Home>Levelset Community>Legal Help>Q1: Does F.S. 713.21 also apply to mechanics liens on personal property under 713.58? Q2: (see below)

Q1: Does F.S. 713.21 also apply to mechanics liens on personal property under 713.58? Q2: (see below)

Florida

Q2: Is an attorney a lienor with respect to legal services rendered to an LLC that involved recovering possession of an aircraft? In other words, can an attorney properly claim a lien pursuant to 713.58 Fla. Stat. for legal services provided to an LLC that involved recovering possession of the LLC's aircraft? (The attorney never saw the aircraft during the course of the representation.)

1 reply

Sep 9, 2019

F.S. 713.21 begins: "Discharge of lien. A lien properly perfected under this chapter may be discharged by any of the following methods . . ." This is potentially misleading, however, as according to the Florida legislature, the "language 'this chapter' predates inclusion of this material in chapter 713 and, when initially included in this section’s text, referred to former chapter 84, Mechanics Liens." Accordingly, it does not appear that the discharge of liens as noted by 713.21 apply to "miscellaneous liens" in Part II of current Chapter 713. Regarding attorneys, the liens set forth by 713.58 are "liens for labor or services on personal property." While there are attorney liens to ensure the payment of an attorney for his or her services for their client, this is not the type of lien contemplated by 713.58 which requires actual work on a specific piece of personal property. There are two types of attorneys' liens in Florida, a charging lien and a retaining lien. A charging lien may be claimed when a client owes an attorney fees or costs in connection with a specific matter in which a suit has been filed. There are specific requirements to claim such a lien. A retaining lien, however, can be claimed with respect to amounts owed by a client for all legal work the attorney has done for the client, regardless of whether the materials upon which the attorney is claiming the lien were associated with the matter for which the client has outstanding amounts due. This type of lien may be claimed on the clients file materials and funds orproperty of the client's that is in the attorney's possession. Accordingly, while the lien pursuant to 713.58 is not applicable to services provided by an attorney (unless that attorney also provides actual services on a piece of personal property), an attorney may in some cases claim a lien against a client's personal property in order to ensure payment of amounts due.

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