Two documents with similar names
Florida's Construction Lien Law has an owner-side document and a claimant-side document that get confused because both are called a notice and both come at the start of a job. The Notice of Commencement is the owner's: recorded in the county's official records and posted at the site before the work begins, it announces the improvement and names the people involved. The Notice to Owner is the claimant's: served on the owner by a subcontractor or supplier who has no contract with the owner, within 45 days of first furnishing, to protect lien rights. One is recorded; the other is mailed. One names the parties; the other is addressed to them.
Section 713.13(1)(a) opens with the owner's duty:
Except for an improvement that is exempt under s. 713.02 (5), an owner or the owner's authorized agent before actually commencing to improve any real property, or recommencing completion of any improvement after default or abandonment, whether or not a project has a payment bond complying with s. 713.23, shall record a notice of commencement in the clerk's office and post either a certified copy thereof or a notarized statement that the notice of commencement has been filed for recording along with a copy thereof.
For a claimant, the practical importance is in the last clause: a copy is posted at the site, and the original is in the clerk's office. Both are places to find the facts the Notice to Owner needs.
Who records it, and when
The owner or the owner's authorized agent, before actually commencing to improve the property. Two more subdivisions pin down the signature and the moment it takes effect:
The owner must sign the notice of commencement and no one else may be permitted to sign in his or her stead.
The giving of a notice of commencement is effective upon the filing of the notice in the clerk's office.
When a construction lender is involved, §713.13(7) shifts the recording duty to the lender before any construction funds are disbursed, and adds one line that matters to every claimant:
Whenever a lender is required to record a notice of commencement, the lender shall designate the lender, in addition to others, to receive copies of notices to owner.
So on a lender-financed job, the recorded notice will usually name the lender as a recipient of Notice to Owner copies, and §713.06(2)(d) then governs how the lender's copy is addressed.
What a Notice of Commencement contains
The statute lists the contents and says all of them are required:
The notice of commencement must contain all of the following information:
A description sufficient for identification of the real property to be improved. The description must include the legal description of the property and the street address and tax folio number of the property if available or, if the street address is not available, such additional information as will describe the physical location of the real property to be improved.
A general description of the improvement.
The name and address of the owner, the owner's interest in the site of the improvement, and the name and address of the fee simple titleholder, if other than such owner. A lessee who contracts for the improvements is an owner as defined in s. 713.01 and must be listed as the owner together with a statement that the ownership interest is a leasehold interest.
The name and address of the contractor.
The name and address of the surety on the payment bond under s. 713.23, if any, and the amount of such bond.
The name and address of any person making a loan for the construction of the improvements.
The name and address within the state of a person other than himself or herself who may be designated by the owner as the person upon whom notices or other documents may be served under this part; and service upon the person so designated constitutes service upon the owner.
Subdivision (1)(b) adds an optional eighth name:
The owner, at his or her option, may designate a person in addition to himself or herself to receive a copy of the lienor's notice as provided in s. 713.06 (2)(b), and if he or she does so, the name and address of such person must be included in the notice of commencement.
The statutory form in §713.13(1)(d) prints those items as numbered boxes: property, improvement, owner, contractor, surety, lender, the designated persons for service, the designated recipient of the lienor's notice copy, and an expiration date. It ends with a capitalized WARNING TO OWNER about improper payments after expiration and a notary block. When you are reading a recorded copy, the numbers on the form are the fastest way to find each fact.
What the Notice to Owner takes from it
A Notice to Owner needs four things the recorded notice supplies. Each maps to a box on the form and to a rule in §713.06(2).
| Notice to Owner needs | Notice of Commencement box | Rule |
|---|---|---|
| The owner's name and address (the To line) | 3. Owner information | §713.06(2)(a): served on the owner; §713.18(3)(a)1.: the last address shown in the notice of commencement |
| The property description | 1. Description of property | §713.06(2)(a): a description sufficient for identification of the real property |
| The contractor, for the copy | 4. Contractor | §713.06(2)(a): a sub-subcontractor or a materialman to a subcontractor serves a copy on the contractor |
| The lender and the designee, for their copies | 6. Lender · 7. and 8. Designated persons | §713.06(2)(b) and (2)(d), quoted below |
The designee rule:
If the owner, in his or her notice of commencement, has designated a person in addition to himself or herself to receive a copy of such lienor's notice, as provided in s. 713.13 (1)(b), the lienor shall serve a copy of his or her notice on the person so designated. The failure by the lienor to serve such copy, however, does not invalidate an otherwise valid lien.
The lender rule:
A notice to an owner served on a lender must be in writing, must be served in accordance with s. 713.18, and shall be addressed to the persons designated, if any, and to the place and address designated in the notice of commencement.
Read the recorded copy once, carefully, and the recipient list writes itself. The who-receives page turns that list into the originals and copies each role must send; the wizard asks for the same names and mails each one.
Why the recorded description matters to you
The owner's errors can become your problem or your protection. Section 713.06(3)(a) ties the owner's proper payments to the description in the recorded notice:
If the description of the property in the notice prescribed by s. 713.13 is incorrect and the error adversely affects any lienor, payments made on the direct contract shall be held improperly paid to that lienor; but this does not apply to clerical errors when the description listed covers the property where the improvements are.
That is one reason to copy the property description into your Notice to Owner from the recorded notice rather than retyping it from memory: a description that matches the record is the one everyone else on the job is working from.
If none was recorded
Not every job has one. Section 713.06(2)(e) gives the claimant another source of the same facts:
A lienor, in the absence of a recorded notice of commencement, may rely on the information contained in the building permit application to serve the notice prescribed in paragraphs (a), (b), and (c).
The permit application names an owner and a contractor and describes the property; the Notice to Owner goes to those names at those addresses. Keep a copy of the permit application with your mailing record so the source you relied on is part of the file.
How long a Notice of Commencement lasts
The recorded notice has a life span, and a claimant reading an old one should check it. Three rules:
If the improvement described in the notice of commencement is not actually commenced within 90 days after the recording thereof, such notice is void and of no further effect.
If the contract between the owner and a contractor named in the notice of commencement expresses a period of time for completion for the construction of the improvement greater than 1 year, the notice of commencement must state that it is effective for a period of 1 year plus any additional period of time. Any payments made by the owner after the expiration of the notice of commencement are considered improper payments.
A notice of commencement that is recorded within the effective period may be amended to extend the effective period, change erroneous information in the original notice, or add information that was omitted from the original notice. However, in order to change contractors, a new notice of commencement or notice of recommencement must be executed and recorded.
An amended notice can change the names you need, and §713.13(5)(b) requires the owner to serve a copy of the amendment on the contractor and on each lienor who serves notice before or within 30 days after it is recorded. If you receive one, the addresses in it supersede the ones you copied earlier.
The 45-day clock does not run from the recording date
A common misreading: that the Notice to Owner deadline is measured from the Notice of Commencement. It is not. Section 713.06(2)(a) counts from the claimant's own first furnishing:
The notice must be served before commencing, or not later than 45 days after commencing, to furnish his or her labor, services, or materials, but, in any event, before the date of the owner's disbursement of the final payment after the contractor has furnished the affidavit under subparagraph (3)(d)1.
The recording date tells you the job has started and where to find the parties; your clock starts the day you first furnish. The late-notice page covers what happens after day 45 and the calculator computes the date from your first-furnishing date.
On a bonded job: the surety box and the combined form
Box 5 of the recorded notice names the surety and the bond amount when the job has a payment bond. That changes the claimant's paperwork in two ways the statutes describe. The Notice to Owner form may double as the notice to contractor:
The form may be combined with a notice to contractor given under s. 255.05 or s. 713.23 and, if so, may be entitled "NOTICE TO OWNER/NOTICE TO CONTRACTOR."
And the payment-bond claim later runs through the surety named in the box, by way of the Notice of Nonpayment of §713.23, which this site prints as a free form. Whether a bond exists, and whether a copy was attached when the notice was recorded, is visible on the recorded copy itself.
What the Notice of Commencement is not
The recording of a notice of commencement does not constitute a lien, cloud, or encumbrance on real property, but gives constructive notice that claims of lien under this part may be recorded and may take priority as provided in s. 713.07. The posting of a copy does not constitute a lien, cloud, or encumbrance on real property, nor actual or constructive notice of any of them.
Owners sometimes hesitate to record one because it sounds like a lien. The statute says it is not, in the same words §713.06(2)(a) uses for the Notice to Owner. Each is a notice about the job; neither is a claim against the property.
Where to find a recorded Notice of Commencement
The statute says the clerk's office, which in practice means the official records of the county where the property sits — not where the owner lives, and not where your company is. A certified copy or a notarized statement is also posted at the site. Ask the owner or the contractor for a copy first; most will hand one over, and the permit file at the building department often has it too.
If you look it up yourself, every county recorder publishes a free official-records search — the clerk of court in most counties, the Records, Taxes & Treasury Division in Broward, the Comptroller in Orange. Three practical notes before you start:
- Search by the owner's name first. The notice is indexed under the names of the parties, and the owner is the one who signs it — §713.13(1)(g) says no one may sign in the owner's stead. If the owner is an entity, try the entity name as recorded on the deed rather than the trade name on the job sign. Failing that, search the legal description, which §713.13(1)(a)1. requires the notice to contain, or the tax folio number, which it lists when available.
- Read the whole document, and anything recorded after it. An amendment can change the names and addresses you need, and §713.13(5)(b) requires the owner to serve a copy of it on each lienor who serves notice before or within 30 days after it is recorded.
- Check the dates. A notice is void if the improvement did not actually commence within 90 days of recording, and the effective period is one year unless the notice states a longer one. An expired notice still tells you who the parties were; it is not a current statement of the job.
Two directories cover the whole state: MyFloridaCounty official records is a county picker that sends you to each county's recorder, and the Florida Court Clerks & Comptrollers public-records directory lists all 67 clerks. The larger counties, with each recorder's own search:
- Miami-Dade · Broward · Palm Beach
- Hillsborough · Pinellas · Polk
- Orange · Seminole · Lake
- Duval · Lee
Those are the recorders' own sites; NoticeSent is not affiliated with any of them and gets nothing if you use one. If no notice was recorded, the permit application is the statutory fallback under §713.06(2)(e), covered above.
NoticeSent does not look the notice up for you: the wizard asks for the owner, contractor, lender and designee as you found them, and you verify each name and address before paying.
Frequently asked
What is a Notice of Commencement in Florida?
It is the document an owner records before work begins. Section 713.13(1)(a) requires an owner or the owner's authorized agent, unless the improvement is exempt under §713.02(5), before actually commencing to improve any real property, to record a notice of commencement in the clerk's office and post either a certified copy of it or a notarized statement that it has been filed for recording along with a copy. The statute lists what it must contain: a description of the property including the legal description and, if available, the street address and tax folio number, a general description of the improvement, the owner's name and address and interest, the contractor, the payment-bond surety and amount if any, any construction lender, and a person the owner designates to receive documents. Recording it is not a lien: §713.13(3) says it does not constitute a lien, cloud, or encumbrance on real property, but gives constructive notice that claims of lien may be recorded.
How do I find the Notice of Commencement for my job?
Look in the official records of the county where the property is located — the notice is recorded with the county recorder there (the clerk of court in most counties), and a copy is posted at the site. Ask the owner or the contractor for a copy first, and check the building department's permit file. Every county recorder publishes a free official-records search — the clerk of court in most counties, the Records, Taxes & Treasury Division in Broward, the Comptroller in Orange. Search by the owner's name as it appears on the deed, or by the legal description, which §713.13(1)(a)1. requires the notice to contain, or the tax folio number, which it lists when available. Read anything recorded after it too, because an amendment can change the names and addresses you need. If no notice of commencement was recorded, §713.06(2)(e) lets a lienor rely on the information in the building permit application instead.
Does a recorded Notice of Commencement replace a Notice to Owner?
No. They are different documents by different people. The owner or the owner's authorized agent records the Notice of Commencement under §713.13 before the work begins; a lienor not in privity with the owner serves the Notice to Owner under §713.06(2) within 45 days of first furnishing. The recorded notice is where the claimant finds the names and addresses the Notice to Owner is served on; it does not serve anything for the claimant.
Can I serve a Notice to Owner when no Notice of Commencement was recorded?
Yes. Section 713.06(2)(e) says a lienor, in the absence of a recorded notice of commencement, may rely on the information contained in the building permit application to serve the notice. The owner and contractor named on the permit application are the recipients in that case, and §713.18(3)(a)1. treats the last address shown on the permit application as the address that counts.
Do I have to record anything to send a Notice to Owner?
The pinned §713.06 text describes the Notice to Owner as served, not recorded, and §713.06(2)(a) says the serving of the notice does not dispense with recording the claim of lien, which is a separate document with its own rules. The Notice of Commencement is recorded, by the owner. The Notice to Owner is mailed, by the claimant, and proven by the mailing record.