Who uses this form
M.G.L. c. 254, § 32 sets out a single form [1], titled Partial Waiver and Subordination of Lien, and its reach is narrow. The statute prescribes it for partial waivers and subordinations given by a person who has filed or recorded a notice of contract [1]. Within that group, the form is mandatory [1].
Outside that group the section offers no form at all. It prints no final waiver form [1], and because it prints only this one document, Massachusetts has no pair of conditional and unconditional versions to set side by side. Everything on this page concerns the partial waiver and subordination and nothing broader.
What the statute says about it
The form's operative paragraph does two separate things, marked (a) and (b) in its text, and both run from the phrase "upon receipt of" a stated sum [1]. The form ties that sum to an invoice, requisition or application for payment and its date.
Part (a) is the waiver. It reaches liens for labor, materials, or rental equipment, appliances or tools furnished through a date the form labels the payment period, and it carves out retainage, unpaid agreed or pending change orders, and disputed claims "as stated above" [1].
Part (b) is the subordination. The rights for unpaid agreed or pending change orders and disputed claims, together with rights for further work other than retainage, are subordinated rather than given up. The form limits that subordination to work furnished "through the twenty-fifth day after the end of the above payment period" and to "the amount actually advanced by the above lender/mortgagee through such twenty-fifth day" [1].
No notary takes part. The signer instead signs under the penalties of perjury [1].
Reading the blanks
The top of the form is a heading block: a date, the county, an application for payment number, and the names of the owner, the contractor and the lender or mortgagee [1].
Below it sit 10 numbered lines [1] that lay out the contract account: original contract amount, approved change orders, adjusted contract amount, work completed to date, retainage withheld, total payable to date, previous payments, the current amount due, pending change orders and disputed claims. Three of those lines carry the form's own arithmetic in parentheses: the adjusted amount is line 1 plus 2, the total payable is line 4 less line 5, and the current amount due is line 6 less line 7 [1].
The paragraph that follows asks for the party the undersigned contracted with, a description of the property, its city or town and county, and the owner's name. It then asks for the sum received, written out and in figures, the date of the invoice or application it pays, and the closing date of the payment period.
The last line records the day, month and year of signing, beside the statement that the form is signed under the penalties of perjury [1].
Related
- Lien waiver forms by state
- Lien waiver template, labeled as not a statutory form, for states without a statutory form