PORTSMOUTH — More than two years ago, a devastating fire — its flames visible miles away — gutted the home of Leslie Gurski.

Asleep when sparks ignited, Gurski escaped unharmed with just a minute to spare.

But the nightmare of the blaze set the stage for a different kind of ordeal.

In rebuilding the house, Gurski found herself squeezed between a contractor who left the job unfinished and his creditors, who went after her for the money the builder owed them.

Gurski made a down payment of nearly $67,000 to get construction started. But about the time she thought the $275,000 project would be finished, she discovered that the job was only half done and that the lumber supplier had filed a $25,000 lien against her property. Because of the lien, the mortgage company wouldn’t release any more money for the work, Gurski says, and the insurance company, seeing no progress, threatened more than once to cut off her allowance for rental housing.

The builder contends that he is the victim — that Gurski still owes him money.

Gurski says she’s the one who has been wronged, not only by the contractor but by the state’s mechanic’s lien law. The law allows subcontractors and vendors who haven’t been paid to put liens on properties, even when these suppliers and subcontractors never had a contract directly with the property owners.

“You’re guilty until proven innocent as a homeowner,” Gurski says.

Despite several changes in the last couple of years, George Whalen, executive director of the state Contractors’ Registration and Licensing Board, says the mechanic’s lien law “is one of my major problems.”

After the fire, which occurred on New Year’s Day 2006, Gurski took nearly a year to find the right contractor for the job, which included a new design on the original footprint of the house. On Dec. 1, she signed a contract with Virgil Pacheco Jr. of Brayton Builders in Somerset.

She said she expected the new house to be completed in early May of 2007, in accordance with a contract that anticipated the work would take about four months. On May 1, the house was half finished.

Pacheco contends that Gurski delayed matters by not making timely decisions and that changing orders drove up the cost.

In late May, the town building inspector detailed a raft of structural problems — some of which affected the stability of the roof and a weight-bearing wall.

About the same time, JT’s Lumber of Middletown signaled it was owed $24,475.55 for windows and other materials and filed a lien against Gurski’s property at 36 Seneca Rd., a quiet street high on the steep western bank of the Sakonnet River.

Gurski says two lawyers advised her it would be cheaper to pay twice for the materials rather than challenge a mechanic’s lien in the Superior Court, the remedy prescribed by law.

A third lawyer referred her to the Contractors’ Registration and Licensing Board, where she filed a complaint against Pacheco and his company.

Each state has its own mechanic’s lien law, but there are essentially two systems, according to Jeffrey Biolchini, a lawyer who specializes in the statute. The Rhode Island law conforms to the Pennsylvania system, which, he says, assumes that “a subcontractor can lien the owner’s property to the full amount of the work that he’s done, irrespective of whether property owner has paid the general contractor.”

The other approach allows a subcontractor to file a lien against the property owner, “but only to the extent the property owner still owes money to the general contractor,” Biolchini says. If the “property owner has paid the general contractor in full, the subcontractor cannot lien the property.” The second model forms the basis for the laws in New York, Connecticut and Massachusetts.

In Rhode Island, Superior Court Judge Michael Silverstein declared the mechanic’s lien law unconstitutional in 2003, finding that it deprived owners of property rights without the due process protections guaranteed by the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. The General Assembly subsequently amended the law to allow property owners a chance to challenge any liens filed against them.

In 2005, the Rhode Island Supreme Court found that the amendment met the due process test, but the high court added that it would welcome the General Assembly writing additional protections into the law.

Chief Justice Frank Williams, who wrote the opinion, said the high court has for decades expressed concerns about a lack of clarity in the mechanic’s lien law. Borrowing a quote from Winston Churchill, Williams labeled the state’s mechanic’s lien law a “riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma.” The court urged the General Assembly to rewrite it “so that all could read it, comprehend it, and apply it without continually turning to this Court.”

Legislation introduced in the current session by Deputy Majority Leader J. Patrick O’Neill and Representatives John Loughlin, R-Tiverton, and William J. McManus, R-Lincoln, would shift the Rhode Island law closer to the New York model.

The bill intends to limit the liability of a property owner to the amount owed a general contractor as long as the property is an owner-occupied dwelling. If the property owner has paid the contractor, a subcontractor would not be able to file a mechanic’s lien.

Whalen, the executive director of the Contractors’ Registration and Licensing Board, has testified in favor of the bill before a special legislative commission.

But there has been opposition from the construction lobby, which is strong in Rhode Island.

Roger Warren, executive director of the Rhode Island Builders’ Association, says the association favors regulation of the building industry to weed out the unscrupulous contractors who give the majority a bad name. However, he said the group does not favor any legislative change that protects the homeowner at the expense of tradesmen.

Gurski’s case went to a hearing before an official of the Contractors’ Registration and Licensing Board in the summer of 2007. In a negotiated settlement, Gurski agreed to put nearly $20,000 in escrow to cover most of the lien. Pacheco, in turn, was ordered to pay the remaining $5,000 of the lien and to fix the defective work in her house.

Gurski says she figured that it would be cheaper to pay another $20,000 for the materials than to challenge the lien in court.

Pacheco, under threat of a hefty fine, paid off JT’s lien last September.

But the hearing officer, Robert Ricci, says Pacheco did not fix the defective work or comply with a couple of other requirements in the order. Ricci says he also was getting calls from Gurski that additional vendors were threatening her with liens.

One of those subcontractors, carpenter Armando Pereira of West Wareham, Mass., filed a lien for $9,473.04 against Gurski for work he contended was done under an agreement with Pacheco, plus the corrective work ordered by the contractors’ board.

Ricci refused to give Pacheco the escrowed money and returned it to Gurski in December.

At the same time, the contractors’ registration board fined Pacheco a total of $27,000 and suspended his registration.

The board has not been able to collect on the fine.

Pacheco said last week that he has closed his business, claiming he has been victimized by the board and by Gurski.

“I operated my business as professionally as possible,” he said.

Gurski hired another contractor to finish rebuilding her home and moved in the first week of February.

But her troubles are not over.

She says she may yet end up in Superior Court, the place she most sought to avoid.

She said she must refinance the mortgage and she cannot do that as long as she has a lien on her property.

gmacris@projo.com