• Florida is an UNPAID BALANCE lien state.
• Owners must record a Notice of Commencement and post a copy at the jobsite before the work starts.
• Florida has enacted P3 Legislation.
• If the owner recorded a statutory payment bond with the Notice of Commencement then the property may not be lienable.  Instead, creditors must file suit against the bonding company and/or the principal named in the bond within 1 year of their last date of work.
• Landlords must comply with any lienor's written request for a copy of lease provisions that exempts the landlord from lien liability within 30 days, and under oath. The landlord could be subject to liens if they fail to comply properly. For lienors seeking this information, statute dictates that their written demand must be in a document that's separate from the notice to owner and that their written demand also include a statutory warning for the landlord.
• “Furnish Materials” includes the delivery of rental equipment to project. The furnishing period includes the actual use of the rental equipment from the delivery through the time the equipment was last available for use, or 2 business days after the lessor of the rental equipment receives a written notice from the owner or the lessee to pick up the equipment, whichever occurs first.
• Bond given on private projects by contractor per statue 713.23 - A claimant must give a 45 day first furnishing notice of intention to claim.  All claimants even direct to contractor must serve Bond Claim/notice of non-payment upon contractor and surety within 90 days of last furnishing of labor or materials. 
• The presence of the following language, provided in Florida statute Section 713.245, on a bond could signify the presence of a conditional payment bond:

"THIS BOND ONLY COVERS CLAIMS OF SUBCONTRACTORS, SUB-SUBCONTRACTORS, SUPPLIERS, AND LABORERS TO THE EXTENT THE CONTRACTOR HAS BEEN PAID FOR THE LABOR, SERVICES, OR MATERIALS PROVIDED BY SUCH PERSONS. THIS BOND DOES NOT PRECLUDE YOU FROM SERVING A NOTICE TO OWNER OR FILING A CLAIM OF LIEN ON THIS PROJECT." 713.245 Florida Statute

Conditional payment bonds have additional other requirements for owners that seek to use them, but in general they create a situation where the subcontractor or material supplier might have rights to both liens and bonds. As the statute makes clear above, a conditional payment bond means that in the instance that an owner pays a contractor, the lienor's rights are then transferred to the bond, but should the owner not pay a contractor, the lienor can still assert its lien rights directly against the owner. In any case, extra care must be taken by contractors to ensure that their rights to payment are preserved in the presence of such a bond.

 Notice Speed Bumps

• The Notice to Owner must be in substantially the statutory form, must contain all required statutory warnings and must be served on all persons in the chain of contract as well as all persons listed in the Notice of Commencement.
  
• Serve a new notice when selling directly to someone else within the construction chain as this would be considered a separate contract.  A new notice of commencement is recorded which would suggest a new start to the project this would also require a new notice.
• A laborer, defined as a natural person who is not a professional lienor (architect, landscape architect, engineer, surveyor etc.) who personally performs work on the construction site, is not required to serve a Notice to Owner.

Mechanic’s Lien Speed Bumps

• The Claim of Lien must be served upon the owner within 15 days after recording

Foreclosure Speed Bumps

• Foreclosure: Owner can shorten deadline to 60 days by filing notice of contest of lien, or to 20 days by serving an order to show cause why the lien should not be discharged.

Lien for Improvement of Oil or Gas Well

• Extends to the leasehold interest held for oil or gas purposes or for any oil or gas pipeline except that neither the land itself, apart from the rights granted under an oil and gas lease, nor any material interest, nor any royalty interest is subject to such liens. Lien also extends to materials and fixtures owned by the interest holder and any oil or gas produced. Lien is perfected in the same manner as a construction lien and exists for one year.

• Any claimant may apply to the governmental entity having charge of the work for copies of the contract and bond and shall thereupon be furnished with a certified copy of the contract and bond.
  
  
• The claimant shall have a right of action against the contractor and surety for the amount due him or her, including unpaid finance charges due under the claimant's contract.
  
  
• The amount of the bond shall equal the contract price, except that for a contract in excess of $250 million, if the state, county, municipality, political subdivision, or other public entity finds that a bond in the amount of the contract price is not reasonably available, the public owner shall set the amount of the bond at the largest amount reasonably available, but not less than $250 million.
  
  
• In lieu of the bond required by this section, a contractor may file with the state, county, city, or other political authority an alternative form of security in the form of cash, a money order, a certified check, a cashier's check, an irrevocable letter of credit, or a security of a type listed in part II of chapter 625.