When Is a Notice of Commencement Required in Florida?

In Florida, a Notice of Commencement is required before you start almost any permitted construction, repair, or improvement on real property, and when the direct contract price is more than $5,000 the building department will not perform its first inspection until a recorded copy is on file.¹ The rule comes from Florida Statute 713.13, and skipping it can leave you paying twice for the same work.

Projects That Trigger the Requirement

Section 713.13 requires an owner, or an authorized agent, to record a Notice of Commencement before improving any real property, with narrow exceptions for exempt improvements. The practical trigger most owners run into is the $5,000 threshold: when the direct contract price exceeds that amount, the authority issuing the building permit must see a copy of the recorded NOC before conducting the first inspection. No NOC, no inspection, no further progress on the job.

Smaller permitted projects are not off the hook. For work under $5,000 the statute still calls for a Notice of Commencement, but the permit office does not independently enforce the filing at the inspection stage. The owner still carries the lien-law exposure that comes from going without one.

A separate trigger applies when a project restarts after the original contractor abandons the job or defaults. Before a replacement contractor begins work, the owner must record a new Notice of Commencement, sometimes called a notice of recommencement.¹ Simply amending the old notice to swap contractor names is not enough.

Timing: Record Before Work Begins

The statute is explicit about when the NOC has to be on file. It must be recorded in the clerk’s office of the county where the property is located before any work begins. There is no grace period for recording after construction starts.

A common misreading of the statute flips this around and assumes the owner has 90 days after breaking ground to record the notice. The law says the opposite. If you record the NOC and then fail to actually begin construction within 90 days, the notice becomes void and has no legal effect.¹ The 90 days runs against the owner, not in the owner’s favor.

Recording alone is not the end of it. After the clerk records the notice, the owner must post either a certified copy or a notarized statement confirming the filing, together with a copy, conspicuously at the job site before the first inspection. An inspector who arrives and finds nothing posted will disapprove the inspection and halt the project until the posting is in place.

What a Valid Notice Must Contain

The NOC form is standardized by statute, and the required fields matter: a missing or wrong entry can undermine the lien-law protection the notice is meant to provide. Each notice must identify:

The property, by legal description and, where available, street address and tax folio number.
The improvement being made, in general terms.
The owner’s name, address, and interest in the property, plus the fee simple titleholder if different.
The general contractor’s name and address.
Any construction lender’s name and address.
The surety’s name and address and the bond amount, if a payment bond exists.
A designated agent within Florida authorized to receive notices on the owner’s behalf.

If the property description is wrong and the error causes harm to a subcontractor or supplier, payments the owner has already made under the contract can be treated as improper as to that party.² Minor clerical slips that mislead nobody are excused, but every field is worth checking before recording.

How Long It Lasts and When to Extend

A Notice of Commencement is effective for one year from the date of recording.¹ If the construction contract calls for a longer timeline, the NOC itself must state that its effective period extends beyond one year to cover the full duration. Owners who skip that line on long projects set a quiet clock running against themselves.

When a project is dragging and the one-year window is nearly up, the owner can record an amended NOC during the remaining effective period to extend it, correct errors, or add omitted information. Changing the general contractor is different: that requires recording an entirely new Notice of Commencement rather than amending the old one.¹ Any payments the owner makes after the NOC has expired are treated as improper, with the same double-payment risk as never filing at all.

Why It Matters: Paying Twice

The reason the statute puts the NOC before every shovel is that it anchors Florida’s whole construction lien management system. When you hire a general contractor, that contractor usually hires subcontractors and buys materials. If the contractor takes your money and fails to pay them, those subcontractors and suppliers can file construction liens on your property even though you paid the contractor in full.³

A recorded NOC starts the clock on their obligation to surface. Subcontractors and suppliers who want to preserve lien rights must serve the owner with a Notice to Owner within 45 days of starting work or delivering materials. Miss that deadline and they lose enforcement. Hit it, and you know exactly who expects to be paid, which lets you require lien waivers before releasing each draw and hold back the final payment until the contractor delivers a sworn affidavit listing everyone who worked on the job and confirming payment.²

Without a valid NOC on file, that framework collapses. Payments made without a recorded NOC, or after one has expired, are classified as improper, and the property becomes liable for unpaid subcontractor and supplier claims up to the amount of those improper payments. In practice that can mean paying your contractor $80,000, having the contractor stiff a $30,000 subcontractor, and being ordered to pay that $30,000 again. The statutory warning language built into the NOC form itself says payments made after the NOC expires “can result in your paying twice for improvements to your property.”¹ Residential contracts over $2,500 for up to four dwelling units must also carry a separate printed warning about construction lien risks on the front page.⁴

Closing Out the Notice When the Job Ends

A Notice of Commencement does not clear itself from the record when work is finished. It stays active until it expires or until the owner formally terminates it under Florida Statute 713.132. That matters because an active NOC shows up as a title exception, and most buyers, lenders, and title insurers will not close through one. Terminating requires recording a notice of termination with the contractor’s sworn affidavit and serving it on everyone who contracted directly with the owner or served a timely Notice to Owner, and the termination cannot take effect any earlier than 30 days after the notice is recorded.⁵ If a sale or refinance is on the calendar after a renovation, build that 30 days into the schedule from the start.

1
Online Sunshine. Florida Statutes 713.13 – Notice of Commencement
2
Online Sunshine. Florida Statutes 713.06 – Liens of Persons Not in Privity and Proper Payments
3
Florida Senate. Florida Statutes 713.06 – Liens of Persons Not in Privity and Proper Payments
4
Online Sunshine. Florida Statutes 713.015 – Mandatory Provisions for Direct Contracts
5
Online Sunshine. Florida Statutes 713.132 – Notice of Termination