Legal Question in Real Estate Law in California

In California If you are not a licensed contractor you may not perform any work for which a contractor's license is required. If you do, you may not record liens or sue to recover the value of your work. If you do record a lien, you could be sued for slander of title by the owner or owners of the property. In addition, even if you don't get sued, the lien would be meaningless since you could not foreclose on the lien.

With proper preliminary notice, material suppliers and equipment renters, etc., can also record mechanic's liens, but unlicensed "contractors" cannot.

Stir all you like, as long as you understand the DA will be happy to learn of you violating the contractor's license laws.

Only licensed contractors, direct laborers and their representatives (such as union benefit funds), and material suppliers have a right to a lien before suing and getting a judgment, although in a proper case you might be able to get a prejudgment writ of attachment which would have similar effect. As the other attorneys have mentioned, however, none of that matters if you were doing work that required a license, because in that case you would have no right to collect for the work in the first place.

I agree with all of the above.