim is not considered damages," so a late notice that caused no actual loss costs nothing.
Also stated next to this deadline.
Served when SENT or personally delivered - the statute says so expressly, so the 10 days is a deadline to dispatch the notice, not a deadline for the owner to receive it.
Subcontractors and suppliers owe nothing here: "This subsection does not apply to subcontractors," verbatim. That is why this rule is offered to the original contractor alone - the mirror image of § 24's notice above, which is the subcontractor's and not the contractor's.
Both halves of "owner-occupied single-family residence" matter, which is why this app asks its own question rather than reusing the plain single-family-dwelling flag New York's rules use - a single-family house the owner does not live in is outside § 7(d).
Also conditioned on the contract post-dating P.A. 96-654 (effective 2010-01-01), a date this app does not collect - see this state's limitations.
Weekend and holiday rollover
NoticeGuard does not model a weekend or holiday extension for Illinois. The dates above are the plain count from the date you enter. Check whether a Saturday, Sunday or holiday changes your date.
What this rule set does not cover
The 60-day owner-occupant notice for subcontractors on an EXISTING owner-occupied single-family residence (§ 21(c)) is NOT modeled - it is narrower in scope than § 24's notice (residential only) and, unlike a hard deadline, a late notice only causes a sliding, prejudice-based PARTIAL forfeiture ("preserve the subcontractor's lien, but only to the extent that the owner has not been prejudiced by payments made prior to receipt of the notice") rather than an outright bar - a shape this app's binary computed/needs-input model does not represent well.
The contractor's sworn-statement duty (§ 5) is NOT modeled as a deadline - it has no day count at all. It is a disclosure precondition triggered by the OWNER being about to make a payment, not a fixed date after any job fact.
§ 21(d)'s cap on a subcontractor's recovery (generally no more than the original contract price, absent fraud or the contractor's default/abandonment) is not modeled - a dollar-amount rule, not a deadline, and this app never collects dollar amounts.
Weekend/holiday rollover is NOT modeled - deliberately, not by oversight. 5 ILCS 70/1.11 is textually a general-application statute ("any act provided by law") with no carve-out naming or excluding the Mechanics Lien Act, but no citable Illinois case confirming its application to §§ 7, 9, or 24 specifically was found. The same honest gap as Idaho's, Arizona's, New York's, Washington's, Nevada's, Colorado's, North Carolina's, and California's missing rollover.
Only §§ 1, 5, 7, 9, 21, and 24 have been read. The rest of the Act - including §§ 21.01/21.02 (specific project types) and § 23 (further subcontractor mechanics) - is not incorporated.
§ 7(d)'s 10-day owner notice (the last rule below) carries a date condition this app does NOT check: by its own final sentence it "applies only to contracts entered into after the effective date of this amendatory Act of the 96th General Assembly" - P.A. 96-654, effective 2010-01-01. This app offers the 10-day date for any owner-occupied single-family job regardless of when the contract was signed. On a pre-2010 contract the notice is not required at all, so what you are shown is at worst a duty you do not owe - never a duty you were not warned about.
§ 7(c) - that calling yourself a subcontractor is not an admission of that status if the party you contracted with turns out to have been the owner or the owner's agent - is read and deliberately not modeled: an evidentiary rule about status, carrying no day count.
This app generates no document for Illinois yet. § 7's claim for lien has no prescribed form, only required content (a verified statement of the contract, balance due, and property description) - a future session could template it the same way Idaho's and Utah's content-list documents are. § 24's separate notice to owner does include an optional sample form in the statute itself, also not yet templated.
NoticeGuard is an app that turns a job's dates into a countdown for each statutory step, shows the statute text each date was read from, exports a calendar file (.ics) and sends reminders 14, 7 and 1 day before each deadline. It tracks and reminds; it does not file anything for you.