A Florida mechanics lien runs on three deadlines, and missing any one of them ends the lien. If you don’t have a direct contract with the property owner, you must serve a Notice to Owner before starting work or within 45 days of starting, whichever comes first. You then have 90 days from your last day of furnishing labor or materials to record the Claim of Lien in the county where the property sits. After recording, you have one year to file a foreclosure lawsuit, and the owner can shrink that year to 60 days by recording a Notice of Contest. Florida courts enforce these timelines strictly.
Who Must Serve a Notice to Owner
Florida splits construction claimants into two groups, and the split controls whether you have to serve a Notice to Owner at all.
If you contracted directly with the property owner, you are “in privity.” Contractors and material suppliers in this position skip the Notice to Owner entirely and go straight to recording a Claim of Lien when payment falls short.1Justia Law. Florida Code 713.06 – Liens of Persons Not in Privity
Everyone else, including subcontractors, sub-subcontractors, and material suppliers without a direct owner contract, must serve a Notice to Owner. The deadline is before you start work or within 45 days of starting, whichever comes first. Laborers are the only exception. A sub-subcontractor or a supplier to a subcontractor also has to serve a copy on the general contractor. If the Notice of Commencement designated someone to receive lien notices, serve a copy on that person too, though missing that particular copy alone won’t defeat an otherwise valid lien.1Justia Law. Florida Code 713.06 – Liens of Persons Not in Privity
Serving the notice late, or not at all, is a complete defense the owner can raise to defeat the lien. The statute says so in plain terms.
How to Record the Claim of Lien
The Claim of Lien is what actually creates your secured interest in the property. Record it with the clerk of court in the county where the property is located. If the property crosses county lines, record in every county involved.2FindLaw. Florida Code 713.08 – Claim of Lien
The deadline is 90 days after your last day of furnishing labor, services, or materials to the project. If the contract was terminated before completion, the 90 days run from the earlier of the termination date or your last day of furnishing.
The recorded document must contain:
- Your name and address as lienor, where notices and process can be served.
- The name of the person you contracted with or who employed you.
- A description of the labor, services, or materials furnished, and the contract price. Specially fabricated materials not yet incorporated into the project must be listed separately.
- A description of the property sufficient to identify it.
- The owner’s name.
- The first and last dates you furnished labor, services, or materials.
- The amount unpaid, including any unpaid finance charges under the contract.
You or an agent with knowledge of the facts must sign and swear to the lien. Minor errors that don’t prejudice the owner won’t automatically sink the lien, but getting the dates, amounts, and property description right up front avoids arguments later about whether a mistake was harmless.2FindLaw. Florida Code 713.08 – Claim of Lien
Recording fees follow Florida’s statutory schedule: $10 for the first page and $8.50 for each additional page, which covers the base fee and the Public Records Modernization Trust Fund surcharge.3FindLaw. Florida Code 28.24 – Service Charges by Clerk of the Circuit Court Most claims run one or two pages, so plan on $10 to $20.
Filing Suit to Enforce the Lien
Recording gets you the security interest. It doesn’t force anyone to pay. Collection requires a foreclosure lawsuit filed in the circuit court where the property is located. The statutory warning printed on every Claim of Lien form states the rule: the lien is valid for one year from the recording date and then expires automatically unless suit has been filed to enforce it.2FindLaw. Florida Code 713.08 – Claim of Lien
This is where a lot of liens die quietly. Claimants record, wait for the pressure to work, and let the year slip by.
In the foreclosure action, you must prove the lien is valid, the debt is owed, and you followed every statutory requirement. If the claim holds up, the court can order the property sold to satisfy the debt. The prevailing party recovers reasonable attorney fees, which puts real money on the table for both sides.4Justia Law. Florida Code 713.29 – Attorneys Fees
The Owner Can Shorten Your Year to 60 Days
An owner doesn’t have to wait a full year for you to decide whether to sue. By recording a Notice of Contest of Lien with the clerk, the owner cuts your enforcement deadline from one year to 60 days.5Florida Senate. Florida Code 713.22 – Duration of Lien The clerk mails the notice to the lienor, and from that service date the 60-day clock runs. Miss it, and the lien is automatically extinguished. Owners use this tool routinely, and it catches unprepared lienholders.
How Priority Works Against Mortgages
Priority determines who gets paid first when multiple claims hit the same property. Florida ties construction lien priority to the Notice of Commencement, the document the owner records before work begins.
Liens under Sections 713.05 and 713.06 relate back to the date the Notice of Commencement was recorded. If no Notice of Commencement exists, priority runs from the date the Claim of Lien itself is recorded.6Florida Senate. Florida Code 713.07 – Priority of Liens A subcontractor who records months into a project still holds priority from the Notice of Commencement date, which can put them ahead of mortgages recorded after that date.
The reverse also holds. Any mortgage, lien, or other encumbrance recorded before the Notice of Commencement takes priority over mechanics liens, including proceeds disbursed under that earlier encumbrance regardless of when the disbursement happens. A construction loan recorded before work starts will almost always sit ahead of the mechanics liens on the same project. The lien still has value against the owner’s equity, but it won’t leapfrog a prior lender.
Lien Waivers: What You Can and Can’t Sign Away
Florida does not allow advance waivers of lien rights. A contract clause saying the subcontractor waives all lien rights is unenforceable.7Florida Senate. Florida Code 713.20 – Waiver or Release of Liens You cannot sign away the right to lien before you’ve done the work.
You can waive lien rights for work already performed and materials already furnished. That happens routinely with progress payment releases, where the subcontractor acknowledges a draw and waives lien rights covering the work that draw paid for. The waiver reaches backward, not forward. A document presented at contract signing that purports to release future lien rights has no legal effect in Florida.
When the Lien Gets Transferred to a Bond
A recorded lien clouds title and can block a sale, refinance, or any other transaction the owner needs to close. Florida lets the owner, or anyone else with an interest in the property, transfer the lien from the real estate to a cash deposit or surety bond.8Florida Senate. Florida Code 713.24 – Transfer of Liens to Security
The bond or deposit must equal the lien amount, plus three years of interest at the legal rate, plus the greater of $5,000 or 25 percent of the claimed amount for potential attorney fees and costs. Once filed, the clerk records a certificate of transfer and mails it to the lienor. The property is released, and the lienor’s claim shifts to the posted security. If the posted amount later proves too low to cover attorney fees, the court can order additional security. Your rights aren’t extinguished; they just move.
How Owners Defeat Liens
The strongest defenses against a Florida mechanics lien are also the simplest.
Missed Deadlines
Failure to serve the Notice to Owner within 45 days, failure to record the Claim of Lien within 90 days, and failure to file suit within one year (or 60 days after a Notice of Contest) are each independently fatal. The statute calls the Notice to Owner failure “a complete defense to enforcement of a lien by any person.”1Justia Law. Florida Code 713.06 – Liens of Persons Not in Privity Courts don’t grant extensions for good intentions.
Fraudulent Liens
A lien is fraudulent if the claimant willfully exaggerated the amount owed or deliberately included claims for work never performed. The court must declare a fraudulent lien unenforceable, and the lienor forfeits any lien on the property. The owner can recover damages including attorney fees, the cost of any bond posted to discharge the lien, interest on cash deposited for that purpose, and punitive damages up to the difference between the claimed amount and what was actually owed. Willfully filing a fraudulent lien is also a third-degree felony in Florida.
A good-faith dispute over the amount owed or a minor arithmetic mistake isn’t fraud. The willfulness element does real work.
Defective Work
Owners can contest liens on the grounds that the work was incomplete or defective. The lien attaches to work actually performed, but the owner can reduce the amount by proving the work didn’t conform to the contract. These fights often turn into full contract disputes with competing experts on both sides.
Federal Projects Use the Miller Act Instead
You cannot file a mechanics lien against federally owned property. On federal construction contracts exceeding $100,000, the prime contractor must furnish a payment bond covering everyone supplying labor and materials.9Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 40 USC 3131 – Bonds of Contractors of Public Buildings or Works
If you have a direct contract with the prime contractor and go unpaid 90 days past your last day of work, you can sue on the bond. Without a direct relationship to the prime contractor, you must give the prime written notice within 90 days of your last furnishing before suing. The lawsuit must be filed no later than one year after your last day of furnishing, in the federal district court where the project is located.10Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 40 USC 3133 – Rights of Persons Furnishing Labor or Material
What Happens if the Owner Files Bankruptcy
A bankruptcy filing by the property owner triggers an automatic stay that halts collection activity, including lien foreclosure suits.11Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 11 USC 362 – Automatic Stay The stay applies the moment the petition is filed, and violating it can bring sanctions.
The stay pauses enforcement but doesn’t erase a properly recorded lien. A perfected mechanics lien generally qualifies as a secured claim in bankruptcy, which puts you ahead of unsecured trade creditors. When distributions are limited, that ranking matters. The timing of your recording relative to the bankruptcy filing controls a lot, so any sign that the owner is in financial trouble should push your filing timeline forward, not back.