Builders Liens and Holdbacks for BC Home Buyers

A builders lien is a claim that an unpaid contractor, subcontractor or worker can register against the title to a property. It attaches to the land, not to the person who owes the money. So if the home you are buying was built or renovated recently, a trade who was never paid can file against your new title even though you never hired anyone.

Most of what is written about builders liens is written for the contractor filing one, or for the owner who hired the builder. This page is written for the buyer. It explains the three different percentages people confuse, the two clocks that run on every job, and what your lawyer or notary is actually doing when they hold money back on completion day.

The short version

A builders lien attaches to the land and the improvement, so it can affect you as the new owner even though the debt is not yours.
Two clocks run on every job: a lien must be filed within 45 days, and the holdback must be kept for 55 days. The ten-day gap is deliberate.
If you are buying a new strata lot from the developer, the law makes you retain 7% of the gross purchase price, whether or not your contract says so.
On any other purchase there is no statutory holdback. The protection has to come from your contract and your lawyer or notary.
A good-faith buyer’s exposure is capped at 10% of the purchase price of the improvement for liens filed after you are registered on title.
The Land Title Office has no duty to check whether a lien was filed on time, so a worthless lien can still land on a clean title and someone has to apply to remove it.
All three North Shore municipalities sell a letter telling you what permits exist. The City of North Vancouver takes 3 to 4 weeks. Order it before you write the offer.

What a builders lien is, in plain words

People who work on a building, or supply material for it, sometimes do not get paid. The Builders Lien Act gives them a way to secure that debt against the property itself.

Section 2 says a contractor, subcontractor or worker who performs work or supplies material “has a lien for the price of the work and material, to the extent that the price remains unpaid”. That lien sits on four things: the owner’s interest in the improvement, “the improvement itself”, “the land in, on or under which the improvement is located”, and the material delivered to the land.

Read that last part again. The lien is on the land. That is the whole reason this matters to a buyer: the debt belongs to whoever ordered the work, but the security sits on the property you are about to own.

An architect, an engineer and a material supplier cannot be held back from, and nobody engaged by them gets a lien. Workers and material suppliers are not held back from either. A claim must also be worth something: section 17 stops a claim being filed where the amount is “less than $200“.

Three percentages, and only one of them is yours

This is where almost every article on the subject goes wrong. There are three separate numbers in BC law and they bind three different people. Mixing them up is how a buyer ends up either unprotected or arguing for a holdback the law never gave them.

The number	Where it comes from	Who it binds	What it actually does
10%	Builders Lien Act s.4(1)	The person paying the builder — so the seller, or the owner who ordered the work. Not you.	They “must retain a holdback equal to 10% of the greater of” the value of work actually provided and the payments made on account.
10%	Builders Lien Act s.35	A buyer in good faith	A cap, not a duty. Claims filed after you are on title “must not exceed 10% of the purchase price of the improvement”.
7%	Strata Property Act s.88(2) with Strata Property Regulation s.5.2	A buyer of a strata lot from an owner developer	A real duty. You “must retain a holdback of 7% of the gross purchase price”.

Sources: Builders Lien Act and Strata Property Act, both current to 6 October 2026; Strata Property Regulation current to 13 October 2026.

Two things follow, and they are the most useful sentences on this page.

First, the 10% in section 4 is never your holdback. It is the seller’s, or the builder’s. When a listing agent tells you “the builders lien holdback is 10%“, they are describing somebody else’s obligation.

Second, the 7% only applies when you are buying a strata lot from the developer who created it. Buy a resale condo from an ordinary owner and the 7% does not apply at all.

The two clocks: 45 days to file, 55 days to hold

Every builders lien question comes back to timing. There are two periods and they are deliberately different lengths.

Clock	Length	Runs from	Section
Deadline to file a claim of lien, where a certificate of completion was issued	45 days	The date the certificate of completion was issued	s.20(1)
Deadline to file a claim of lien, where there is no certificate	45 days	The head contract being “completed, abandoned or terminated”, or the improvement being “completed or abandoned”	s.20(2)
How long the holdback must be kept	55 days	The same events as above	s.8
New strata lot bought from the developer — outside filing limit	45 days	The date the strata lot is conveyed to you, if that comes first	SPA s.88(1)
New strata lot bought from the developer — your holdback	55 days	The date the strata lot is conveyed to you, if that comes first	SPA s.88(2)

The ten-day gap is the point: money must sit for 55 days precisely because somebody can still file on day 45.

That ten-day gap explains why a holdback exists at all. If the money were released on day 45, a lien filed that same afternoon would have nothing behind it.

Two definitions let you date these clocks yourself instead of waiting for someone to declare a job finished. Section 1(3) says an improvement is completed “if the improvement or a substantial part of it is ready for use or is being used for the purpose intended”. Section 1(5) deems a contract or improvement abandoned after thirty days with no work done, unless the stoppage was caused by a strike, lockout, sickness, weather, holidays, a court order, a shortage of material “or other similar cause”.

For a condo there is a harder date still, and it is the single most useful line in the Act for a buyer. Section 1(4) says the construction of a strata lot “is completed, or a contract for its construction is substantially performed, not later than the date the strata lot is first occupied”. A developer cannot stretch the clock by never declaring completion. First occupancy of your unit is a backstop written into the statute.

Buying a new condo from the developer: the holdback you cannot waive

If you are completing on a presale or any strata lot bought from the owner developer, section 88 of the Strata Property Act applies to you directly.

It opens with the words “Despite any other Act or agreement to the contrary”. That phrase is why this one matters more than the rest. A clause in the purchase contract cannot take it away, and neither can a developer’s addendum.

You “must retain a holdback of an amount set out in the regulations” until the earlier of the ordinary lien deadline and 55 days after conveyance. The amount is in section 5.2 of the Strata Property Regulation: “a purchaser of a strata lot from an owner developer must retain a holdback of 7% of the gross purchase price”.

Note “gross purchase price”, not the value of the improvement, and not the land. Note too that the statute itself contains no percentage — it points to the regulation. Anyone citing section 88 for the 7% figure has only cited half of it.

Two more provisions help a condo buyer. In a phased development, section 87 says a lien “may be filed against only the strata lots in the phase in which the materials were supplied or the work was done”, so an early phase is insulated from trouble in a later one. And where one lien is registered against many units, section 90 lets an individual owner apply to the Supreme Court to clear their own title by paying in “the strata lot’s share of the amount secured” rather than the whole claim.

Buying a resale home: nothing is automatic

Here is the part that surprises people. If you are buying an ordinary house, or a condo from an ordinary owner rather than the developer, no statute makes you or your conveyancer hold anything back.

Section 4 binds the person paying the builder. Section 35 caps what can be claimed against you but imposes no duty. Section 88 is limited to purchases from an owner developer. A holdback on a resale is therefore a protective practice, not a legal requirement, and it has to be arranged.

So if the home has had recent work — a new roof, a kitchen, a suite, a full rebuild — raise it with your lawyer or notary and your REALTOR® before you remove subjects. The questions worth asking are: when was the work finished, who did it, has everyone been paid, and is there anything in writing to show it.

One thing a seller cannot do is contract out of the Act altogether. Section 42(2) says an agreement that the Act is not to apply, “or that the remedies provided by it are not to be available for a person’s benefit, is void”.

Can a lien appear after you already own the place? Yes

This is the question buyers actually have, and the answer is uncomfortable.

The word “owner” in the Act is tested “at the time a claim of lien is filed”. Completing your purchase is not one of the events in section 20 that starts or stops the filing clock, outside the strata case above. And section 35 is written on the express assumption that liens get filed after a buyer is registered — it governs claims filed after “acceptance for registration of the purchaser’s interest at a land title office”.

So yes. Work done before you completed can be liened after you own the home, if the 45-day window has not closed.

What limits the damage is section 35. For a buyer in good faith, claims filed after the latest of your registration, the end of the head contract and the completion of the improvement “must not exceed 10% of the purchase price of the improvement”. You are not going to lose the house over somebody else’s unpaid invoice.

There is a second, blunter problem, and it is the line in the Act most worth knowing. Section 20(4) says that on the filing of a claim of lien “the registrar or gold commissioner has no duty to inquire as to whether or not the lien claimant has complied with the time limit for filing the claim of lien”.

Read plainly: the Land Title Office does not police the deadline. A lien that is late, and legally extinguished, can still be accepted onto a clean title. The practical harm is usually not losing money. It is a clouded title at the worst possible moment, and a legal bill to clear it. Section 19 does make a person who files against land the lien does not attach to “liable for costs and damages”, which is a remedy after the fact rather than a filter before it.

How a lien comes off a title

A lien does not quietly expire off the register. It can die as a legal claim and still sit there as a registration. Somebody has to apply.

Route	What happens	Section
Nobody sues in time	An action must be started and a certificate of pending litigation registered “not later than one year from the date of its filing”. If not, “the lien is extinguished”.	s.33(1), s.33(5)
You force the issue	As owner you may serve a notice to commence an action, requiring the claimant to sue and register within 21 days of service.	s.33(2)
Apply to cancel	An owner may apply to the court, registrar or gold commissioner, which “may cancel” the claim if satisfied it is extinguished, dismissed, discontinued or satisfied.	s.25(1)
The claim is abusive	The court may cancel a claim that “does not relate to the land against which it is filed” or is “vexatious, frivolous or an abuse of process”.	s.25(2)
Pay money into court	Pay in the lesser of the total claims and the amount owing, with a floor of the required holdback — or, for a buyer to whom s.35 applies, 10% of the purchase price of the improvement. The money then “stands in place of the improvement and the land”.	s.23
Give security instead	The court may cancel on security it finds satisfactory, and that security “may be less than the amount of the claim of lien”.	s.24
New strata lot from the developer	Apply to the Supreme Court to pay in the lesser of the total claims and the full s.88(2) holdback.	SPA s.89

Note what section 25 says: the decision-maker “may cancel”, on application. Extinguishment is a ground to apply, not an automatic removal.

The Land Title and Survey Authority charges nothing to file a claim of builders lien, and nothing to release one. That is worth knowing in both directions: it costs a disgruntled trade nothing to register against your title, and the cost of getting a bad one off is legal work rather than a registry fee. A title search is $11.06, as set out in the LTSA fee listing effective 1 April 2026.

Before you remove subjects: the letter each city will sell you

You cannot search for an unfiled lien. What you can do is find out what work was permitted, whether it was inspected, and whether anything is outstanding. All three North Shore municipalities sell a letter that does this, and they are not the same product, the same price or the same speed.

	West Vancouver	District of North Vancouver	City of North Vancouver
What it is called	Comfort Letter	Property summary (also called a comfort or zoning compliance letter)	Zoning and Building Compliance Letter
House or duplex	$240.00 plus tax	$214.10	$114.51 plus GST
Condo or apartment	$340.00 plus tax	$428.00 non single-family	$218.66 plus GST, per suite
Separate permit-history search	Not sold separately	$160.90 single-family, plus $107.00 an hour beyond three hours	Site History Review, $204.80
Copies of drawings	$130.00 plus GST, house or duplex	$50.00 per permit, digital	$37.49 plus GST first page
Turnaround	Five working days	Not published	3 to 4 weeks
How tax is described	“(plus tax)” — the tax is not named	Only “subject to the applicable taxes where appropriate”	“(plus GST)”

West Vancouver fees read off the District’s live property information page on 19 October 2026. District of North Vancouver from Fees and Charges Bylaw 6481, consolidated for convenience, last amending bylaw 8777 of 2 February 2026. City of North Vancouver from Fees and Charges Bylaw 9000, consolidated 8 December 2025.

Four practical notes, each of which has cost somebody a deal.

The City of North Vancouver takes three to four weeks. Its own request form says “Current processing times for Compliance Letters are 3 – 4 weeks”. A normal subject period is shorter than that. In the City, order the letter before you write the offer, not after.

The City’s printed form understates its own fee. The form shows $112.60 plus GST for a house and then warns, in its own words, “Fees listed above may not be current.” The bylaw consolidated in December 2025 says $114.51 plus GST. Budget from the bylaw.

A vague request gets a vague letter. West Vancouver’s own guidance is that a request “should be specific in nature and specify what information is requested”, otherwise “a ‘general’ letter will be provided which could omit a specific concern.” If recent construction is your worry, say so in the request.

You probably cannot order it yourself. These letters go to the registered owner or someone with the owner’s written authorisation. As a buyer you are neither, so the authorisation needs to come through the seller or the listing agent — which is a thing to negotiate early, not discover late.

What the letters cover differs too. West Vancouver’s says it will cover permits issued, date of occupancy, “work orders, zoning information and Board of Variance applications”, and it states that it “does not include copies of records or house plans”. The City of North Vancouver’s form instead asks you to tick information areas, including “Construction Permits & Inspections” and “Planning – Land Use”. One free tick-box on that form is worth knowing about on the North Shore: “Fire Department – Underground Oil Tanks (No Fee)”.

Municipal fees, forms and turnaround times change. Confirm before you rely on any of it: the District of North Vancouver on 604-990-2480 or building@dnv.org, the City of North Vancouver on 604-985-7761, and West Vancouver’s permits and inspections on 604-925-7040 or plans@westvancouver.ca.

If the house was built by an owner-builder

A newly built home in BC normally carries third-party home warranty insurance, the cover everyone calls 2-5-10. An owner-builder home does not, and that changes what you are buying.

Under the Homeowner Protection Act, home warranty insurance must cover “defects in materials and labour for a period of at least 2 years”, “defects in the building envelope, including defects resulting in water penetration, for a period of at least 5 years”, and “structural defects for a period of at least 10 years”. An owner-builder with an authorisation “is not required to obtain home warranty insurance”.

	Built by a licensed residential builder	Built by an owner-builder
What stands behind the promise	An insurance policy from a warranty provider	The individual who built it
Where the obligation comes from	HPA s.22, home warranty insurance	HPA s.23, a protection the Act deems the builder to have agreed
How long you have to sue	Claim under the policy on its own terms	“within 10 years after the date of first occupancy of the new home”
Can it be signed away?	—	No. A term purporting to waive it “is of no effect”.
Who may recover	The policyholder	Whoever owns the home “from time to time”, who is “the only person entitled to recover damages”
Before you sign	—	You are owed an Owner Builder Disclosure Notice

Homeowner Protection Act current to 6 October 2026. Section 23 “does not apply to a new home covered by home warranty insurance”, so it is the owner-builder route, not a general new-home protection.

Section 23 is better than it sounds. The protection runs with the title, it benefits “whoever is the owner of the new home from time to time”, and it cannot be waived. The weakness is not the law. As the BC Financial Services Authority puts it, an owner-builder’s “obligation to reimburse a buyer is only as good as their ability to pay”. There is no policy behind them.

Two details catch people out. An owner-builder cannot sell straight away: the prescribed waiting period is 12 months, and BC Housing says an owner-builder who sells inside the first ten years “stay liable to any subsequent purchasers for defects in the home during that 10-year period”.

And the disclosure duty is contagious. Section 21(2) binds “an owner builder, and any subsequent purchaser of a new home built by an owner builder” to give a prospective buyer a disclosure notice before selling during the relevant period. Buy an owner-built house inside that window and you do not just inherit a risk. You inherit a disclosure obligation of your own when you come to sell.

Where a builders lien dispute goes

Not to the Civil Resolution Tribunal. The Builders Lien Act defines “court” as the Supreme Court, and the tribunal has said of itself that it “does not have jurisdiction to order remedies set out in the Builders Lien Act” and that these remedies “are within the exclusive jurisdiction of the BC Supreme Court”.

That is a derived limit rather than an express ban — the words “builders lien” do not appear in the Civil Resolution Tribunal Act at all. The practical effect is the same: a lien is Supreme Court work. A straightforward dispute with a renovator over a contract, below the tribunal’s small-claims limit of $5,000, is a different matter and can go to the tribunal.

I looked for tribunal decisions dealing with builders liens and could find none beyond decisions declining jurisdiction. The tribunal’s search function was not reachable when I checked, so treat that as “I could not find any”, not as “there are none”.

Questions buyers ask

How long is a builders lien good for in BC?

Once filed, an action to enforce it must be started and a certificate of pending litigation registered within one year of the filing date, or the lien is extinguished. The deadline to file in the first place is 45 days from the triggering event.

Can a contractor lien my house if I never signed a contract with them?

Yes, in the sense that matters to a buyer. Subcontractors and workers who never dealt with you can have a lien, because the lien attaches to the land. What caps your exposure is section 35, not the absence of a contract.

I am buying a new home. Should I be worried about builders liens?

Worried, no. Organised, yes. Find out when the work finished, get the municipal letter early, make sure your lawyer or notary knows there was recent construction, and if you are buying from a developer make sure the 7% holdback is actually being retained.

Does a clean title search on completion day mean I am safe?

No. It means nothing was filed as at the moment of the search. If the 45-day window is still open, a clean search is a snapshot rather than an all-clear.

Who holds the money during a holdback?

On a purchase from a developer, the money is retained out of the sale proceeds by your conveyancer rather than paid to the developer. Separately, an owner who hired a contractor on a job worth $100,000 or more has to run a holdback account at a savings institution. Below that figure the account duty falls away, but the duty to retain the 10% does not.

What does “substantially performed” mean?

Section 1(2) puts a number on it. A contract is substantially performed if what is left can be completed or corrected for no more than 3% of the first $500,000 of the contract price, 2% of the next $500,000, and 1% of the balance.

Thinking about buying or selling on the North Shore?

Leave your name and number and I will come back to you, usually the same day. Tell me the address if you have one and I will pull the sale history and the documents that matter before we talk. No charge, no obligation.

Prefer to talk now? Call or text 778-903-7306.

Builders Liens and Holdbacks When You Buy a New or Renovated Home in BC