Construction Matters

Quick summary: By the time a construction payment problem starts, you’ve already spent the money. The crew was paid on Friday. The materials are in the building and they aren’t coming back out. Florida gives you real security for that — but it runs on deadlines that don’t forgive, and missing one can end a claim nobody even disputes.

---

You already spent it

This is what makes construction different from most commercial disputes. In a normal fight over money, both sides still have their money. Here, one side has already converted its cash into somebody else’s building.

• Payroll went out regardless. Your people were paid for work you haven’t been paid for. That gap came out of your line of credit, or your own account, and it’s still there.
• Materials don’t come back. You can repossess a truck. You cannot repossess a poured slab or a finished electrical rough-in.
• You’re financing someone else’s project. Slow payment upstream turns subs and suppliers into involuntary lenders, on terms nobody agreed to.
• Retainage is your money, held. Often five or ten percent of everything you’ve billed, sitting with someone else long after the work was accepted.
• The next job depends on this one. Cash tied up here is the bond capacity, the crew and the mobilization you needed for what’s next.
• It’s a small industry. You may want to work with these people again, and everybody talks. That’s a real consideration, and it shapes how a claim should be made — not whether it should be.

None of that changes the law. It does change what “wait and see how it plays out” actually costs you, which is usually more than people think.

---

The deadlines are the whole game

Florida gives contractors, subcontractors and suppliers genuine security for payment. It also conditions that security on a sequence of steps taken on time.

Miss one and the security is gone, however good the underlying claim is. A subcontractor owed money for work everyone agrees was performed can lose lien rights entirely by treating a notice requirement as paperwork. That is the single most expensive mistake in this practice area, and it is almost always made by someone who was busy running a job.

• Preliminary notice. Parties without a direct contract with the owner generally have to notify early to preserve rights at all. This is the step most often missed.
• Recording the lien. A defined window running from when your work or materials were last supplied.
• Suing on the lien. A further deadline after recording, and the lien lapses if it passes.
• Bond claims run on their own clock. On a bonded job the lien may not attach to the property and the claim is against the bond instead, with different notice requirements.
• Final payment affidavits and releases. Signing the wrong release, or an unconditional one too early, can waive claims you meant to keep.

The exact periods depend on your role on the project and how the job is set up, which is precisely why the question is worth asking early rather than assuming a number you half remember from a previous job.

---

Who we act for

Owners and developers, general contractors, subcontractors, suppliers, architects and engineers — on residential and commercial projects across Florida.

What we handle

• Contract drafting and negotiation. Scope, payment terms, change order procedure, retainage, delay and indemnity provisions — the clauses that decide every later argument.
• Mechanic’s liens and project liens. Perfecting, enforcing, defending and discharging.
• Bond claims. Payment and performance bond claims and defense.
• Payment disputes. Non-payment, slow payment, retainage held past completion, and disputed change orders.
• Delay and disruption claims. Including the entitlement and causation arguments that decide them.
• Defect claims. Workmanship and performance disputes, prosecution and defense.
• Licensing complaints and regulatory matters. Including OSHA citations and construction approval issues.
• Bid protests. Challenges to award and procurement decisions.

---

Why Kass Shuler

Construction sits directly on top of two other things this firm does. A lien claim is a collections problem with a statute attached. A project where the owner or the general contractor has stopped paying and may be insolvent is a creditors’ rights problem. Neither requires a referral here.

That matters because of where these files actually go. Perfecting the lien is the beginning, not the end. If the money still doesn’t come, it gets pursued with the same tools used on any other debt — through judgment and enforcement if that’s what it takes. And if the party upstream files for bankruptcy, the deadlines protecting your claim start running that day, in a practice that also sits in this building.

Kass Shuler has practiced construction, real estate and creditors’ rights in Tampa for over four decades.

The cheapest construction dispute, though, is the one the contract prevented. We would rather look at your form documents once than litigate the same ambiguity on three projects.

---

Common questions

We finished the job and the general contractor won’t pay. What now?

The first question is whether your lien rights are still alive — which depends on your role, whether the required notice went out, and when you last supplied labor or materials. That answer determines everything else, so it’s the call to make this week rather than next month.

We want to get paid but we also want to work with this contractor again.

Both are usually possible, and this is a more common position than people admit. Recording a lien is a statutory step to protect a deadline, not a declaration of war, and it’s frequently understood that way in the industry. The sequence and the tone are choices — what isn’t a choice is letting a deadline pass to keep things comfortable. That costs you the leverage and the relationship, because nothing concentrates a slow payer like knowing the clock has run out on you.

We missed a notice deadline. Is the claim dead?

Your lien rights may be, but the underlying debt isn’t. A breach of contract claim survives independently, and where a bond, a personal guarantee or a solvent party is in the picture there may be a route that doesn’t depend on the lien at all. Losing lien rights is a serious blow, not the end of the file.

They’re still holding our retainage and the job closed out months ago.

Retainage is your money and it has its own release conditions, usually tied to completion, punch list and final documentation. Whether those conditions have been met is often the entire dispute. It’s worth checking what the contract actually requires before accepting that it’s simply “not released yet” — and worth checking your deadlines, because retainage claims are subject to the same clocks as everything else.

A subcontractor has recorded a lien on our property and we’ve already paid the general contractor.

This is one of the most common owner problems in Florida construction, and whether the payment protects you turns on how the job was documented — releases obtained, affidavits collected, and whether proper notice had reached you. There are also procedures for contesting a lien or transferring it to bond. Do not simply pay twice.

The owner keeps rejecting change orders and the job has slipped.

Delay and change order claims live or die on contemporaneous records — the schedule, the correspondence, the daily reports. Getting advice while the project is running is far more valuable than after, because that’s when the record you’ll need is still being created.

Can you review our standard subcontract?

Yes, and it’s usually the cheapest work we do for a construction client. Payment timing, change order procedure, indemnity and dispute resolution clauses recur on every project you take, so fixing them once compounds across the whole book.

---

Bottom line: you’ve already paid for this work out of your own pocket. Florida protects people in that position, but only if they take the required steps on time. If a job has gone quiet on payment, the deadline question is the one to answer first — and it’s a short conversation.

Talk to us · (813) 229-0900 · 1604 N. Marion St., Tampa, FL 33602 · Serving the construction industry statewide across Florida

Related: Business & Commercial Litigation · Collections for Creditors · All services