Preserving a lien is the first step — registering it, or giving notice on Crown land, inside a set window after your work stops; perfecting it is the second, later step — commencing a court action and registering a certificate of action — and in Ontario the two run on different clocks, 60 days apart.
Ontario’s Construction Act sets both deadlines in sequence: “Preserve within 60 days” of publication of a certificate of substantial performance, completion, abandonment or termination of the contract, or the claimant’s own last supply of services or materials; then “Perfect within 90 days after the last day on which the lien could have been preserved,” meaning “commencing an action and registering a certificate of action on title, or the equivalent step where the lien attaches to holdback rather than land.” Neither deadline forgives lateness: “Missing the lien deadlines does not end your right to sue for the money owed — the contract claim survives — but you lose the security.” Treadstone Law’s deeper walkthrough covers the mechanics of each step.
British Columbia structures the same idea differently. Under the Builders Lien Act, s.20 sets one filing deadline — a claim of lien “may be filed no later than 45 days after” the certificate of completion was issued, or after the head contract or improvement was completed, abandoned or terminated. There is no separate “preserve” and “perfect” pair of terms; instead, once a lien is filed, s.33(1) gives the claimant a full year: “Action to enforce plus a certificate of pending litigation must be registered not later than one year from the date of its filing.” And BC is just as strict about missing it — s.22: “A lien not filed in the manner and within the time provided is extinguished.” BC’s first deadline (45 days) is tighter than Ontario’s (60 days); its second step (one year to enforce) is far longer than Ontario’s fixed 90.
An Ontario subcontractor’s last day of supply is April 1. It must preserve its lien by May 31 — 60 days later — and registers on May 20. The 90-day perfect clock runs from the last day the lien could have been preserved, May 31, not from the actual registration date, so perfection is due August 29 (90 days after May 31): commencing the action and registering a certificate of action on title. Run the same facts through BC’s structure instead: the filing deadline would be 45 days after the certificate of completion or abandonment of the improvement — tighter than Ontario’s first step — but once filed, the claimant would then have a full year to commence its enforcement action, a materially longer runway on the second step than Ontario’s fixed 90 days.
See also: Tracking construction lien deadlines in Ontario, Finishing holdback vs basic holdback, Labour and material payment bond
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