No Lien Agreements for Contractors in California question

[Bruce P.]

Hi,

I have a friend who bought a single family home in California.

I started reading this thread - https://www.biggerpockets.com/forums/67/topics/272019-unconditional-lien-waivers-and-subcontractors - and realized my friend never made my contractor and his subs sign any Conditional or Unconditional waivers when they started a renovation on his single family home.

1) Is it sufficient to get the General Contractor and the associated subcontractors to sign the "UNCONDITIONAL WAIVER AND RELEASE UPON FINAL PAYMENT" as found in this template from the state of California? https://www.cslb.ca.gov/Resources/GuidesAndPublications/LienReleaseForms.pdf

2) Is this template the "correct" template to use? (or at least close to it)?

When my friend wrote checks, he made them out individually to the general subcontractor ("John Williams") and individually to each subcontractor (e.g., "Rob Smith"). He didn't do joint checks as laid out in Option 1 of the previously aforementioned thread.