2007 Minnesota Statutes

514.05 WHEN LIEN ATTACHES; NOTICE.
    Subdivision 1. Generally. All liens, as against the owner of the land, shall attach and take
effect from the time the first item of material or labor is furnished upon the premises for the
beginning of the improvement, and shall be preferred to any mortgage or other encumbrance not
then of record, unless the lienholder had actual notice thereof. As against a bona fide purchaser,
mortgagee, or encumbrancer without actual or record notice, no lien shall attach prior to the actual
and visible beginning of the improvement on the ground, but a person having a contract for the
furnishing of labor, skill, material, or machinery for the improvement, may file for record with
the county recorder of the county within which the premises are situated, or, if claimed under
section 514.04, with the secretary of state, a brief statement of the nature of the contract, which
statement shall be notice of that person's lien only.
    Subd. 2. Exception. Visible staking, engineering, land surveying, and soil testing services do
not constitute the actual and visible beginning of the improvement on the ground referred to in
this section. This subdivision does not affect the validity of the liens of a person or the notice
provision provided in this chapter and affects only the determination of when the actual and visible
beginning of the improvement on the ground, as the term is used in subdivision 1, has commenced.
History: (8494) RL s 3508; 1973 c 247 s 4; 1974 c 381 s 2; 1976 c 181 s 2; 1986 c 444;
1987 c 95 s 1