Extract data from lien waivers

A lien waiver is the document a contractor, subcontractor, or material supplier signs to give up its right to place a lien on a property in exchange for payment. It is the mirror image of a mechanics lien: where the lien is the claim that encumbers the real estate, the waiver is the release that clears it. On a construction project every progress payment is normally paired with a signed waiver, so the owner and the lender can confirm that the money paid has bought a clean title position before the next draw is released. Cascade Mechanical LLC, a mechanical subcontractor on the Harborview Medical Office Building, signs one for Summit Builders Inc. each month against its AIA G702 payment application. Category matters more than the dollar figure. Two axes classify a waiver: conditional, effective only when the payment actually clears, versus unconditional, effective the moment it is signed whether or not the check is good; and progress, covering one billing period, versus final, releasing the whole contract. California prints four statutory forms for exactly these cases: Civil Code 8132 (conditional on progress payment), 8134 (unconditional progress), 8136 (conditional final), and 8138 (unconditional final). Signing an unconditional waiver before payment lands is the classic way a subcontractor loses its lien rights on a payment that never arrives, which is why the type, the through date, and the waived amount all have to be read exactly. Here the 84,200 USD waived on payment application 7 covers work through 2026-06-30, and it has to reconcile against the labor and material lines behind it. Reading the waiver, Talonic returns the waiver_type, the claimant, the property owner and general contractor, the application_number, the period_to date, and the total_amount as fields, with the individual lien_waiver_claims as a table. That 84,200 USD is checked against the claim lines that make it up, 52,200 USD of labor and 32,000 USD of materials, and the remaining_contract_balance of 315,800 USD is carried through so the owner knows what is still exposed. In this waiver, dollar amounts are typed as numbers in USD and the signature and effective dates parse to ISO 8601. Talonic captures the waiver as signed, including whether it is conditional or unconditional, and does not judge whether the release is effective under the governing statute.

What gets extracted from lien waivers

How extraction works for lien waivers

Lien waivers arrive as statutory forms, general-contractor portal exports, and signed PDFs, and their wording shifts by state and by payment platform. Talonic classifies the waiver and aligns it to the construction payment schema in the Field Registry, whose lien-and-payment structure follows the AIA G702/G703 pay-application family, so waiver_type, claimant.name, buyer.name, application_number, period_to, and total_amount each resolve to a field while the lien_waiver_claims load per row. Waived amounts are typed as numbers in USD and reconciled against the claim lines, so a waiver stating 84,200 USD that does not foot to its labor and material rows is flagged. Both the conditional-versus-unconditional flag and the progress-versus-final flag are preserved, because they decide whether lien rights actually survive, and the signature, effective, and expiration dates parse to ISO 8601. Under DIN SPEC 91491, every value carries a confidence score and a source-region pointer, so a lender or title officer can verify the 84,200 USD release against the signed form. Talonic reports the waiver as executed and makes no determination about whether it is effective or enforceable under the governing statute.

Sample extraction

A conditional progress lien waiver against payment application 7

{
  "document_number": "LW-2026-0630-07",
  "document_date": "2026-07-02",
  "waiver_type": "conditional_progress",
  "claimant.name": "Cascade Mechanical LLC",
  "claimant.address": "1420 Industrial Way, Oakland, CA 94607",
  "buyer.name": "Summit Builders Inc.",
  "property.address": "900 Harborview Blvd, Oakland, CA 94612",
  "property.legal_description": "Lot 12, Block 3, Harborview Center Subdivision, Alameda County",
  "owner.name": "Harborview Properties LLC",
  "general_contractor.name": "Summit Builders Inc.",
  "project_name": "Harborview Medical Office Building",
  "application_number": "7",
  "period_to": "2026-06-30",
  "total_amount": 84200,
  "currency": "USD",
  "tax_amount": 0,
  "remaining_contract_balance": 315800,
  "waiver_conditions": "Effective only upon actual receipt of the progress payment of 84,200 USD",
  "signature_date": "2026-07-02",
  "signatory.name": "Maria Delgado, Controller",
  "effective_date": "2026-07-02",
  "governing_law": "California Civil Code 8132",
  "payment_terms": "Net 30 from certified payment application",
  "lien_waiver_claims": [
    {
      "claim_number": "C-1",
      "description": "HVAC rough-in labor, level 3",
      "amount": 52200,
      "period": "June 2026",
      "is_final": false
    },
    {
      "claim_number": "C-2",
      "description": "Ductwork and fittings supplied",
      "amount": 32000,
      "period": "June 2026",
      "is_final": false
    }
  ]
}

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