Construction Liens – Design Professionals’ Liens

Design professionals may claim a lien on an owner’s property under Florida Statutes Section 713.03.  That section provides that any person who performs services as an architect, landscape architect, interior designer, engineer, or surveyor and mapper, has a lien on the real property improved for any money that is owing to him or her for his or her services used in connection with improving the real property or for his or her services in supervising any portion of the work of improving the real property, rendered in accordance with his or her contract and with the direct contract.  In addition, if the design professional has a direct contract with the owner, then he or she can claim a lien regardless of whether the owner’s property is actually improved.  The design professional’s lien is not acquired until a claim of lien is recorded.  The design professional need not serve a notice to owner or an affidavit concerning unpaid lienors in order to claim a lien.