(1) "Contractor" means a person or entity which contracts with an owner to perform work, or provide materials or machinery necessary to perform work on real property.

(2) "Work" means to build, alter, repair, or demolish any improvement on, connected with, or on or beneath the surface of any real property, or to excavate, clear, grade, fill, or landscape any real property or to construct driveways, private roadways, highways and bridges, drilled wells, septic, sewage systems, utilities, including trees and shrubbery, or to furnish materials, for any of such purposes, or to perform any labor upon real property. "Work" also includes any design or other professional or skilled services rendered by architects, engineers, land surveyors, landscape architects, and construction managers.

(3) "Owner" means a person or entity having an interest in real property on which work is performed, if the person or entity has agreed to or requested such work. "Owner" includes successors in interest of the owner and agents of the owner acting within their authority. "Owner" shall also include the State of Vermont and instrumentalities and subdivisions of the State of Vermont including municipalities and school districts having an interest in such real property.

(4) "Real property" means real estate, including lands, leaseholds, tenements and hereditaments, and improvements placed thereon.

(5) "Construction contract" means any agreement, whether written or oral, to perform work on any real property located within the State of Vermont.

(6) "Subcontractor" means any person or entity which has contracted to perform work, or provide materials or machinery necessary to perform work for a contractor or another subcontractor in connection with a construction contract.

(7) "Delivery" means receipt by addressee, including first class, registered, or certified mail, hand delivered or transmitted by facsimile machine. Mail, properly addressed, shall be deemed delivered three days from the day it was sent.

(8) "Billing period" means the period agreed to by the parties or, in the absence of an agreement, the calendar month within which work is performed. (Added 1991, No. 74, § 1 eff. Jan. 1, 1992; amended 1993, No. 146 (Adj. Sess.), § 1.)