You check the Broward County property records two days before closing on your house and discover a $28,000 lien from a roofing supplier you’ve never heard of. Your contractor told you everything was paid. The title company is now refusing to close. This is not the time to figure out how Florida’s construction lien law works.
A construction lien is not a lawsuit. It’s a recorded claim against your property that says someone who worked on or supplied materials for your house hasn’t been paid. Under Florida Statutes Chapter 713, that claim can block a sale, kill a refinance, and eventually lead to a foreclosure action against your home. The lien doesn’t prove the money is owed — but it creates a title problem that won’t go away on its own.
Most homeowners assume that if they paid their contractor, they’re protected. Florida law doesn’t work that way. You can pay your general contractor every penny and still get hit with a lien from a subcontractor or supplier the contractor never paid. Section 713.06 gives those downstream parties the right to file a lien even when the homeowner has no direct contract with them.
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Get the recorded lien immediately
Pull the actual claim of lien from the clerk of court in the county where your property sits. In Broward County, that’s the Broward County Clerk of Courts. You need the full certified copy, not a summary from your title company.
Look at the claimant’s exact name. Is it the general contractor, a subcontractor, a materials supplier, a laborer? Check the legal description against your deed. Verify the property owner’s name matches exactly how title is held. Look at the amount claimed and compare it to what you know about the project.
The dates matter more than most homeowners realize. The claim should show when the claimant first and last furnished labor, services, or materials. That last-furnished date controls the 90-day recording deadline under Section 713.08. If the lien was recorded more than 90 days after the claimant’s actual final furnishing, it’s likely unenforceable — but you’ll need to prove when final furnishing really occurred.
Check whether the claim is signed and notarized. Look for the statutory warning language required by Section 713.08. Note when the lien was recorded and whether it was served on you within 15 days after recording. Service failures don’t automatically kill the lien, but they create defenses.
The 90-day deadline is not what you think
Section 713.08 requires a lien claimant to record the claim of lien within 90 days after the claimant’s final furnishing of labor, services, or materials. That sounds simple. It’s not.
The final-furnishing date is one of the most fought-over issues in Florida construction lien disputes. It’s not the date the contract was signed. It’s not the date you stopped paying. It’s not the date your contractor abandoned the job or the date substantial completion happened. It’s the last date the specific claimant actually furnished compensable labor, services, or materials to your property.
Say a plumbing subcontractor finished the rough-in work on March 15, came back on April 10 to fix one leaking joint the inspector flagged, then showed up again on May 5 just to drop off an extra P-trap the contractor asked for. When did final furnishing occur? The answer affects whether a lien recorded on July 20 is timely. Warranty work, punch-list corrections, and trivial follow-up visits may or may not count as final furnishing. The case law is fact-specific.
Don’t calculate the deadline from the date on the invoice. Invoices get sent weeks after the work is done. The statute measures from actual furnishing, not billing.
You have 60 days to force the issue if you act fast
Once a lien is recorded, the claimant generally has one year to file a foreclosure lawsuit under Section 713.22. If they don’t sue within that year, the lien becomes unenforceable. But one year is a long time when you’re trying to sell or refinance.
Florida law gives you a way to speed that up. Section 713.22 allows a property owner to record and serve a notice of contest of lien. When properly done, that notice shortens the claimant’s enforcement period from one year to 60 days. If the claimant doesn’t file a lawsuit within 60 days of being served, the lien dies.
This is a powerful tool, but it has to be done exactly right. The notice must comply with the statutory form requirements. It must be recorded in the public records and served on the lienor by a method authorized under Section 713.18. If you screw up the service or use the wrong language, you may not shorten the deadline at all — and you’ve just told the claimant you want to fight.
Do not prepare or serve a notice of contest of lien without an attorney. Homeowners sometimes use a form they found online, serve it by regular mail instead of certified mail or personal service, and then assume they’re protected. They’re not. The claimant files suit on day 61, and the homeowner has no defense.
Notice to Owner is the trap most homeowners miss
Here’s the part that catches people off guard. If a subcontractor or supplier doesn’t have a direct contract with you, they generally must serve a Notice to Owner within 45 days after they first furnish labor, services, or materials to your property. That notice tells you someone other than your contractor is working on your house and expects to get paid.
The notice has to be sent to the address shown in the notice of commencement — a document that should have been recorded before construction started and that identifies where notices should be sent. If you never recorded a notice of commencement, the notice goes to your property address or the address in the public records.
If you receive a Notice to Owner and then pay your contractor without making sure that subcontractor or supplier gets paid, you are at serious risk of paying twice. Section 713.06 makes this clear. The subcontractor’s or supplier’s lien rights generally survive your payment to the general contractor if you got a proper Notice to Owner and ignored it.
Most homeowners never see these notices. The contractor collects the mail during construction, or the notice gets sent to an old address, or it arrives and the homeowner doesn’t understand what it is. By the time a lien shows up six months later, the homeowner has already paid the contractor in full and has no money left to pay the subcontractor.
Obtain the notice of commencement from the public records. Check whether it lists the right owner name and address. See if it’s been amended or terminated. Compare the contractor name on the notice of commencement to the contractor you actually hired. If they don’t match, you may have a problem.
Do not pay anyone a second time without investigating first
Say you paid your general contractor $80,000 for a kitchen remodel. Three months later, a granite countertop supplier records a $9,500 lien claiming your contractor never paid for the slabs. Your contractor says it’s a misunderstanding and promises to handle it. Do not write another check.
Before you pay the supplier — or pay the contractor again to pay the supplier — get documentation. Request a sworn statement of account under Section 713.16. That statute gives you the right to demand a detailed breakdown from your contractor or the lien claimant showing what was furnished, what’s been paid, and what’s allegedly still owed.
Ask for:
- Copies of the supplier’s invoices to the contractor
- Proof of delivery to your property
- The contractor’s payment records
- Conditional and unconditional lien waivers from prior progress payments
- A list of everyone the contractor still owes money to
- Change orders or extra-work authorizations
Compare the lien amount to the contract scope and payment schedule. If your contract was for $80,000 and you’ve now been asked to pay $89,500 because of liens, someone is double-billing or the contractor agreed to extra work without your approval.
Check your contract. Many residential construction contracts require the contractor to provide lien waivers from subcontractors and suppliers before the owner makes each progress payment. If your contractor didn’t give you those waivers and you paid anyway, you weakened your position — but you may still have defenses.
Lien waivers are only as good as their wording
Florida recognizes four basic types of lien waivers. A conditional waiver and release upon progress payment says the claimant waives lien rights for a specific payment period once that payment clears. An unconditional waiver and release upon progress payment waives lien rights immediately, whether or not the check has cleared. Conditional and unconditional waivers upon final payment work the same way but cover the final payment instead of a progress payment.
The difference between conditional and unconditional matters. If a subcontractor signs an unconditional final waiver, deposits your contractor’s check, and then the check bounces, that subcontractor may have just waived the right to file a lien even though they never got paid. Courts enforce unconditional waivers even when payment fails.
Read the waiver language. Does it release only lien rights, or does it also release all contract claims, delay claims, and defect claims? Does it cover the specific property and project? Does it exclude retainage or disputed change orders? Does the person signing it have authority to bind the company?
A waiver that says “we release all claims of every kind” is very different from one that says “we release lien rights under Chapter 713 for labor and materials furnished through March 31, excluding disputed change order #4.”
Don’t assume a waiver from the general contractor protects you from subcontractor liens. You need waivers from every subcontractor and supplier the contractor hired, or you need to verify they were paid through other means.
Fraudulent liens carry penalties but require proof
Section 713.31 allows a court to award damages, including attorney’s fees, when someone records a fraudulent lien. A lien is fraudulent if the claimant knowingly includes a false material statement with intent to deceive or otherwise acts within the scope of the fraud statute.
Not every wrong lien is fraudulent. A subcontractor who genuinely believes they’re owed $12,000 but miscalculates and claims $14,000 has not necessarily filed a fraudulent lien. A supplier who records a lien 95 days after final furnishing instead of 90 because they misunderstood the deadline has not committed fraud — the lien is just late.
Fraud requires intent. That usually means the claimant recorded a lien for work they know they never performed, materials they know were never delivered, or amounts they know were already paid. It can also mean backdating documents, forging signatures, or fabricating invoices.
If you think a lien is fraudulent, gather evidence before you accuse anyone. Get delivery records, payment records, communications, and third-party statements. Filing a fraudulent-lien counterclaim without factual support can backfire. You’ll end up in litigation with nothing to show for it.
Fraudulent-lien cases do happen. Contractors sometimes record liens for entire projects they walked away from after collecting a deposit and doing no work. Suppliers sometimes claim they delivered materials to a property when the delivery tickets show a completely different address. But those cases require proof, and the homeowner needs to be prepared to litigate.
Moving the lien to a bond can unblock a sale
Section 713.24 allows a lien to be transferred from your property to a surety bond. This is one of the fastest ways to clear title when you’re trying to close a sale or refinance and don’t have time to litigate whether the lien is valid.
The bond has to be in an amount at least equal to the sum of the lien plus costs and attorney’s fees. Once the transfer is recorded properly, the lien claimant’s rights attach to the bond instead of your property. The title clears. The claimant can still sue to recover from the bond, but your house is no longer encumbered.
The transfer process has technical requirements. The bond must be issued by a surety authorized to do business in Florida. It has to name the lien claimant as obligee. The transfer document has to be recorded in the public records and served on the lienor. Your title company will want to see proof that everything was done correctly before they’ll insure over the lien.
Transferring a lien to a bond is not the same as admitting the lien is valid. It’s a way to separate the title dispute from the money dispute. You still have all your defenses if the claimant sues on the bond.
Settlement beats litigation when the lien is part of a bigger problem
Most construction liens don’t exist in a vacuum. The same project that generated the lien probably also involves defective work, delay, cost overruns, unpaid change orders, or a contractor who disappeared halfway through the job.
Say a framing subcontractor files a $15,000 lien claiming your general contractor owes them for extra work. Your contractor claims the framing sub did shoddy work that failed inspection and had to be redone by someone else. You’re stuck in the middle, you’ve already paid the contractor, and now the framing sub wants you to pay again.
Settlement in a case like that has to address more than just the lien. It should cover:
- Whether the framing sub gets paid, and if so, how much
- Who’s responsible for the cost of fixing the defective work
- Whether the general contractor reimburses you
- Whether the framing sub provides a warranty or waiver for future claims
- Who pays for the title work and bond premium if the lien is transferred
- Whether anyone is releasing claims for delay, defects, or contract damages
A settlement that only gets the lien released but leaves you on the hook for $20,000 in repair work is not a good settlement. Neither is one that pays off a subcontractor without getting a waiver that protects you if more problems show up later.
Construction disputes settle more often than they go to trial, but the settlement has to be drafted carefully. A general release isn’t enough if the work is still under warranty or if third parties have potential claims.
Ignoring a foreclosure lawsuit is not an option
Recording a lien and filing a lawsuit to foreclose the lien are two different things. The lien is a recorded claim. The foreclosure lawsuit is a court action asking a judge to enforce that claim and potentially force the sale of your property to satisfy the debt.
If a lien claimant files a foreclosure action, you will be served with a summons and complaint. You generally have 20 days to respond. If you ignore it, the claimant can get a default judgment. That judgment can lead to a foreclosure sale.
Construction lien foreclosure works much like mortgage foreclosure. The court determines whether the lien is valid and enforceable, calculates the amount owed, and enters a judgment. If the judgment isn’t paid, the property can be sold at a judicial sale. The proceeds go to pay the judgment, and if there’s money left over, it goes to you or other lienholders in order of priority.
Check the court’s online docket regularly if a lien has been filed against your property. In Broward County, you can search case records through the clerk’s website. Don’t assume the lien claimant will give you advance warning before filing suit. The summons may be the first notice you get.
If you’re served with a lien foreclosure complaint, get an attorney immediately. The 20-day deadline is real. Missing it can cost you the ability to raise defenses that would have defeated the lien.
Priority determines who gets paid first
Section 713.07 governs the priority of liens and mortgages. Generally, a properly perfected construction lien relates back to the time the notice of commencement was recorded, or if no notice of commencement was recorded, to the time the first work began on the property.
That means a construction lien can sometimes take priority over a mortgage that was recorded later — even if you didn’t know about the lien when you took out the mortgage. If you refinanced your house in April and a subcontractor recorded a lien in May for work that started in February, the lien may have priority over your refinance mortgage because the work began before the mortgage was recorded.
This creates serious problems in foreclosure. If the construction lien has priority, the lien claimant gets paid before your lender. If there’s not enough money from the sale to pay both, your lender may come after you for the deficiency.
Priority disputes are complicated. They depend on the exact dates, the validity of the notice of commencement, whether the lien claimant complied with all statutory requirements, and whether the mortgage lender is protected by other provisions of Florida law. Homeowners should not try to analyze lien priority without an attorney.
Contractor licensing affects your options but not the lien’s validity
Florida requires most contractors to be licensed through the Department of Business and Professional Regulation. You can verify a contractor’s license status on the DBPR website. If your contractor isn’t licensed or let their license lapse, that’s a problem — but it doesn’t automatically make a subcontractor’s lien invalid.
A subcontractor who is properly licensed can usually enforce a lien even if the general contractor who hired them wasn’t licensed. The subcontractor’s lien rights depend on whether the subcontractor complied with Chapter 713, not on whether someone higher up the contracting chain had a valid license.
Licensing does affect your ability to sue the contractor. An unlicensed contractor generally can’t sue you to collect on a contract. But that’s a separate issue from whether a third-party subcontractor or supplier can file and enforce a lien.
If you discover your contractor wasn’t licensed, report them to DBPR and consult an attorney about your options. You may be able to recover money you’ve already paid, void the contract, or pursue other remedies. But don’t assume the licensing violation makes all the liens go away.
Homestead protection has limits in lien cases
Florida’s homestead protection is powerful, but it doesn’t block all construction liens. Article X, Section 4 of the Florida Constitution allows liens for work done to improve the homestead property if the owner contracts for the work.
That means if you hired a contractor to renovate your homestead and the contractor or a subcontractor files a valid lien, your homestead protection won’t save you. The lien can be foreclosed, and your house can be sold to satisfy it.
The homestead analysis gets more complicated when someone other than the homeowner contracted for the work — such as a co-owner, a tenant, or a spouse. It also gets complicated when the liened property is investment property, a second home, or property that doesn’t qualify for homestead protection.
Don’t assume homestead status makes you judgment-proof in a construction lien case. It doesn’t.
Whether you are buying a home, dealing with a landlord dispute, or recovering from an injury, Eric Goldman can help. Serving clients throughout Florida.
What to do when you find out about the lien
You need to move quickly, but you also need to move carefully. Start by getting the full lien from the clerk’s office. Pull the notice of commencement, any amendments, and any other liens or releases. Notify your lender, title company, and insurance agent if you have builder’s risk or homeowner’s coverage that might apply.
Do not sign anything the contractor or lien claimant sends you without having an attorney review it. Do not agree to pay part of the lien just to make it go away unless you’ve confirmed the amount is correct and you’re getting a proper release. Do not ignore the lien and hope it expires — the one-year enforcement deadline is longer than most people think, and a notice of contest of lien can backfire if done wrong.
Request a sworn statement of account under Section 713.16. Gather every document related to the project — the contract, change orders, payment records, inspection reports, photos, emails, text messages, and lien waivers. If you don’t have lien waivers, find out why. If your contractor promised to provide them and didn’t, that’s evidence.
Check whether the lien claimant served a Notice to Owner and whether you received it. Check whether the lien was recorded within 90 days of final furnishing and served on you within 15 days of recording. Check whether the lien amount matches the work actually done. Check the legal description, the owner’s name, and the notarization.
If the lien is clearly bogus — claiming work that was never done or an amount that’s wildly inflated — document that immediately. If the lien looks legitimate but you’ve already paid your contractor, get proof of that payment and figure out where the money went.
Evaluate whether you want to pay the lien, fight the lien, transfer it to a bond, or settle. Each option has costs and risks. Paying a lien you don’t owe just to clear title is expensive and sets a bad precedent. Fighting a valid lien in court costs attorney’s fees and delays your sale or refinance. Transferring the lien to a bond clears title but requires a bond premium. Settlement depends on whether the other side is willing to negotiate and whether you have leverage.
Construction lien disputes in Florida are technical, deadline-driven, and expensive if handled wrong. A $15,000 lien can turn into $40,000 in legal fees if both sides dig in. The faster you move and the more documentation you have, the better your options.
