Florida Notice to Owner Statute: 45-Day Deadline and Service Rules

A Florida Notice to Owner is the written notice that subcontractors, sub-subcontractors, and material suppliers must serve on a property owner to preserve their right to file a construction lien under Chapter 713. The notice has to reach the owner within 45 days of the day you first furnish labor, services, or materials to the project. Miss that window and your lien rights are gone, no matter how much you’re owed.¹

Who Has to Serve One

The requirement falls on anyone furnishing labor, services, or materials who does not have a direct contract with the property owner. The statute covers those “not in privity” with the owner, so if the person who hired you is not the owner of the property, you need to send the notice.¹

A few groups are exempt:

Contractors with a direct contract with the property owner. The direct relationship already establishes the owner’s awareness of the claim.
Individual laborers, as distinct from labor subcontractors, though they still have to meet other lien law requirements.¹
Design professionals — architects, landscape architects, interior designers, engineers, and surveyors — who have lien rights under a separate statute. These professionals can claim a lien even if the property was never actually improved, as long as they performed services in connection with a specific parcel under a direct contract.²

When you’re unsure whether you qualify as someone “in privity” with the owner, send the notice anyway. An unnecessary NTO costs little. A missing one costs everything.

The 45-Day Deadline

You must serve the notice before you start work, or within 45 days after you first furnish labor, services, or materials to the project. It also must go out before the owner makes final payment to the general contractor. In practice, the 45-day clock is what catches people.¹

When the Clock Starts

The 45 days run from the date you first provide labor, services, or materials. For material suppliers, that means the day materials are physically delivered to the job site, not the day an order is placed or an invoice sent. A supplier selling over the counter measures from actual delivery at the site, not from the point of sale.

This trips people up. If you deliver materials on March 1 and send your NTO on April 20, you’ve used 50 days and blown the deadline. Keep dated delivery receipts and treat the first confirmed delivery as day one.

If Day 45 Falls on a Weekend or Holiday

If the 45th day lands on a Saturday, Sunday, or legal holiday, the deadline generally extends to the next business day under Florida’s computation-of-time rules. Relying on that extension is risky. Serve well before day 45 so a mail delay or clerical hiccup doesn’t cost you your lien rights.

What the Notice Has to Contain

Florida law prescribes both the content and the form. Every NTO must include:

Your name and address as the lienor.
A description sufficient to identify the real property being improved.
A general description of the services or materials you have furnished or will furnish.
The name of the person who gave you the order.

The statute also requires specific warning language telling the owner that unpaid contractors and suppliers can lien the property even if the owner has already paid the general contractor, and advising the owner to obtain written lien releases with each payment. The exact form appears in Section 713.06(2)(c), and deviating from it invites challenges.³

Errors in the notice can render it invalid. Using the statutory form as your template is the simplest way to avoid problems. Some third-party services will prepare and mail NTOs for a modest fee, which is worth considering if you’re not confident about the formatting.

How and Where to Serve It

Service must follow the methods in Florida Statutes Section 713.18, which governs notices under Chapter 713. Acceptable methods include actual delivery to the recipient, certified or registered mail with return receipt requested, or service on a designated agent. Whichever method you choose, keep proof of delivery. A notice you can’t prove was received is functionally the same as one you never sent.

Where to send it comes from the Notice of Commencement. Before construction begins, the owner is required to record a Notice of Commencement with the county clerk and post a copy at the job site. It lists the owner’s name and address, the designated agent for receiving notices, and sometimes a separate person designated to receive copies of NTOs. Service on that designated person counts as service on the owner.⁴⁵

When you arrive at a job site, finding the posted Notice of Commencement should be one of your first steps. It tells you exactly who to address the NTO to and where to send it.

What Happens If You Miss the Deadline

There is no grace period and no cure. If you don’t serve the NTO within 45 days of first furnishing, you forfeit your lien rights under Chapter 713. Florida courts have consistently enforced this requirement without exception.¹

Losing lien rights doesn’t mean losing the right to be paid. You can still pursue a breach-of-contract claim or an unjust enrichment action. Those remedies are slower, more expensive, and lack the leverage a lien on real property provides. Without the lien, you’re an unsecured creditor hoping the other side pays voluntarily.

After the NTO Is Served

Sending the notice preserves your rights, but it doesn’t collect the money. Two things can happen next that you have to be ready for.

Recording a Claim of Lien

If you don’t get paid, you must record a claim of lien with the clerk of court in the county where the property is located within 90 days of your last furnishing of labor, services, or materials. A copy of the recorded claim of lien must also be served on the property owner. Recording the lien creates the encumbrance; a separate lawsuit within the statutory window is required to actually enforce it. Contractors sometimes assume the recorded lien will pressure a settlement and let the enforcement deadline slip, which makes the lien unenforceable even though it was properly recorded.⁶

Sworn Statement of Account Demands

After you serve your NTO, the owner can demand a sworn statement of account under Florida Statutes Section 713.16, asking you to detail exactly what you’re owed. If you fail to respond within 30 days, or if you provide a false statement, you lose your lien.⁷

The rule runs the other way too. You can demand a sworn statement from the owner detailing payments already made. If the owner fails to respond within 30 days or gives a false statement, the owner loses the right to recover attorney fees in any lien enforcement action. Attorney fees in construction lien litigation can be substantial, so this changes the economics of a dispute significantly.⁷

Where a payment bond is involved instead of direct property liens, the same 30-day rule applies. Any sworn statement request is an urgent document with a hard 30-day clock.

Public Projects Don’t Use This Process

You cannot place a construction lien on public property in Florida. Schools, government buildings, roads, and other publicly owned improvements are off limits for lien claims. Instead, Florida law requires contractors on public projects to post payment bonds under Chapter 255, and subcontractors and suppliers make claims against those bonds.⁸

The bond claim process has its own notice requirements and deadlines that differ from the private-project NTO rules. If your project is public, the 45-day NTO framework doesn’t apply, and confusing the two is an easy way to lose your claim.

1
Florida Senate. Florida Code 713.06 – Notice to Owner
2
FindLaw. Florida Statutes 713.03 – Liens for Professional Services
3
Florida Legislature. Florida Statutes 713.06 – Liens of Persons Not in Privity
4
Florida Senate. Florida Statutes 713.13 – Notice of Commencement
5
Florida Legislature. Florida Statutes 713.13 – Notice of Commencement
6
Florida Legislature. Florida Statutes 713.08 – Claim of Lien
7
FindLaw. Florida Statutes 713.16 – Demand for Copy of Contract and Statements of Account
8
Florida Legislature. Florida Statutes Chapter 255 – Public Property and Publicly Owned Buildings