{"id":38559,"date":"2023-11-08T11:00:41","date_gmt":"2023-11-08T16:00:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/?p=38559"},"modified":"2023-11-08T11:00:48","modified_gmt":"2023-11-08T16:00:48","slug":"florida-law-makes-homeowners-liable-for-contractors-unpaid-bills","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/2023\/11\/08\/florida-law-makes-homeowners-liable-for-contractors-unpaid-bills\/","title":{"rendered":"Florida law makes homeowners liable for contractor\u2019s unpaid bills"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

If you own a home long enough, you\u2019ll eventually hire a contractor to make repairs or renovations, but before you hire that contractor you\u2019ll want to learn about a little-known and rarely talked about state law that holds Florida homeowners responsible for a contractor\u2019s unpaid bills.<\/p>\n\n\n

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When Tim Jones bought a place in St. Petersburg\u2019s high-priced housing market, he was looking for a more affordable fixer-upper. He found a home in Coquina Key back in June.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe old roof. It had a few bad spots in it,\u201d he said. \u201cSo, I wanted to go ahead and be proactive about that and get it changed out.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Soon after he bought the home, he hired contractors to begin renovations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI had the roof done, the air conditioning unit replaced, bathroom redone,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Replacing the roof costs more than anything else, more than $24,000, with the roofing company very specific about payments.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAt the end of each day, like when the supplies were delivered on the first day,\u201d he said. \u201cThey (the roofers) wanted full payment for the supplies. Which I paid, and so it was paid in three different increments, and the last one being the day after they finished.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Jones says repairs began on July 19 – his birthday. Three days later, the new roof was on and Jones said he paid in full. At least he thought he had until he got a letter in the mail less than a month later from the roofer\u2019s supply company notifying him it had put a lien on his home for $6.557.95. The roofing company hadn\u2019t paid yet for supplies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThey said according to state law they can put a claim of lien on someone\u2019s home,\u201d he said. \u201cUntil they get their money from the roofing company.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And the supply company is absolutely right, says Pinellas County Consumer Protection Manager Jason Ohman, thanks to the Florida Lien Law.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe Florida Lien Law allows a person who provides labor or materials to file a lien against the property if they\u2019re not paid in order to allow them to get paid in using this when your property is collateral,\u201d he said. \u201cYou could essentially get stuck paying twice for the same job.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ohman says the law has been on the books for decades. As you can imagine, Jones\u2019 frustration virtually sent him through the roof he thought he just paid for.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThat\u2019s kinda crazy because why should you be out of money for an attorney when you have proof that you already paid for the service in full?\u201d He said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If he doesn\u2019t pay, county officials say the supply company could foreclose on the entire home, roof and all. Officials say he can either pay the lien or fight it in court.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ohman recommends that homeowners ask contractors for a \u201clien release agree\u201d before they start work. For Tim, it\u2019s a $6,500 lesson he wants you to remember.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt\u2019s buyer beware when it comes to contractors in Florida,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

State officials didn\u2019t return a request for comment on why the lien laws are necessary by press time. Across the country, 26 other states have similar lien laws.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

If you own a home long enough, you\u2019ll eventually hire a contractor to make repairs or renovations, but before you hire that contractor you\u2019ll want to learn about a little-known… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":38560,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_seopress_robots_follow":"","_seopress_robots_imageindex":"","_seopress_robots_snippet":"","_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"0","_seopress_robots_breadcrumbs":"","_seopress_robots_freeze_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_custom_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_canonical":"","_seopress_social_fb_title":"","_seopress_social_fb_desc":"","_seopress_social_fb_img":"","_seopress_social_fb_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_height":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_title":"","_seopress_social_twitter_desc":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_height":0,"_seopress_redirections_value":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled_regex":"","_seopress_redirections_logged_status":"","_seopress_redirections_param":"","_seopress_redirections_type":0,"_seopress_analysis_target_kw":"","inline_featured_image":false,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"wpai_generated_summary":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"dois","default_image_id":71799,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"_wpas_customize_per_network":false},"categories":[14],"tags":[6643],"class_list":["post-38559","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-florida-law-makes-homeowners-liable-for-contractors-unpaid-bills"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38559","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=38559"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38559\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":38562,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38559\/revisions\/38562"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/38560"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=38559"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=38559"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=38559"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}