The short answer
Where and how do you record a construction lien in Miami-Dade County?
With the Clerk of the Court and Comptroller, acting as County Recorder, at 20 NW 1st Avenue, Suite 5.246. The fee is $10 for the first page and $8.50 for each additional — statutory figures, not a county invention. Three routes in: an approved e-recording vendor, the counter, or the mail; the last two need a stamped return envelope.
General information about construction lien law, not legal advice. Deadlines and requirements turn on your role, your contract, and the project, and a construction attorney is the right person to confirm how they apply to you.
A Claim of Lien is recorded in the official records of the county where the property sits. In Miami-Dade that means the Clerk of the Court and Comptroller, acting as County Recorder — the same index that holds every deed, mortgage, and Notice of Commencement in the county.
The recording itself is the easy part. What makes or breaks a filing is what happens on either side of it.
Which office, and which is not
The Clerk of the Court and Comptroller, Office of County Recorder records real property instruments, including your Claim of Lien and the Notice of Commencement you should already have pulled. The Clerk describes its role by reference to Chapter 28 of the Florida Statutes — the official recorder of all instruments that may, by law, be recorded in the county — and states plainly that it is not permitted to give legal advice. That second sentence is the useful one: the recorder checks recordability, not whether your claim is good.
The Miami-Dade Property Appraiser values property and publishes a free parcel search. It is where you confirm the owner shown on the roll and the folio number. It records nothing.
The courts are where a foreclosure suit eventually lands, if it comes to that. Different clock, different professional.
How to record a Claim of Lien in Miami-Dade
From the Notice of Commencement to service of the recorded claim
- Pull the Notice of Commencement and confirm the owner and description
From the Clerk’s official records, or the copy posted at the job site. It carries the legal description, the folio, the owner and the fee simple titleholder, the contractor, the surety and bond amount if any, the lender, and the person designated to receive notices Fla. Stat. § 713.13(1)(a).
- Check that you are inside 90 days of your final furnishing
A claim of lien may be recorded during the progress of the work or afterwards, but not later than 90 days after your final furnishing of labor, services or materials. Where the original contract is terminated under § 713.07(4), a claim for a lien attaching before that termination may not be recorded after 90 days following the termination or 90 days after your final furnishing, whichever occurs first § 713.08(5).
- Draft the claim with all eight required contents
Your name and the address where notices or process may be served on you, who you contracted with or were employed by, the labor or materials and their contract price or value, a description of the property sufficient for identification, the owner’s name, the first and last dates of furnishing, the amount unpaid, and — where you are not in privity — the date and method of service of your Notice to Owner § 713.08(1).
- Sign and swear it before a notary
The claim must be signed and sworn to or affirmed by the lienor or an agent acquainted with the facts, and the statutory form is executed before a notary public § 713.08(2), (3). The Miami-Dade recorder also requires that documents be original or court certified as well as signed and notarised.
- Format the first page for the recorder before you submit
Reserve a 3-inch by 3-inch space at the top right-hand corner of the first page and a 1-inch by 3-inch space at the top right of every later page, print the name of each signer beneath the signature with a post-office address, print the notary’s name beneath the notary signature, and print the name and post-office address of the person who prepared the instrument § 695.26.
- Submit by e-recording, at the counter, or by mail
E-record through one of the Clerk’s approved vendors, or bring the original with the fees and a self-addressed stamped envelope to the Osvaldo N. Soto Miami-Dade Justice Center, or mail it to the Office of County Recorder at 20 NW 1st Avenue, Suite 5.246, Miami, FL 33128, again with a self-addressed stamped envelope.
- Serve the recorded claim on the owner within 15 days
Failure to serve the claim in the manner section 713.18 permits, before recording or within 15 days after, renders the claim voidable to the extent the failure or delay is shown to have been prejudicial to a person entitled to rely on the service § 713.08(4)(c).
The full filing sequence, statewide, is Chapter 5 of the Florida guide. Finding the owner and the description is the research walkthrough.
What the recorder charges, and why
| Line item | Amount |
|---|---|
| Recording fee, first page | $10.00 |
| Each additional page | $8.50 |
| Indexing | $1.00 for each name in excess of four, under the state fee statute |
| Copies | $1.00 per page, plus $2.00 to certify the document |
| Lis pendens (for comparison) | $5.00 first page, $4.00 each additional |
| E-recording vendor fee | Set by the vendor, not by the Clerk, and charged on top of the fees above |
| Always confirmFees, cutoff times, and turnaround change without much announcement. Check the current schedule on the Miami-Dade Clerk's official records page before you file. Figures here were read off the clerk's own pages in August 2026. | |
Note the shape of it: the second page costs almost as much as the first. A four-page claim runs $35.50 against a one-page claim’s $10, so an exhibit you do not need is a real if small cost, and a claim padded out with attachments is paying for the privilege.
Those figures are not a Miami-Dade decision, which is worth knowing because it tells you what will and will not change. Florida’s clerk fee statute stacks three separate charges on an instrument recorded in the official records:
- recording, indexing and filing an instrument not more than 14 by 8½ inches: $5.00 first page, $4.00 each additional page;
- a Public Records Modernization Trust Fund charge: $1.00 first page, $0.50 each additional page; and
- a further service charge of $4 per page on instruments recorded in the official records.
$5 + $1 + $4 is the $10 first page. $4 + $0.50 + $4 is the $8.50 after it. The same statute sets the $1.00 charge for indexing instruments containing more than four names. That is why a Miami-Dade recording costs the same as a Hillsborough one, and it is also why the number moves when the legislature moves it rather than when a county decides to. Clerks can and do collect other charges in other contexts, so price a filing off the Clerk’s current published schedule rather than off any article.
The documentary stamp figures elsewhere on the Clerk’s fee pages attach to deeds and notes, not to a claim of lien. If you are unsure how a particular document will be assessed, ask the recorder before submitting rather than after.
The format rules clerks actually reject on
This is the part county pages cover and lien articles skip, and it is the most common reason a package comes back.
Florida sets recording formatting by statute for any instrument by which title to real property or an interest in it is conveyed, assigned, encumbered, or otherwise disposed of. A Claim of Lien encumbers, so the section reaches it [Fla. Stat. § 695.26]:
- The name of each person who executed the instrument must be legibly printed, typewritten or stamped immediately beneath their signature, with that person’s post-office address also printed on it.
- The name and post-office address of the natural person who prepared the instrument, or under whose supervision it was prepared, must be printed on it.
- The name of any notary public whose signature appears must be printed immediately beneath the notary signature.
- A 3-inch by 3-inch space at the top right-hand corner of the first page, and a 1-inch by 3-inch space at the top right-hand corner of each later page, is reserved for the clerk.
- Witness names and addresses follow the same rule where the instrument has witnesses.
Two sensible relief valves in the same section. Where a name or address is printed somewhere other than the required position, the clerk may in their discretion accept the instrument if the connection between signature and name, or name and address, is apparent. And the clerk’s failure to comply with the section does not impair the validity of the recordation or of the constructive notice it imparts. The section also does not apply to instruments executed, acknowledged or proved outside Florida, among other exclusions.
On top of that, the Clerk’s own requirement: all documents must be original or court certified as well as signed and notarised. Between the statute and that sentence, the recurring rejection causes are predictable — an incomplete or missing notary block, no preparer name and address, print too faint to scan, and no reserved space at the top right of the first page.
The three ways in
| Route | Where it goes | What to know |
|---|---|---|
| E-record through an approved vendor | Submitted electronically by the vendor. The Clerk lists Corporation Service Company, e-Docs Solutions, eRecording Partners, Hopdox, Simplifile, and Swift-E Recording, and notes it is precluded from recommending among them. | The Clerk describes the requirements as a computer with high-speed internet and a scanner, with fees paid by ACH, and says the document types available depend on the vendor. Its disclaimer states documents may take approximately one to three business days to review and process before public viewing, and that it cannot guarantee same-day recording. |
| In person | Osvaldo N. Soto Miami-Dade Justice Center, 20 NW 1st Avenue, Miami, FL 33128 — the same building as the recorder’s suite. | Bring the original documents, the appropriate fees, and a self-addressed stamped envelope. The Clerk explicitly recommends recording in person where a document is time-sensitive. Cash is accepted in person only; credit cards are in person only, with a $5,000 daily limit. |
| By mail | Office of County Recorder, 20 NW 1st Avenue, Suite 5.246, Miami, Florida 33128. | Original documents, the appropriate fees, and a self-addressed stamped envelope. Payable, where applicable, to Clerk of the Court and Comptroller. Cheapest, slowest, and the route where a rejection comes back after your 90 days. |
| Addresses, fees, turnaround and payment rules change without much announcement. Confirm them on the Clerk’s own pages before relying on them, and treat a close deadline as a reason to use the channel the Clerk itself recommends for time-sensitive documents. | ||
Two habits cover the timing risk:
- Record early. A week of buffer costs nothing and absorbs a rejection. Florida extends a period whose last day is a Saturday, Sunday or specified holiday to the end of the next business day, and tolls recording and filing periods while the clerk’s office is closed in an emergency [§ 713.011]. Neither is a plan.
- Do not mail on a deadline. A rejected mailed package comes back after the fact. An electronic rejection comes back with a reason while you can still fix it.
Before you record: two fields and a deadline
- Notice of CommencementPull it from official records. Owner, description, contractor, surety, notice addresses.
- Property Appraiser folioConfirm the parcel and the owner if no notice of commencement was ever recorded.
- Swear the claim, then recordSigned and notarised before it goes to the recorder. E-record, counter, or mail.
Two things belong on the claim that are not on your invoice: the owner and the legal description as recorded. Both usually come straight off the Notice of Commencement, which is exactly why Florida lienors pull it on day one of a job rather than the week an invoice goes bad. Where no notice was ever recorded, the statute lets a lienor rely on the information in the building permit application to serve the notice it requires [§ 713.06(2)(e)]. Our owner and legal description walkthrough covers the whole chain, including who counts as the owner on a tenant build-out.
Names get indexed, and indexing costs money over four of them. A dollar a name is trivial; the hint is not. The names on the claim are how everyone finds it later, so spell the owner’s entity name the way the business registry spells it rather than the way the invoice does.
Multi-county jobs need multiple filings. Multi-parcel jobs may not. Where the real property is situated in two or more counties, the claim of lien is recorded in the clerk’s office in each of them [§ 713.08(5)], so a project spanning the Miami-Dade and Broward line gets a claim recorded in each. Several parcels inside one county are a different question: nothing requires a separate claim per parcel, and one claim can reach more than one where the description identifies them. What that raises instead is whether the work was one improvement or several and how the amount is allocated, which is technical enough to be worth counsel rather than a rule of thumb.
The other documents that live in this index
The recorder is not only where liens go, and a lienor benefits from knowing what else is filed in the same place.
The Notice of Commencement is recorded here by the owner before work begins on most projects, and posted at the job site. It is the single most useful document in a Florida job file, and pulling it is free. Check whether it is still effective: it is void if the improvement is not actually commenced within 90 days of recording, and unless it says otherwise it stops being effectual against conveyances, mortgages, creditors and subsequent purchasers a year after recording [§ 713.13(2), (6)].
Payment bonds. A payment bond furnished under § 713.23 has to have a copy attached at the time the notice of commencement is recorded, and failing to attach it negates the § 713.02(6) exemption — though a bond that exists but was not attached may still be used to transfer any recorded lien of a lienor except that of the contractor, by the recordation and service of a notice of bond under § 713.23(2) [§ 713.13(1)(e)]. So a surety name in the index is a question rather than an answer: a § 713.23 payment bond, a later bond transferring an existing lien under § 713.24, and a public-project bond are different animals on different clocks. Find out which one you are looking at on day one, not in month four.
Notices of contest, transfers to security, and satisfactions appear in the same index later. A recorded Notice of Contest is how an owner cuts your enforcement window from a year to 60 days from the clerk’s service. A transfer to security releases the property and moves your claim to a deposit or bond [§ 713.24]. A satisfaction or release is what clears the property once you are paid, and Florida requires it to carry the lienor’s notarised signature and set out the official records reference number and recording date of the lien it releases [§ 713.21(2)].
If you are an owner searching for a lien
Search the official records by owner name or by property to see what is recorded against a parcel; the recorded image tells you who claims what. The Clerk also publishes a property fraud alert service, which is worth knowing about separately from any dispute.
If you believe a recorded claim has been paid or is improper, the routes are statutory and they are not all equally suitable. A satisfaction or release from the lienor is the clean one. A transfer to security under § 713.24 releases the property by substituting a deposit or bond, at the amount demanded in the claim plus three years’ interest plus the greater of $5,000 or 25 percent of the amount demanded toward fees and costs. A recorded notice of contest compresses the lienor’s suit window to 60 days from the clerk’s service. A show-cause summons under § 713.21(4) gives 20 days after service and ends in a court order. And a request for a sworn statement of account deprives a lienor of the lien if it goes unanswered under oath for 30 days [§ 713.16(2)]. Which of those fits is a conversation for a Florida construction attorney: the statute’s remedies for improper liens are real, and so are the prevailing-party fee consequences of using them badly [§ 713.29].
After the stamp: 15 days, then a year
Recording is not the last step in Florida.
Serve the claim. It must be served on the owner in the manner § 713.18 permits, either before recording or within 15 days after. Failure renders the claim voidable to the extent the failure or delay is shown to have been prejudicial to a person entitled to rely on the service [§ 713.08(4)(c)]. Voidable on a showing of prejudice is not the same as void, and it is worth knowing the difference before somebody uses the harsher version against a real claim. The permitted methods are hand delivery to the specified individuals, common carrier or registered, Global Express Guaranteed or certified mail with evidence of delivery, or posting on the site of the improvement where the first two cannot be accomplished — and a document served on one owner is deemed served on all owners [§ 713.18]. Many claimants serve everyone named in the Notice of Commencement; the statutory obligation for the claim runs to the owner.
Then calendar the enforcement clock. A lien does not continue longer than one year after the claim of lien was recorded, or one year after recording an amended claim showing a later final furnishing date, unless an action to enforce is commenced within that time — and a lien continued beyond the year by commencing an action is not enforceable against creditors or subsequent purchasers for value without notice unless a lis pendens is recorded [§ 713.22(1)]. An owner can compress that year to 60 days from the clerk’s service of a notice of contest, and a court proceeding can produce a 20-day show-cause summons. Chapter 7 of the Florida guide covers those counter-moves.
What this costs, and what we do
The county’s part of a Miami-Dade filing is $10 plus $8.50 a page and a self-addressed stamped envelope. On a two-page claim that is $18.50, and it is the least interesting number in the process.
What costs money is the timing and the paper around it: a claim recorded on day 91, a claim never served, a claim whose amount cannot be documented, or a Notice to Owner that went out on day 46. Any of those turns a real debt into a defence, in a statute with prevailing-party fees.
Or hand the whole thing over. SimpleLiens pulls the county records, prepares the Claim of Lien, handles online notarisation, e-records with the Miami-Dade recorder through a provider, and serves the required copies by certified mail with proof kept in your file. Notices are $29 each and a Claim of Lien is a flat fee — see what a Florida filing includes. If the general contractor above you is the reason you are here, the escalation playbook for Florida subcontractors covers what sits either side of this filing.
Miami-Dade lien recording: quick answers
How much? $10 first page, $8.50 each additional, $1 per indexed name over four. A four-page claim is $35.50.
Why those numbers? They are three statutory charges stacked: $5 + $1 + $4 on the first page, $4 + $0.50 + $4 after it.
E-recording? Six approved vendors, ACH fees, and the Clerk’s own disclaimer of roughly one to three business days with no same-day guarantee.
In a hurry? The Clerk recommends recording in person for a time-sensitive document. Bring the original, the fee, and a self-addressed stamped envelope.
Mail? Office of County Recorder, 20 NW 1st Avenue, Suite 5.246, Miami, FL 33128 — again with a self-addressed stamped envelope.
Format? 3×3 inches clear at the top right of page one, 1×3 on later pages, printed names and addresses under every signature, and the preparer named.
After recording? Serve the owner within 15 days, then calendar one year — which an owner can cut to 60 days.