Florida Construction Lien Law: Notices, Deadlines, and Enforcement

Florida construction lien law, set out in Chapter 713 of the Florida Statutes, lets contractors, subcontractors, suppliers, and certain design professionals place a security interest on property they improve when they aren’t paid. It also creates a matching set of duties for property owners who want to avoid paying twice for the same work. The whole system runs on strict deadlines: a Notice to Owner within 45 days for anyone not in direct contract with the owner, a recorded Claim of Lien within 90 days of final furnishing, and a foreclosure lawsuit within one year of recording. Miss any of them and the right is gone.

Who Has Lien Rights in Florida

Chapter 713 defines lienors as a closed list. If you don’t fit one of these categories, you have no lien:¹

Contractors with a direct contract with the owner
Subcontractors and sub-subcontractors
Laborers who perform physical work on the property
Materialmen supplying the owner, contractor, subcontractor, or sub-subcontractor
Licensed architects, landscape architects, interior designers, engineers, and surveyors (governed separately under Section 713.03)

Whether you’re “in privity” with the owner (a direct contract) or “not in privity” (everyone further down the chain) changes what preliminary paperwork you have to serve. Contractors in privity have the simplest path. Everyone else has an extra step, and it comes early.

The Notice of Commencement

Before construction starts, the owner or the owner’s agent records a Notice of Commencement in the county where the property sits and posts a copy at the job site.² The document identifies the owner, contractor, lender, any surety, and a Florida-based designated agent for legal notices. It also carries the legal description of the property and a general description of the improvement.

This notice matters to everyone on the project. Lienors pull the owner’s exact name and the legal description from it when preparing their own filings, and every lien on the project relates back to the notice’s recording date for priority purposes. A construction mortgage recorded before the Notice of Commencement outranks all construction liens; one recorded after it does not.

The notice expires automatically if construction hasn’t actually begun within 90 days of recording.² For contracts longer than a year, the notice has to state the longer period. Payments an owner makes after the notice expires are treated as improper and can expand the owner’s lien exposure.

Notice to Owner: The 45-Day Deadline

If you don’t have a direct contract with the owner, you can’t skip the Notice to Owner. This is the first tripwire in the whole process, and it catches subcontractors, sub-subcontractors, and suppliers. Laborers are the only exception.³

The notice identifies you, describes the property, and states what labor, services, or materials you’re providing. You must serve it before you start work or within 45 days after you first furnish, whichever is later. There’s also a backstop rule: the notice must arrive before the owner makes final payment following the contractor’s final payment affidavit. If the Notice of Commencement designated someone to receive notices, send them a copy too.

The 45-day deadline is unforgiving. The statute makes failure to serve, or failure to serve on time, a complete defense to the lien.³ Minor content errors that didn’t prejudice anyone can be forgiven. A late notice cannot.

Recording the Claim of Lien Within 90 Days

The Claim of Lien is the document that actually creates the recorded lien. File it with the clerk of the circuit court in the county where the property is located, and file it within 90 days after your final furnishing of labor, services, or materials.⁴ Section 713.08 gives a statutory form template, and using it is the safe course.

The claim has to include:⁴

Your name and address for service of notices
The name of the party you contracted with or worked for
A description of the labor, services, or materials, and the contract price or value (any specially fabricated materials not yet incorporated get listed separately)
The legal description of the property
The owner’s name
The dates of first and last furnishing
The unpaid balance, including any finance charges owed under the contract
If you’re not in privity, the date and method you served the Notice to Owner

Sign the claim under oath before a notary. Pull the owner’s name and legal description from the recorded Notice of Commencement rather than from informal project paperwork; getting either one wrong can sink the lien. After recording, serve a copy of the recorded claim on the owner within 15 days, ideally by certified mail with return receipt.⁴ Missing the 15 days doesn’t automatically kill the lien, but the owner can attack it by showing they were prejudiced.

What “Final Furnishing” Actually Means

The 90-day clock runs from your last day of actual furnishing. Florida defines that as the last date you provided work or materials to the project, and it specifically excludes going back to correct deficiencies in work you already did.⁵ Warranty repairs and punch-list corrections don’t restart the clock. For rental equipment, the final furnishing date is the last day the equipment was on site and available for use.

Finished your scope on March 1, came back May 15 to fix a crack in the work you’d already completed? Your 90 days still run from March 1. Certificate of occupancy dates, final inspection dates, and move-in dates are irrelevant. Only the last date of real furnishing under your contract counts.

How Much You Can Claim

The total of all liens under a single direct contract between the owner and a contractor can’t exceed the contract price, adjusted for change orders and defective work.³ Your individual lien can be for the full amount you’re owed, but you’re sharing a capped pool with every other lienor working under the same contract.

When claims exceed the available amount, Florida uses a class priority system. Higher classes get paid in full first; within a class, if funds are short, lienors take a pro-rata share. Inflating a lien doesn’t help you and creates real risk. If a lien is found fraudulent, damages can include the owner’s court costs and attorney fees, bond premiums the owner paid to transfer the lien off the property, interest on funds deposited with the court, and punitive damages up to the difference between the amount claimed and the amount actually owed.⁶ Claim a hundred thousand when only forty was legitimately due and the punitive component alone can reach sixty. When the amount is uncertain, err low.

Lien Waivers and What They Can’t Do

Waivers move payment risk down the chain. An owner pays the contractor, the contractor pays the sub, and each recipient signs a waiver releasing lien rights for the amount received. Florida requires two specific statutory forms and prohibits anyone from demanding a different one.⁷

A progress payment waiver covers labor, services, or materials furnished through a specific date. It doesn’t cover retainage or anything supplied after that date.
A final payment waiver releases all lien rights in exchange for the final payment amount.

You cannot waive lien rights before you perform the work. Any agreement to release lien rights in advance is unenforceable.⁷ You can only waive rights for work already done. Owners should collect matching waivers from the contractor and from every subcontractor and supplier who served a Notice to Owner at every draw. That routine is where most double-payment problems get avoided.

Enforcing the Lien: The One-Year Clock

A recorded lien lasts one year from its recording date. If the lienor doesn’t file a foreclosure lawsuit within that year, the lien expires automatically and drops off the title without any further paperwork.⁸ The foreclosure suit is filed in circuit court and works much like a mortgage foreclosure. A successful lienor can obtain a court order to sell the property to satisfy the debt.

Owner Tools to Shorten the Year

Owners don’t have to wait a year for a lien to resolve. Two mechanisms speed things up:

Notice of Contest of Lien. The owner records this with the clerk, who serves it on the lienor. Once served, the lienor has 60 days to file a foreclosure suit. Miss the 60 days and the lien is extinguished.⁹
Summons to Show Cause. The owner files a complaint asking the court to make the lienor justify the lien. The lienor has 20 days after service to either show cause or start a foreclosure action; no response and the court cancels the lien.¹⁰

These matter when an owner needs to sell or refinance. A lien on title kills most transactions, and waiting the full year is rarely realistic. The Notice of Contest is the more common move because it doesn’t require filing a lawsuit to trigger.

Getting a Lien Off the Property

When the debt is paid, the lienor signs and records a Satisfaction of Lien with the clerk, notarized, referencing the official records book and page of the original lien.¹⁰

When the debt is disputed, an owner can transfer the lien from the property to a cash deposit or surety bond, freeing the property for sale or refinancing while keeping the lienor’s claim alive against the posted security. The required amount is the full lien claim, plus three years of interest at the legal rate, plus either $5,000 or 25 percent of the claimed amount, whichever is greater, to cover potential attorney fees and court costs.¹¹ Once the clerk records the transfer certificate and notifies the lienor, the property is released.

The third route is expiration. A lien drops off automatically after one year with no foreclosure suit, 60 days after a Notice of Contest, or 20 days after a Summons to Show Cause.

The Contractor’s Final Payment Affidavit

Before collecting final payment, a contractor in direct contract with the owner has to give the owner a final payment affidavit. It states either that all lienors who served a Notice to Owner have been paid, or lists each unpaid lienor by name and amount owed.¹²

Skipping it hurts both sides. A contractor who doesn’t deliver the affidavit has no lien rights and can’t sue for payment while in default. An owner who releases final payment before receiving the affidavit is exposed to the full amount of any valid liens the owner had reason to know about. This affidavit is the owner’s last checkpoint before releasing the last check.

Public Projects Aren’t Lienable

Construction liens attach only to private property. Government-owned buildings, roads, and public works can’t be liened. On public projects, Florida requires contractors to furnish a payment and performance bond before starting, generally equal to the contract price, and unpaid subs and suppliers claim against that bond rather than the property.¹³

Bond-claim procedure parallels the private process. A claimant not in privity with the contractor serves a written notice of intent within 45 days of first furnishing. An unpaid claimant then serves a sworn notice of nonpayment on the contractor and surety, no earlier than 45 days after first furnishing and no later than 90 days after final furnishing.¹³ Suit against the bond must be filed within one year.

State contracts of $100,000 or less are exempt from the bonding requirement, and county and municipal projects can be exempted at $200,000 or less at the awarding authority’s discretion.¹³ On unbonded public work below those thresholds, downstream parties have far less protection, so confirming bond status before starting is worth the phone call.

1
The Florida Legislature. Florida Statutes 713.01 – Definitions
2
Justia Law. Florida Statutes 713.13 – Notice of Commencement
3
Justia Law. Florida Statutes 713.06 – Liens of Persons Not in Privity
4
The Florida Legislature. Florida Statutes 713.08 – Claim of Lien
5
Florida Senate. Florida Statutes 713.01 – Definitions
6
The Florida Legislature. Florida Statutes 713.31 – Remedies in Case of Fraud or Collusion
7
The Florida Legislature. Florida Statutes 713.20 – Waiver and Release of Liens
8
The Florida Legislature. Florida Statutes 713.08 – Claim of Lien
9
The Florida Legislature. Florida Statutes 713.22 – Duration of Lien
10
The Florida Legislature. Florida Statutes 713.21 – Discharge of Lien
11
The Florida Legislature. Florida Statutes 713.24 – Transfer of Liens to Security
12
The Florida Legislature. Florida Statutes 713.06 – Liens of Persons Not in Privity
13
The Florida Legislature. Florida Statutes 255.05 – Bond of Contractor Constructing Public Buildings