Legal Question in Construction Law in Illinois

Typically, yes. However Illinois mechanics lien law has a variety of requirements to meet for the lien to be perfected (ie foreclosable).

Yes. But it has to have been because the contractor did work to your house that you either contracted for or someone had the apparent authority to allow or you let it happen...... Of course contractors can slap a lien on anything, but it may be because they got the wrong legal description, so it could be what's called a "wild card" and could be totally invalid but if you don't dig into the situation could just cost you time and money to defend against if the contractor winds up filing what's called a lien foreclosure suit against you. Yes there are a lot of other technical hoops the contractor had to go through and will still have to go through, but the bottom line is whether work was done to your house that you ordered, or knew about and didn't object to, and then you didn't pay for. So if you know who the contractor is and know work was done to your house that you somehow ok'd and you want to forestall even more headaches, time to get in touch and work something out. Hope that gets you headed in the right direction. I would NOT recommend attempting to defend a lien action without competent legal help, however. Good luck.