Get the notice of commencement recorded before the inspector can turn you away

Florida gates your first inspection on a document somebody else records. If the direct contract on the job is over $5,000 and no copy of a recorded notice of commencement has reached the building department, the inspector does not come out, and every trade stacked behind that inspection stops with him.

Price that out with your own numbers. Call a loaded crew day $1,600 for four people, the truck and a lift you are renting by the week. Two days of standing around while an owner finds time to drive to the clerk's office is $3,200 of labor you have already committed, against a recording fee that starts at $10 for the first page. No version of that arithmetic favors leaving this as somebody else's admin.

By the end of this page you will have a yes or no on whether this particular job needs one, the contract line that puts the recording on the owner before you mobilize, a certified copy posted at the site, and two dates written on the job file: the day the 90 day commencement window closes and the day the notice goes stale a year out. Everything below is written against the 2025 Florida Statutes and names the section it comes from.

Settle whether this job needs one before you pull the permit

The test is the direct contract, meaning the contract with the property owner. Under s.713.135(1)(e) the issuing authority requires the applicant to file a copy of the notice of commencement before the first inspection when that direct contract is greater than $5,000. There is one carve-out written into the same section: it does not apply to a direct contract to repair or replace an existing heating or air conditioning system in an amount less than $15,000.

Read the last row twice. Subs and suppliers do not trigger this and do not record it, which is exactly why a $200,000 mechanical subcontract can be sitting on a job with nothing recorded at all. Your exposure is the same either way, because the inspection that stops is the one your work is waiting on.

Use $5,000, because $2,500 is the number from before October 2023

The threshold moved. $2,500 was the pre October 2023 figure, raised to $5,000 by 2023 HB 331, and the current text at s.713.135 says $5,000. This is one of the most reliably wrong facts in Florida construction. County handouts, contract templates, and legal answer pages are still quoting $2,500 years later, including the answer sitting under a Florida general contractor's question about who records it.

Recording one on a job between $2,500 and $5,000 is not a mistake, and on a lien-risk job it is a decision worth making on purpose, because of what recording does to priority. Under s.713.07(2) liens attach and take priority as of the time the notice of commencement is recorded, and where no notice is filed, each lien takes priority only from the date its own claim of lien is recorded. That sentence is why a recorded notice is worth more to you than the inspection it unlocks.

Put the recording on the owner in writing, before you mobilize

s.713.13(1)(a) puts it on the owner: an owner, before actually commencing to improve real property, records a notice of commencement and posts either a certified copy of it or a notarized statement that it has been filed for recording. The owner can authorize an agent, and it is ordinary for a general contractor to be that agent, at the owner's direction.

That gap between "the owner's job" and "your problem" is where the whole subject lives:

"We're a general contractor on a project in Florida. Are we supposed to record the notice of commencement with the county, or is the property owner supposed to do that? And what do we do if the owner won't do it, or is dragging their feet on this?"

a Florida general contractor asking a payment help board

Here is the trap underneath it. s.713.135(1)(f) says the permitting authority may not require a notice of commencement to be recorded as a condition of applying for, processing, or issuing your building permit. So the permit lands in your hand with nothing recorded, the job looks green, the crew mobilizes, and the wall comes at the first inspection instead of at the counter where somebody could have caught it.

The fix is a contract line, written once and reused: the owner records the notice of commencement and delivers a certified copy to you before mobilization, and your start date runs from the day that copy arrives. Now a slow owner moves your schedule instead of your payroll, and you have a dated document to point at when the conversation about float happens.

Post the certified copy on the site before the first inspection

Two separate steps, and people who only do one of them still fail.

Post it at the site. Under s.713.13(1)(a) the site carries a certified copy of the recorded notice, or a notarized statement that it has been filed along with a copy. The permit warning language at s.713.13(1)(d) puts it flatly: a notice of commencement must be recorded and posted on the site of the improvement before the first inspection.

File a copy with the issuing authority. s.713.135(1)(e) takes a certified copy of the recorded notice, or a notarized statement that it has been filed for recording along with a copy, or the clerk's official records identifying information. It can go in by mail, facsimile, hand delivery, or any other means. The copy has to carry the owner's name and address, the contractor's name and address, and the property location, and the authority checks those against your permit application, so make the address on the notice and the address on the permit match character for character.

Miss it and s.713.135(1)(e)1 is the consequence: with no copy on file, the issuing authority or a private provider performing inspection services may not perform or approve subsequent inspections. Not a fine. Not a warning letter. The next inspection simply does not happen.

Two minutes of admin closes this out permanently. Photograph the posted copy on the day it goes up with the permit box in the frame, and write the clerk's instrument or book and page number on the job file. The legal description you will need for a claim of lien later is already sitting on that recorded page.

<!-- capture: the Florida job-setup panel on a job record, notice of commencement answered yes, recorded date entered, the 90 day commencement window and the one year effective date showing underneath. Hold until a Florida tenant exists; an Ontario screen here would be a lie in picture form. -->

Break ground inside 90 days, or record it again

An owner who records early to lock something in has started a clock most people never hear about. Under s.713.13(2), if the improvement described in the notice is not actually commenced within 90 days after the recording, the notice is void and of no further effect. Under s.713.13(6) it is not effectual in law after 1 year from recording, unless the notice itself states a different period.

An existing notice can be amended under s.713.13(5)(a) to extend the effective period or fix erroneous information, and that amendment is cheap and boring on day 80. It is neither on day 95. A financing delay, an 11 week truss package or a permit revision is all it takes, and the day the notice goes void the inspection gate closes behind you and the priority date it was carrying is gone.

"I am a prime contractor finishing up a job and the owner does not want to pay. The notice of commencement on the job is expired, but would I still have lien rights if I furnished materials within 90 days?"

a Florida prime contractor, April 2021

That question gets asked at the worst possible moment, which is after the money has gone quiet. Asked on the day the notice was recorded it is not a question at all, it is two dates on a calendar.

Mine the recorded notice for the addresses your later notices need

The contents list at s.713.13(1)(a) is the reason to read the recorded copy rather than just confirm it exists. It carries a description sufficient to identify the property, a general description of the improvement, the owner's name and address, the contractor's name and address, the surety and bond amount where there is one, the lender's name and address, and the name and address in Florida of the person the owner designates to receive notices.

That is the service list for everything that comes after. A Notice to Owner under s.713.06(2)(a) is served before commencing or not later than 45 days after your first furnishing, and it goes to those addresses. The claim of lien under s.713.08(5) goes in not later than 90 days after your final furnishing, against that legal description. Both clocks count from your own job facts, and the first furnishing date is a number only you can supply. The mechanics of the 45 day notice are in the Florida notice to owner guide, the 90 day and one year dates are in the Florida lien deadlines guide, and the Florida lien deadline calculator counts both from the dates you type in.

One fork worth knowing before you go looking: on public work there is no lien and no notice of commencement to read, because you cannot lien public property. The instrument there is the payment bond, and the notices run on s.255.05 instead, which is the public job bond claim guide.

What it costs

There is no monthly subscription. The platform fee is 2.5% of each invoice processed through AEC Stack, collected on payment due dates.

The government side is small and worth quoting to an owner who is stalling. Recording fees are set per county under s.28.24. The Miami-Dade Clerk charges $10 for the first page and $8.50 for each additional page, with copies at $1 per page plus $2 to certify. So a two page notice recorded, plus one certified copy to post on the wall, runs about $22.50. A notary's fee is capped at $10 per notarial act by s.117.05(2)(a). Your permit fee is your county's own number and has nothing to do with any of this.

Twenty two dollars and change, against a first inspection that does not happen and a crew that bills whether the inspector shows or not.

Put the two dates on the job the day you sign

On AEC Stack the notice of commencement is a live question on the job record: does this job need one, asked per job rather than per business, because you are the direct contractor on one job and a second tier sub on the next. Answer yes with the recorded date and the 90 day commencement window and the one year effective date land on that job's calendar, alongside the 45 day and 90 day lien dates counted from your own furnishing dates.

The county gives you the form and the clerk gives you the stamp. What you keep here is the part that actually goes missing: the recorded date, the two dates it starts, and the owner and lender addresses that every later notice has to be served on. When a job does go far enough that somebody is drafting pleadings, that is the point to put a Florida construction attorney on it, with your dates already clean.

Open the Florida lien deadline calculator, put in the first furnishing date on the job you mobilized most recently, and look at how many of your 45 days are left. If that number surprises you, the notice of commencement on that job is worth checking this afternoon rather than in month five.