If the indebtedness so due be not paid within five days after demand therefor made upon the debtor in person, or upon some agent or court administrator of the debtor at the debtor's business office, the lienholder may file for record with the commissioner of natural resources a statement, verified by the oath of some person having knowledge of the facts, setting forth the lienholder's post office address, the dates of beginning and ending the labor or service, the rate of compensation agreed upon or claimed, the sums, if any, paid thereon, the amount then due, a description of the logs or other timber on which the lien is claimed, and the fact of such claim. If such labor or service be terminated by the direction or act of the employer, or by the completion of the work in which the employee is engaged, then no demand for payment shall be necessary, and the lien statement may be filed at once. If no mark or description of such logs or other timber be filed for record with the commissioner of natural resources, the lien statement shall be filed, not with the commissioner, but with the court administrator of the district court of the county, in which the labor or service was performed. Any person having a claim upon logs, crossties, poles, or other timber, as provided in section 514.40, may assign the same in writing to any person either before or after the making and filing of the statement therefor as provided in this section; and the person to whom such claim may be assigned, or that person's agent or attorney, may make and file for record the statement for lien therefor required by this section, in case no such statement has been filed. When such statement and assignment have been made and filed in the office of the commissioner of natural resources or in the office of the court administrator of the district court, in case such statement is filed in the office of the court administrator of the district court, the person to whom the assignment is made shall be subrogated to all the rights of the original claimant, and is hereby authorized to enforce the lien against the logs, crossties, poles, and all other timber in the assignee's own name, in the same manner and with the same effect as the original claimant could have done had not such assignment been made; and any person holding the title to the logs or timber, or any lien by mortgage or otherwise thereon, as security for payment of any sum as stumpage thereon, may in like manner purchase and take an assignment of any or all such claims for labor, or may pay and discharge the same, and in either case may tack the same to that person's original claim and hold the same as an additional encumbrance thereon, and may enforce the payment of the same, with interest, in like manner as that person's original claim thereon, but in any case shall not be required to pay more than the reasonable and current value of such labor.

History: (8530) RL s 3525; 1967 c 568 s 1 subd 9; 1969 c 1129 art 3 s 1; 1986 c 444; 1Sp1986 c 3 art 1 s 82