2 deadlines NoticeGuard models for North Carolina: 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 Every deadline in this app comes from a statute read on the date shown next to its citation - that snapshot can go out of date.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 (each citation below carries its own date). Rule data from the NoticeGuard app, source commit 22f9300.
Filed with the clerk of superior court, counted from this claimant's own last furnishing of labor or materials at the site of the improvement.
What it counts from. 120 days after last furnishing (last day on site).
Applies to. Original contractor, Subcontractor, Supplier, Preconstruction service.
N.C. Gen. Stat. § 44A-12 (b) Official source · statute text retrieved 2026-09-21
“Claims of lien on real property may be filed at any time after the maturity of the obligation secured thereby but not later than 120 days after the last furnishing of labor or materials at the site of the improvement by the person claiming the lien.”
If the date is missed (the statute's own terms). A claim of lien not filed within this period is not filed in time - the statute states the outer bound plainly ("not later than 120 days").
Also stated next to this deadline.
Applies identically to every role in this app - the same 120-day count off each claimant's own last furnishing, regardless of contractor tier (§ 44A-23(a)/(b) confirm subcontractors enforce the contractor's lien under the same §§ 44A-7 through 44A-16 framework, with no separate deadline).
The claim of lien can also be filed too EARLY - not before "the maturity of the obligation secured thereby" - a floor this app does not separately check.
§ 44A-12(d): a defective claim of lien cannot be amended, only cancelled and re-filed within this same 120-day window.
Commence an action to enforce the lien
Counted from the SAME date the filing deadline uses - this claimant's own last furnishing of labor or materials - not from the date the claim of lien was actually filed.
What it counts from. 180 days after last furnishing (last day on site).
Applies to. Original contractor, Subcontractor, Supplier, Preconstruction service.
N.C. Gen. Stat. § 44A-13 (a) Official source · statute text retrieved 2026-09-21
“No such action may be commenced later than 180 days after the last furnishing of labor or materials at the site of the improvement by the person claiming the claim of lien on real property.”
If the date is missed (the statute's own terms). The statute states the action "may [not] be commenced later than" this date - a strict outer bound, independent of when the lien itself was filed.
Also stated next to this deadline.
This anchor is the SAME last-furnishing date the filing deadline (§ 44A-12(b)) uses - confirmed by reading § 44A-13(a)'s own operative sentence, which repeats the identical anchor language, not "date the claim of lien was filed." The same structural shape Colorado's § 38-22-110 uses, and the second state in this app to have it.
A real consequence, not just a technicality: filing the lien late within its own 120-day window (say, day 119) does not extend this 180-day deadline - both clocks run independently off the same start date, so a lien filed near the wire can leave as little as 61 days to sue.
If title to the property is in receivership or bankruptcy, a timely-filed proof of claim plus a timely-filed notice of lis pendens in each county satisfies this requirement instead of an ordinary civil action - not separately modeled.
Weekend and holiday rollover
NoticeGuard does not model a weekend or holiday extension for North Carolina. 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 lien agent / Notice to Lien Agent system (§§ 44A-11.1, 44A-11.2), required on projects costing $40,000 or more, is NOT modeled as a deadline. It governs lien PRIORITY against later-recorded interests (deeds of trust, etc.), not the two hard deadlines this app tracks - it has its own delivery-method and renewal-cycle rules in § 44A-11.2 this app does not compute. A subcontractor or supplier without direct privity with the owner on a $40,000+ project should independently check whether a Notice to Lien Agent is needed to preserve full lien priority.
The Notice of Contract / Notice of Subcontract exchange for second- and third-tier subcontractors (§ 44A-19(d), referenced from § 44A-23(b)) - which can cut off a lower-tier subcontractor's enforcement rights entirely if not timely exchanged - is NOT modeled. This is a real, role-based compliance gate layered on top of, not instead of, the §§ 44A-12/44A-13 deadlines below.
§ 44A-23(d)'s flexibility for a subcontractor to use either its own or the contractor's first/last-furnishing dates when completing the lien form is not modeled - this app always uses the entering claimant's own dates.
Weekend/holiday rollover is NOT modeled - deliberately, not by oversight. N.C. Rule of Civil Procedure 6(a) (§ 1A-1) textually covers "any period... prescribed or allowed by... any applicable statute," which would reach §§ 44A-12 and 44A-13 on its plain language, but no North Carolina appellate decision confirming its application to these specific lien deadlines was found. The same honest gap as Idaho's, Arizona's, New York's, Washington's, Nevada's, and Colorado's missing rollover. (§ 12-3(7), a different statute sometimes assumed to be the general time-computation rule, was checked directly and confirmed to have nothing to do with weekend/holiday computation - it only governs how "preceding" and "following" are read in cross-references.)
Only §§ 44A-7, 44A-8, 44A-11.1, 44A-12, 44A-12.1, 44A-13, and 44A-23 have been read. The rest of Article 2 - including lien priority mechanics in § 44A-14 and the funds-lien (as opposed to real-property-lien) provisions elsewhere in Chapter 44A - is not incorporated.
No amendment provision: § 44A-12(d) states a defective claim of lien cannot be amended, only cancelled and re-filed within the original 120-day window - a real trap this app does not separately warn about beyond citing the statute.
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.