Florida lien law for repair contractors: notice to owner and the 90-day deadline

Suppose a plumber replaces a failed water heater in a rented duplex. The property manager placed the order by email, the owner lives out of state, and the $3,100 invoice is two months old. The lien law may still help the plumber, but on its own schedule, and that schedule started on the last day of work.

Does Florida's lien law cover repair work?

Yes. Section 713.01 of the Florida Statutes defines "improve" to include work that would "alter, remove, repair, or demolish any improvement," and it reaches appliances permanently affixed to the property, landscaping, and equipping an improvement with fixtures. An improvement is anything done on land for its permanent benefit.

Not everyone gets a lien. The same section lists the lienors: contractors, subcontractors, sub-subcontractors, laborers, materialmen and professional lienors, and no one else. Section 713.02 adds that no lien exists for a contractor, subcontractor or sub-subcontractor who is unlicensed as provided in section 489.128. Our post on the handyman exemption covers where licensing starts.

Small jobs follow a shorter rulebook. Section 713.02 exempts any improvement with a direct contract price of $2,500 or less from every other provision of Part I except section 713.05, the section for lienors in privity with the owner. On a $400 service call, the notice-to-owner rules in section 713.06 do not apply.

Are you in privity with the owner?

Most of the rules turn on that question. Under section 713.01, a contractor is a person who contracts with the owner, a subcontractor contracts with a contractor, and a direct contract is one between the owner and anyone else. A contract can be "written or unwritten, express or implied," so an order taken over the phone can be one.

The owner, in the same section, is the person who holds a legal or equitable interest in the property and contracts for the improvement. For a condominium, the term includes the association, as to work on association property or common elements.

Section 713.05 gives a lien to a contractor, laborer or materialman in privity with the owner, and says such a lienor does not have to serve a notice to owner. Subcontractors, sub-subcontractors and suppliers further down the chain claim under section 713.06.

When do you need to serve a notice to owner?

If you are not in privity, before you start or within 45 days after you start, and in any event before the owner makes final payment after receiving the contractor's final payment affidavit. Section 713.06 makes the notice a prerequisite for every lienor under it except laborers, and failing to serve it, or to serve it on time, is a complete defense to enforcement of the lien. The notice gives your name and address, a description of the property, and what you furnished; the statute's form also names who gave the order. A sub-subcontractor, or a supplier to a subcontractor, must serve a copy on the contractor as well.

Suppose a pool company replaces a pump as a subcontractor to a maintenance contractor that holds a $6,000 contract with the owner. The pool company is not in privity, so its 45 days run from its first day on the job, not from the day its invoice goes unpaid.

What are the deadlines for a claim of lien?

Section 713.08 lets you record a claim of lien in the clerk's office during the work or after it, but not later than 90 days after final furnishing. The claim must also be served on the owner before recording or within 15 days after; late service makes it voidable to the extent the delay prejudiced someone entitled to rely on it.

Final furnishing, under section 713.01, is the last date you furnished labor, services or materials, and it excludes the correction of deficiencies in work you already did. A return trip to fix your own work does not restart the clock.

The claim is sworn, and section 713.08 says what goes in it: your name and address, the name of the person you contracted with, what you furnished and its price, a description of the property, the owner's name, the first and last dates you worked, the amount unpaid, and, if you are not in privity, when and how you served the notice to owner.

The last row comes from section 713.22. A lien lasts one year after the claim is recorded unless an action to enforce it is filed in that time, and an owner can shorten that to 60 days after service by recording a notice of contest of lien.

What changes when a property manager ordered the work?

The lien does not attach to the manager. Section 713.10 extends a lien "to, and only to, the right, title, and interest of the person who contracts for the improvement." A management company that holds no interest in the property does not fit section 713.01's definition of an owner, and that section's definitions say nothing about managers. What matters is whose contract the manager's order was.

That is a reason to build the job file on day one, with the fields the claim of lien will ask for:

• The owner's legal name, and the property's address and description.
• Who ordered the work, and for whom.
• The first and last dates you worked.
• The price, including any extras or change orders.

Rentals add a second wrinkle: sometimes the tenant orders the work. Section 713.10 extends a lien to the landlord's interest only when the tenant made the improvement under an agreement with the landlord. A lease can also say that the landlord's interest is not subject to liens for the tenant's improvements, and a tenant who knowingly fails to tell the contractor about that clause makes the contract voidable at the contractor's option.

On a 1Stop job, 1Stop is the contracted party: it buys the work from the vendor and sells it to the property manager. Vendors invoice one company, 1Stop, and are paid net-14. See what working with 1Stop involves, or apply to join.

The 90 days start on your last day of work, not on the day the invoice goes past due.