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How do you negate or nullify an incorrectly sent NTO?

FloridaPreliminary Notice

I read an article on Levelset that retraction letters are actually unnecessary and hold no water. If that is true, then how do I have a NTO negated if it was filed incorrectly?

1 reply

Sep 20, 2019
There's technically "no such thing" as officially canceling, negating, or nullifying a Florida Notice to Owner ("NTO"). NTO's aren't filed and don't actually stake any claim in property - so, there isn't really anything to cancel. Plus, the Florida mechanics lien statute doesn't provide for any way to officially retract a notice (and, other states tend to fall into the same boat). With that being said, companies often send documents like a retraction letter in order to indicate that a previously-sent Notice to Owner should be ignored, or that the notice will be updated. Again, there's no official way to cancel an NTO that's been sent, but a retraction letter attempts to do so. As for whether a retraction letter is unnecessary and holds water: It's tough to say whether a retraction letter would actually be effective to remove a Notice to Owner since it's merely a letter and since there's no requirement for retraction letters. But, receiving a letter that says a previously-received Notice to Owner should be disregarded should serve it's own purpose - that the recipient not worry about the Notice to Owner they've received. If a notice-sender wants to cancel a previously-sent NTO in order to send a corrected version or to send it some other way, that can generally be done by simply re-sending a notice with the corrected information. And, the effectiveness of the new notice would likely depend on whether it had been sent within the required timeframes. Finally, in a situation where a flawed notice is sent and the notice-sender wants to "cancel" that notice before resending a corrected notice - since there's no "official" way to do that, utilizing a retraction letter to notify the recipient that the original notice is being corrected by another notice might be a helpful step. I believe the article you're referring to in your question is this one: How and Why to Send a Retraction Letter. Note that we've got some other articles that might be relevant here, too: (1) FAQ: Can I Cancel A Preliminary Notice? (2) A General Contractor Asked Me to Cancel My Preliminary Notice. What Should I Do?
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