Last month Gov.  Brian Kemp signed into law Senate Bill 315, which amends the Georgia Lien statute to expressly limit the release language of interim lien waivers to a contractor’s lien rights only. The bill was passed in response to a 2019 decision of the Court of Appeals that held that contractors signing statutory lien waivers were releasing all legal claims to payments for the amounts included in the lien waivers, rather than releasing lien and bond rights only as to those amounts. The new law goes into effect on January 1, 2021.

Court of Appeals Decision