Judgment liens in Florida

What to file, and where

A judgment becomes a lien on land one county at a time, and only when the paper carries an address.

Fla. Stat. 55.10¹ makes a judgment, order, or decree a lien on real property in a county when a certified copy of it is recorded in that county's official records or judgment lien record. Recording is the act that makes the lien. Not the entry, not the signing.

That same section attaches a condition small enough to miss. The judgment must contain the address of the person who holds the lien, or a separate affidavit stating that address must be recorded at the same moment. Without the address there is no lien.

A foreign judgment behaves differently on the clock. Under Fla. Stat. 55.507², a foreign judgment recorded in Florida does not operate as a lien until 30 days after the clerk mails notice of its recording.

What it reaches

One thing a Florida judgment lien does not reach is written into the statute.

Fla. Stat. 55.11³ provides that no money judgment or decree against a municipal corporation is a lien on its property. So a city can owe on a judgment and still hold its land clear of it.

How long it lasts, and renewing it

Florida runs two clocks: a per-county recording clock and a hard ceiling that starts earlier and cannot be moved.

A judgment lien on real property first recorded in a county on or after July 1, 1994 lasts in that county for an initial period of 10 years from the date of recording, under Fla. Stat. 55.10. One first recorded between July 1, 1987 and June 30, 1994 got an initial 7 years instead. Extend it for an additional 10 years by rerecording a certified copy before it expires, together with an affidavit giving the lienholder's current address. An extension runs from the rerecording, and without the affidavit there is no extension.

Behind that recording clock sits a ceiling. Fla. Stat. 55.081⁴, subject to section 55.10, makes no judgment, order, or decree a lien on real or personal property in the state after 20 years from the date it was entered. Those 20 years run from entry, not from recording.

Where the two clocks meet is the extension. Fla. Stat. 55.10 provides that no extension carries a judgment lien on real property beyond the period in section 55.081 or beyond the point at which the lien is satisfied, whichever comes first. So a rerecording extends the lien ten more years, or to the end of the twenty, or to the point the lien is satisfied, whichever comes first. Duration rules across the states are collected in a separate page on how long a judgment lien lasts.

Land in another county

A Florida judgment lien is a county creature, and nothing crosses a county line on its own.

Fla. Stat. 55.10 makes a judgment a lien on real property in a county when a certified copy of it is recorded in the official records or judgment lien record of that county. Its initial period runs per county from that county's recording. So a judgment recorded in Orange does nothing to land in Duval until a certified copy is recorded in Duval as well.

Homestead here, in one paragraph

Florida's homestead exemption is measured in acres rather than dollars, and it has a short list of claims it does not stop.

Article X, section 4(a) of the Florida Constitution exempts a homestead owned by a natural person from forced sale under process of any court, and provides that no judgment, decree or execution is a lien on it. Section 4(a)(1) sets that homestead, outside a municipality, at up to one hundred sixty acres of contiguous land and improvements, and it may not be reduced without the owner's consent merely because the land is later swept into a municipality. Inside a municipality it is up to one-half acre, limited there to the residence of the owner or the owner's family. Those exemptions inure to the surviving spouse or heirs of the owner, under section 4(b).

Protection is not absolute. Article X, section 4(a) does not apply to taxes and assessments on the property, obligations contracted for its purchase, improvement or repair, or obligations contracted for house, field or other labor performed on the realty. Fla. Stat. 222.01(5)⁵ carries the same four classes outside the notice of homestead procedure.

Acreage is where a creditor can push back. One dissatisfied with the quantity of land set apart as homestead may notify the levying officer, who must at the creditor's request have the land surveyed, under Fla. Stat. 222.03⁶. Expense of the survey is charged on the execution as costs, but if the person claiming the exemption does not own more than 160 acres in the state, the person who directed the survey pays for it. Protection is not only for land the debtor owns: under Fla. Stat. 222.05⁷, a person who owns and occupies a dwelling house, mobile home used as a residence, or modular home on land the person may lawfully possess by lease or otherwise, and claims it as homestead, is entitled to the exemption of that structure from levy and sale. Whether a given parcel qualifies as a homestead is the question none of this answers. Florida's homestead rule sits beside the other states in the homestead comparison page.

Where the records live

The office is the county, and the record is the one the county keeps.

A certified copy goes into the county's official records or judgment lien record, whichever that county maintains at the time of recording, and it carries the lienholder's address or a simultaneous affidavit giving it, under Fla. Stat. 55.10. For a foreign judgment, Fla. Stat. 55.507 adds the 30 day wait after the clerk mails notice before the record does anything. How the recording act differs across the country is laid out in the state by state page on judgment liens.