Home>Levelset Community>Legal Help>Looking at our situation, we are considered environmental service consultants, not a construction prime, and we brought in other laborers to get the work done. From your documents, it appears, because of our status in Florida (other design professionals), we are not required to file a preliminary notice but should file a notice of intent to lien prior to filing the mechanics lien. Please advise.

Looking at our situation, we are considered environmental service consultants, not a construction prime, and we brought in other laborers to get the work done. From your documents, it appears, because of our status in Florida (other design professionals), we are not required to file a preliminary notice but should file a notice of intent to lien prior to filing the mechanics lien. Please advise.

We are environmental consultants that helped a restaurant meet compliance requirements with Miami-Dade County. Now that the work is done, they have not responded to our invoices for payment. We are trying to be patient, but we have others that need to be paid.

1 reply

May 30, 2019

In Florida, mechanics lien claimants who contracted directly with the owner of the property, and all parties claiming a lien for professional services, do not need to provide the Notice to Owner that is otherwise generally required of project participants in Florida. A direct contractor is required to respond to a request from the owner to identify all subs and suppliers, and must provide a "final payment affidavit" prior to final payment, stating that all subs and suppliers who provided the owner with a notice to owner have been paid (r, if they haven't, the identity of the unpaid parties). Design professionals are exempt from providing the final payment affidavit.

Liens for Professional Services are set forth by § 713.03. Such liens, however, are limited to parties providing services as an "architect, landscape architect, interior designer, engineer, or surveyor and mapper." Further, a party claiming a lien in Florida must be licensed if a license is required for the work performed. "Consultants" who perform no actual work to permanently improve the property, and who are not providing services as an architect, landscape architect, interior designer, engineer, or surveyor and mapper, may not be afforded mechanics lien protection in Florida.

To the extent that a mechanics lien is appropriate, no party with a direct contract with the owner, or who is a design professional as set forth by statute, is required to give a preliminary notice prior to filing mechanics lien. Note, however, that a mechanics lien in Florida must be filed within 90 days of the last day labor or material was performed.

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