(a)

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Terms Used In Tennessee Code 66-11-118

  • Contract: A legal written agreement that becomes binding when signed.
  • Contract: means an agreement for improving real property, written or unwritten, express or implied, and includes extras as defined in this section. See Tennessee Code 66-11-101
  • Contract price: means the amount agreed upon by the contracting parties to be paid for performing work or labor or for furnishing materials, machinery, equipment, services, overhead and profit, included in the contract, increased or diminished by the price of extras or breach of contract, including defects in workmanship or materials. See Tennessee Code 66-11-101
  • Improvement: means the result of any action or any activity in furtherance of constructing, erecting, altering, repairing, demolishing, removing, or furnishing materials or labor for any building, structure, appurtenance to the building or structure, fixture, bridge, driveway, private roadway, sidewalk, walkway, wharf, sewer, utility, watering system, or other similar enhancement, or any part thereof, on, connected with, or beneath the surface. See Tennessee Code 66-11-101
  • Lien: A claim against real or personal property in satisfaction of a debt.
  • Lienor: means any person having a lien or right of lien on real property by virtue of this chapter, and includes the person's successor in interest. See Tennessee Code 66-11-101
  • Owner: includes the owner in fee of real property, or of a less estate in real property, a lessee for a term of years, a vendee in possession under a contract for the purchase of real property, and any person having any right, title or interest, legal or equitable, in real property, that may be sold under process. See Tennessee Code 66-11-101
  • Property: includes both personal and real property. See Tennessee Code 1-3-105
  • Real property: Land, and all immovable fixtures erected on, growing on, or affixed to the land.
  • Real property: includes real estate, lands, tenements and hereditaments, corporeal and incorporeal, and fixtures and improvements thereon. See Tennessee Code 66-11-101
  • Record: means information that is inscribed on a tangible medium or that is stored in an electronic or other medium and is retrievable in a perceivable form. See Tennessee Code 1-3-105
  • Visible commencement of operations: means the first actual work of improving upon the land or the first delivery to the site of the improvement of materials, that remain on the land until actually incorporated in the improvement, of such manifest and substantial character as to notify interested persons that an improvement is being made or is about to be made on the land, excluding, however, demolition, surveying, excavating, clearing, filling or grading, placement of sewer or drainage lines or other utility lines or work preparatory therefor, erection of temporary security fencing and the delivery of materials therefor. See Tennessee Code 66-11-101
(1) Where the amount due is for work or labor performed or materials, services, equipment, or machinery furnished for a single improvement on contiguous or adjacent lots, parcels or tracts of land and the work or labor is performed or the materials, services, equipment, or machinery is furnished under the same contract or contracts, a lienor shall be required to serve or record only one (1) claim of lien covering the entire claim against the real property.
(2) If two (2) or more lots, parcels, or tracts of land are improved under the same contract or contracts and the improvements are not to be operated as a single improvement, a lienor who has performed work or labor or furnished materials, services, equipment, or machinery for the improvement shall, in claiming a lien, apportion the lienor’s contract price between the several lots, parcels, or tracts of land and improvements on the lots, parcels, or tracts of land, and serve a separate notice of lien for the amount claimed against each lot, parcel, or tract of land and the improvements on the lot, parcel, or tract of land.
(b)

(1) Unless the improvements are to be operated as a single improvement, whenever more than one (1) building or unit is constructed upon or other improvement is made to a single lot, parcel or tract of land or to contiguous lots, parcels or tracts of land, the visible commencement of operations as defined in this chapter with respect to each separate building, unit or other improvement shall not be deemed to constitute or otherwise relate to the visible commencement of operations with respect to any other building, unit or improvement on any single lot, parcel or tract of land or any contiguous lots, parcels or tracts of land. In connection therewith, a lienor who has performed work or labor or furnished materials, services, equipment, or machinery shall, in claiming a lien, apportion the lienor’s contract price between the separate buildings, units or improvements on the buildings or units as applicable and serve or record a separate claim of lien for the amount claimed against each separate building, unit or improvement; in such event, the time prescribed in §§ 66-11-112 and 66-11-115 for serving or recording notice of lien shall commence to run with respect to each building, unit or improvement immediately upon the completion or abandonment of the building, unit or improvement.
(2) Whenever a lienor has furnished work, labor, or materials, services, equipment, or machinery for improvements that are to be operated as a single improvement on a single lot, parcel or tract of land or contiguous lots, parcels or tracts of land, the lienor shall be required to serve or record only a single notice of lien covering the lienor’s entire claim against the real property.
(c) Except as expressly provided in the Horizontal Property Act, compiled in chapter 27 of this title, and notwithstanding any other provision of this chapter, a lien arising under this chapter by reason of an improvement that is part of a common interest community does not attach to the common elements, but attaches to the units as follows:

(1) If the improvement was contracted for by the association of unit owners, however denominated, the lien attaches to all the units in the common interest community for which the association acts, unless the association notifies the lienor, when the contract is made, that the lien may attach only to the unit or units on or for the benefit of which the improvement was made; and
(2) If the improvement was contracted for by a unit owner, the lien attaches only to that owner’s unit.