Florida Judgment Collection
Florida is the rare state where the filing is easy and the finding is hard. A judgment creditor here works two separate liens in two separate offices – a Judgment Lien Certificate filed with the Florida Department of State for personal property under Fla. Stat. 55.202, and a certified copy recorded in the official records of each county for real estate under Fla. Stat. 55.10 – on two different clocks. Then Florida’s exemptions take most of what you can see off the table: a constitutional homestead with no dollar cap, a head-of-family wage bar at $750 a week, retirement accounts, annuities, and a presumption that a married couple’s joint accounts are entireties property. What is left is real, but it has to be identified before any writ is worth issuing – and the Department of State’s own collection guidance says plainly that the sheriff will not locate the property for you. That locate is our work: finding the debtor, the employer, the county footprint, and the recorded assets that Florida law leaves reachable. This page is general information, not legal advice.
The Short Version
A Florida money judgment is enforceable for 20 years under Fla. Stat. 95.11(1), but the liens that make it collectible run on shorter clocks and are filed in two different places. A Judgment Lien Certificate filed with the Florida Department of State creates a statewide lien on the debtor’s non-exempt personal property; it lasts 5 years, can be renewed exactly once, and expressly does not reach money, negotiable instruments, fixtures, or mortgages. To touch real estate you separately record a certified copy of the judgment in each county where the debtor holds title; that lien runs 10 years and can be re-recorded once. Then Florida’s exemptions do their work: the constitutional homestead has no dollar cap, a head of family earning $750 a week or less is fully protected from wage garnishment, and retirement plans, annuities, and entireties property are largely off-limits. So Florida collection is an identification problem. We locate the debtor, the employer, and the county-by-county recorded assets so your attorney can aim the right writ at something that actually exists. We do not garnish, levy, or advise on the law. General information, not legal advice.
Watch: Collecting in Florida
Why the exemptions make this a locating problem.
Watch Overview
Two Liens, Two Filing Offices
Florida splits personal property from real property.
Most states give a judgment creditor one lien, created by recording in the county where the debtor owns something. Florida gives you two, and they are created in different places by different documents. Getting this wrong is the most common reason a Florida judgment sits for years with no priority behind it.
Personal property: the Judgment Lien Certificate
Under Fla. Stat. 55.202 and 55.203, the lien on personal property is created by filing a Judgment Lien Certificate with the Florida Department of State – the same Division of Corporations that handles business filings – not with a court or a county clerk. The filing may be made after the judgment becomes final, once the time to move for rehearing has passed, with no rehearing motion pending and no stay in effect. Once filed, that single statewide filing attaches to the debtor’s interest in personal property in Florida that is subject to execution under Fla. Stat. 56.061, plus payment intangibles and accounts, and establishes a priority date against other judgment creditors. Section 55.209(1) fixes the fee at $20 per certificate plus $5 for each additional debtor name indexed – but the fee buys notice, not research: 55.209(2) bars the Department from searching its own database for you and certifies nothing about a lien’s validity.
What it does not reach matters just as much, and this is the detail most Florida collection pages skip: section 55.202 expressly excludes fixtures, money, negotiable instruments, and mortgages. A filed Judgment Lien Certificate therefore does not freeze the debtor’s bank balance. Cash still requires a writ of garnishment under chapter 77. A titled motor vehicle is its own problem too – the ordinary route to getting a lien noted on a Florida certificate of title runs through proceedings supplementary and an order directing the Department of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles, under Fla. Stat. 56.29(6)(b).
Real property: a certified copy, county by county
Real estate is on the other track entirely. Under Fla. Stat. 55.10 you record a certified copy of the judgment in the official records of the county where the land sits, together with an affidavit giving the current address of the lienholder. There is no statewide real-property lien in Florida. If your debtor owns a condominium in Broward, a rental duplex in Hillsborough, and vacant acreage in Polk, that is three separate recordings in three separate counties – which means you need an accurate, current picture of where they hold title before you file anything. Building that county-by-county footprint is exactly what our work on finding a judgment debtor’s real estate is for.
Section 55.10 is also unforgiving about form. The recorded judgment must itself contain the address of the person holding the lien, or an address affidavit must be recorded simultaneously with it; without one or the other, the recording creates no lien at all. That is a clerical detail that quietly costs Florida creditors their priority date, and it is worth confirming on every county recording rather than assuming the clerk caught it.
The Head-of-Family Wage Bar
Florida’s exemption is not the federal 25 percent rule.
Creditors arriving from other states usually assume Florida garnishment works the federal way – a percentage of disposable earnings, every paycheck. For a large share of Florida debtors it does not work that way at all. Fla. Stat. 222.11 protects a head of family, defined as a natural person providing more than half the support for a child or other dependent. If that person’s disposable earnings are $750 a week or less, all of those earnings are exempt from attachment and garnishment. Not a percentage. All of them.
Above that weekly figure, the earnings of a head of family may not be garnished either unless the debtor agreed otherwise in writing – and the statute makes that waiver deliberately hard to obtain by accident. The agreement must be written in the same language as the contract it relates to, must sit in a separate document attached to that contract, must appear in at least 14-point type, and must use the statutory notice telling the debtor in plain terms that signing is the only way to give up the protection. Most consumer and small-business paper does not contain a conforming waiver, which is why so many Florida wage garnishments come back yielding nothing.
The protection also follows the money into the bank. Earnings exempt under section 222.11 that are credited or deposited at a financial institution remain exempt for 6 months after the institution receives them, so long as the funds can be traced and identified as earnings – and the statute says commingling with other funds does not by itself defeat that tracing. In practice a well-advised Florida debtor claims the exemption, and a bank garnishment on a paycheck account gets unwound.
None of that makes the employer irrelevant. It makes the employer a qualifying fact: whether the debtor is a head of family at all, what the disposable figure looks like, and whether a continuing writ against salary under Fla. Stat. 77.0305 is worth serving. That section also settles two practical points: employment by the state or its subdivisions is no obstacle, since Florida waived sovereign immunity for this narrow purpose, and the employer may keep up to $5 from the first deduction and $2 from each one after. We identify the current, verified employer through public records and licensed data so that call can be made on evidence rather than a guess – the same work described on our page about finding a judgment debtor’s employer. The statutory mechanics of the withholding itself are covered in our Florida wage garnishment laws explainer.
Homestead, Entireties, and the Married Debtor
Two protections that are constitutional and judge-made, not statutory.
Florida’s homestead protection lives in Article X, section 4 of the state constitution, which is why no legislature can trim it and no creditor can bargain around it in advance. Unlike the capped homestead exemptions most states put in a statute, Florida’s has no dollar limit. It is limited by geography instead: up to half an acre if the property lies within a municipality, up to 160 contiguous acres if it does not. A debtor with a fully paid Gulf-coast house can hold seven figures of equity that an ordinary money judgment simply cannot reach.
The exemption is not absolute, and the exceptions are the ones written into the constitution itself: obligations for property taxes and assessments, obligations contracted for the purchase, improvement, or repair of the property, and obligations for house, field, or other labor performed on the realty. It also depends on facts – actual ownership and use as a permanent residence by a Florida resident. That last point is where a locate earns its keep in a state full of second homes, seasonal residents, and recent arrivals: an address on a court file is not proof of a permanent home, and the difference between a homestead and a winter place is a factual question your attorney will want evidence on.
Entireties property and the burden shift
The second protection is judge-made. In Beal Bank, SSB v. Almand and Associates, 780 So. 2d 45 (Fla. 2001), the Florida Supreme Court held that where a married couple acquires personal property – a bank account included – with the unities of possession, interest, title, and time and with right of survivorship, a presumption arises that it is held as a tenancy by the entireties. The practical consequence for a creditor of one spouse is that the burden shifts to you to prove, by a preponderance of the evidence, that an entireties tenancy was not created. Property held that way is generally not reachable for the individual debt of one spouse.
That is why titling research, not just asset discovery, drives Florida cases involving a married debtor. Whose name is on the deed, when the account was opened, whether the signature card carried survivorship language, and whether the couple was married at acquisition are all record questions with real consequences. We report how assets appear to be titled and when they were acquired, including whether an account or parcel appears to be jointly held; the entireties analysis itself belongs to counsel. The account-identification side of that work is described on our page about locating a judgment debtor’s bank account.
What Florida Law Takes Off the Table
The exemption map, and what has to be located for each line.
| Asset | Florida rule | Effect on a creditor | What has to be found |
|---|---|---|---|
| Primary residence | Fla. Const. art. X, sec. 4 – no dollar cap; limited to half an acre in a municipality or 160 contiguous acres outside one | Generally cannot be forced to sale for an ordinary money judgment. Carve-outs: property taxes and assessments, purchase-money and improvement or repair obligations, and labor on the realty. | Whether the Florida address is a genuine permanent home, and what non-homestead parcels exist elsewhere. |
| Wages | Fla. Stat. 222.11 – head of family with disposable earnings at or below $750 a week | At or below the line, fully exempt. Above it, reachable only if the debtor signed a conforming written waiver. | The current employer, and whether the debtor supports a child or other dependent. |
| Bank deposits | Fla. Stat. 222.11 six-month trace; entireties presumption from Beal Bank, SSB v. Almand, 780 So. 2d 45 (Fla. 2001) | Exempt earnings stay protected 6 months after deposit if traceable; a married couple’s joint account is presumed entireties property, shifting the burden to you. | The institution and branch, and how the account is titled. |
| Motor vehicle | Fla. Stat. 222.25(1) – $5,000 of interest in one vehicle, raised from $1,000 effective July 1, 2024 | Equity above the exempt amount is leviable, but the title lien route runs through proceedings supplementary. | Titled vehicles, vessels and trailers, and physically where they sit. |
| Wildcard | Fla. Stat. 222.25(4) – $4,000 of personal property, available only if the debtor claims no homestead benefit | A renting debtor gets it; a homesteading debtor does not. It is one or the other. | Whether the debtor owns or rents, and where. |
| Retirement, annuities, life insurance | Fla. Stat. 222.21, 222.14, 222.13 | Qualified plans and IRAs, annuity proceeds and policy cash surrender value, and death benefits paid to a named beneficiary are broadly protected. | Worth documenting, rarely worth pursuing – note it and move on. |
| Non-homestead real estate, business interests, receivables | Reached via Fla. Stat. 55.10 recording, 55.202 filing, and 56.29 proceedings supplementary Reachable | This is where Florida judgments actually get paid. | Every county of title, the entities behind them, and who owes the debtor money. |
Every row above ends somewhere the court file cannot take you. Which county holds the title. Who signs the paychecks. How the account was opened, and when. Whether the Gulf-coast address is a homestead or a January rental. Florida law settles what is exempt; only the record settles what exists in the first place. Your attorney makes the first call and we develop the facts behind the second – the full category-by-category picture sits in our reference on Florida asset exemptions from creditors.
Three Clocks Running at Once
The judgment outlives both liens – if you renew them.
The judgment: 20 years. Fla. Stat. 95.11(1) gives you 20 years to bring an action on a judgment or decree of a Florida court of record. That is generous by national standards and it is why a Florida debtor who looks collection-proof at 35 can be worth pursuing at 48. It is also why a Florida file should never simply be closed – it should be monitored.
The personal-property lien: 5 years, renewable once. Under Fla. Stat. 55.204 the lien created by a Judgment Lien Certificate lapses 5 years after the certificate is filed. You may acquire a second lien by filing a new certificate within a window that opens 6 months before the scheduled lapse and closes 6 months after it. That is one renewal. After the second lien runs its 5 years it lapses permanently, and no further lien on that judgment may be acquired. Miss the 12-month window and the statewide personal-property lien is gone for good, even though the judgment itself is still alive for years.
One narrow escape exists, and it rewards preparation. Section 55.204(4) continues a lapsed lien for another 90 days, but only as to specific property, and only where the property was itemized and its location described with enough particularity for the sheriff to act, the levy instructions reached the sheriff before the lapse date, and the property was in that sheriff’s county when they arrived. In other words, the extension is available only to the creditor who already knew exactly what the debtor had and where it sat.
The real-property lien: 10 years, extendable once. A certified copy first recorded on or after July 1, 1994 is a lien for an initial 10 years from the date of recording under Fla. Stat. 55.10, extendable for one additional 10-year period by re-recording before it expires and simultaneously recording an affidavit with the lienholder’s current address. The extension runs from the re-recording date, not from the original. And there is a hard ceiling: no judgment operates as a lien on real or personal property more than 20 years after the date the judgment was entered.
Discovery, Interest, and the Enforcement Tools
The deadlines that decide whether a Florida judgment moves.
The Fact Information Sheet, and its 45 days
Florida hands creditors a discovery tool many states lack. Under Florida Rule of Civil Procedure 1.560(b), on the judgment creditor’s request the court shall order the judgment debtor to complete Form 1.977, the Fact Information Sheet, with all required attachments, within 45 days of the order or such other reasonable time as the court sets. It is sworn, it covers employment, accounts, real and personal property, and transfers, and failure to obey the order can be treated as contempt of court. It is also the cheapest first move in a Florida collection – and its answers are precisely the kind of statement that should be corroborated against the record rather than taken at face value. Our guidance on running a judgment debtor examination covers how to use the disclosures you get.
Proceedings supplementary under section 56.29
When assets have moved to somebody else, Florida’s proceedings supplementary statute is the vehicle. Rewritten effective July 1, 2016, Fla. Stat. 56.29 lets a creditor holding an unsatisfied judgment or lien file a motion with an affidavit and bring third parties into the case. The court issues a Notice to Appear directing the debtor or the third party holding the property to file an affidavit explaining why that property should not be applied to the judgment, by a date not less than 7 business days after service, with service made under chapter 48. Section 56.29(6)(b) is also the route to an order directing the Department of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles to note a lien on a vehicle title. Section 56.29 is also the doorway to the court-ordered remedies that reach income streams rather than things – see our note on assignment orders in judgment enforcement for how those are structured. Impleader only works if you can name the transferee, which again is a research question before it is a pleading question.
Garnishment: the deadlines that dissolve a writ
Garnishment runs under chapter 77, and it is a deadline statute before it is anything else. After judgment the creditor files a motion under Fla. Stat. 77.03 stating the amount of the judgment – unverified, and it need not negative the debtor’s exemptions – and the writ issued under Fla. Stat. 77.04 requires the garnishee to answer within 20 days. Service of the writ is itself a lien on what the garnishee owes the debtor, under 77.06(1). A plaintiff unhappy with the answer has 20 days to reply under Fla. Stat. 77.061, or the answer stands as true. Each writ also costs $100 payable to the garnishee on demand toward its attorney fee, under Fla. Stat. 77.28.
Two deadlines end more Florida garnishments than any exemption argument. Under Fla. Stat. 77.041(2) the plaintiff must mail the writ, the motion, and the statutory Notice to Defendant to the debtor’s last known address within 5 business days after the writ issues or 3 business days after service on the garnishee, whichever is later – and if that mail returns undeliverable, or the address is not discoverable after diligent search, the same papers must go to the debtor’s place of employment. Florida has written a current address and a verified employer into the garnishment procedure itself. Then section 77.041(3): once the debtor files a sworn claim of exemption, the plaintiff has 8 business days to answer if it was hand delivered or 14 if it was mailed, and if that answer does not arrive the clerk must dissolve the writ automatically, with no hearing.
The levy affidavit and the execution sale
Levy runs on the other side of the house, and Florida front-loads the records work onto the creditor. You obtain a writ of execution from the clerk of the court that entered the judgment, deliver it to the sheriff in the county where the property sits, and provide a deposit plus written instructions identifying what to seize; Fla. Stat. 56.061 fixes what is subject to execution – lands and tenements, goods and chattels, equities of redemption, and stock in corporations. Before the first publication of the sale notice, Fla. Stat. 56.27(4) requires the levying creditor to hand the sheriff a sworn affidavit attesting it has reviewed the judgment lien records kept under sections 55.201 through 55.209 for personal property, or the county clerk’s records or a title search for real property, and disclosing every lien that review turned up.
The sale is slow and public. Under Fla. Stat. 56.21 notice runs by advertisement once each week for 4 successive weeks in a newspaper published in the county, the sheriff mails a copy by certified mail to the debtor’s attorney of record or to the debtor at the last known address, and the sale date may be no earlier than 30 days after the first advertisement – with notice also to every other lienholder whose lien has not lapsed, at the address shown on their judgment lien certificate. Proceeds go out under Fla. Stat. 56.27(1): the sheriff’s costs, then $500 to the levying creditor as liquidated expenses, then the priority lienholder, with any true surplus reaching the owner of the property sold under 56.27(2)(a). The Department of State’s own collection guidance is blunt about the division of labor: the sheriff will not locate the property for you. Read it with one eye open, though – it still prints the pre-2024 figure of $1,000 for the motor-vehicle exemption, which section 222.25(1) raised to $5,000 effective July 1, 2024.
Post-judgment interest is a moving number
Florida does not fix a statutory interest rate in the code. Under Fla. Stat. 55.03 the Chief Financial Officer sets the rate on December 1, March 1, June 1, and September 1 for the quarter beginning the following January 1, April 1, July 1, or October 1, by averaging the discount rate of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York over the preceding 12 months and adding 400 basis points. A judgment carries the rate in effect when it was entered, and section 55.03(3) then adjusts that rate annually on January 1 until the judgment is paid, except for judgments entered by the clerk under sections 55.141, 61.14, 938.29, and 938.30. For the quarter beginning July 1, 2026, the office set the rate at 8.06 percent per annum, published as .0220822 percent a day; the prior quarter, beginning April 1, 2026, ran at 8.25 percent.
Because the figure moves every three months, there are three named places to check it. The quarterly table is published by the Florida Department of Financial Services in the Chief Financial Officer’s Accounting and Auditing material under the heading Current Judgment Interest Rates, the source of both figures above. Section 55.03(1) separately requires the Chief Financial Officer to inform the clerk of the courts and the chief judge of each judicial circuit of the coming quarter’s rate, so the clerk’s office in the county that entered your judgment holds the same number. And Florida puts the rate on the paper: section 55.03(2) requires a money judgment, an order for judicial sale, and any writ directed to a sheriff to state the applicable rate on its face, and 55.03(4) relieves a sheriff of any duty to docket, index, or collect on a writ that does not.
Judgments that arrive from another state
Before any of the mechanics, check the clock, because it is not the twenty-year one. Fla. Stat. 95.11(1) gives twenty years for an action on a judgment or decree of a court of record in this state. Fla. Stat. 95.11(2)(a) then gives five years for an action on a judgment or decree of any court not of record of this state, or of any court of the United States, any other state or territory, or a foreign country. A creditor who assumes the generous Florida figure applies to the judgment they carried in from somewhere else has misread which subsection they are under, and the difference is fifteen years.
Florida receives a great many out-of-state judgments, for the obvious reason that people move here. The Florida Enforcement of Foreign Judgments Act, Fla. Stat. 55.501 through 55.509, lets a creditor record the foreign judgment with the clerk of the circuit court together with an affidavit giving the debtor’s last known address. Enforcement then waits: no execution or other process issues until 30 days after the clerk mails notice to the debtor, and that window is the debtor’s opportunity to contest the judgment’s validity. Plan those 30 days into the schedule, and use them to confirm the debtor is actually in Florida and to map what they hold here.
When the Asset Already Moved
Chapter 726, the badges of fraud, and a clock shorter than most creditors expect.
Florida still runs the 1987 Uniform Fraudulent Transfer Act, adopted as chapter 726 by chapter 87-79, Laws of Florida. One definition wires it into everything above: Fla. Stat. 726.102(2) excludes from the word “asset” property encumbered by a valid lien, property generally exempt under nonbankruptcy law, and any tenancy-by-the-entireties interest a creditor of one spouse cannot reach. Florida’s exemption map sits inside the fraudulent-transfer statute.
Actual intent, and the eleven badges of fraud
Fla. Stat. 726.105(1)(a) makes a transfer fraudulent as to a creditor – whether the claim arose before or after it – if the debtor made it with actual intent to hinder, delay, or defraud any creditor. Intent is almost never admitted, so section 726.105(2) lists eleven factors a court may weigh, and they read less like a legal test than a research checklist: whether the transfer went to an insider; whether the debtor kept possession or control afterward; whether it was disclosed or concealed; whether the debtor had been sued or threatened with suit before it; whether it moved substantially all of the debtor’s assets; whether the debtor absconded; whether assets were removed or concealed; whether the value received back was reasonably equivalent to what went out; whether the debtor was insolvent then or shortly after; whether it fell shortly before or after a substantial debt was incurred; and whether essential business assets went to a lienor who passed them to an insider. Most leave a documentary trace: a deed date set against the docket, a grantee’s surname, an entity formed weeks earlier, a debtor still living in the house they no longer own.
Intent is not always required. Section 726.105(1)(b) reaches a transfer made without reasonably equivalent value where the debtor was left with unreasonably small assets for the transaction at hand, or should have believed it would incur debts beyond its ability to pay. Fla. Stat. 726.106(1) is easier still for a creditor whose claim arose before the transfer: no reasonably equivalent value plus insolvency at the time, or insolvency caused by it, with no state of mind to prove. Section 726.106(2) covers the insider preference – a transfer to an insider on an antecedent debt while insolvent, where the insider had reasonable cause to believe it. Insolvency has its own shortcut: 726.103(1) defines it as debts exceeding assets at fair valuation, and 726.103(2) presumes it of a debtor generally not paying debts as they come due.
Remedies, and the defenses that meet them
Fla. Stat. 726.108(1) offers avoidance to the extent necessary to satisfy the claim, attachment against the asset transferred or other property of the transferee, an injunction against further disposition, a receiver, and any other relief the circumstances require; 726.108(2) lets a creditor already holding a judgment levy execution on the transferred asset or its proceeds if the court so orders. Where the asset itself is gone, Fla. Stat. 726.109(2) allows a money judgment for the value of the asset or the amount needed to satisfy the claim, whichever is less, measured under 726.109(3) as of the transfer, against the first transferee, the person for whose benefit the transfer was made, or a later transferee who did not take in good faith for value. The defenses are equally concrete: 726.109(1) defeats an actual-intent claim against anyone who took in good faith for reasonably equivalent value, and 726.109(5) puts lease terminations on default and Article 9 enforcement outside 726.105(1)(b) and 726.106 entirely.
Florida also caps who can be sued. In Freeman v. First Union National Bank, 865 So. 2d 1272 (Fla. 2004), the Florida Supreme Court answered a certified question from the Eleventh Circuit by holding that chapter 726 creates no cause of action for aiding and abetting a fraudulent transfer against a defendant who is not a transferee. The claim must be aimed at whoever actually received the asset, which makes identifying the transferee the case rather than a step in it.
The clock, and where it is shortest
Fla. Stat. 726.110 does not merely bar a stale claim; it extinguishes the cause of action, and the period turns on the theory. An actual-intent claim under 726.105(1)(a) must be brought within 4 years after the transfer or, if later, within 1 year after it was or could reasonably have been discovered. A constructive claim under 726.105(1)(b) or 726.106(1) gets 4 years and no discovery rule at all. An insider-preference claim under 726.106(2) gets 1 year. Section 222.30(5) gives a fraudulent-asset-conversion claim a flat 4 years. A creditor who first spots a 2019 quitclaim deed in 2026 has one surviving theory, and only if the date of discovery can be evidenced from the record.
Chapter 726 inside the collection case
Florida does not make you file a separate suit. Fla. Stat. 56.29(9) lets the court entertain chapter 726 claims inside proceedings supplementary and enter a money judgment against any initial or subsequent transferee, whether or not that person still holds the property; the claim starts with a supplemental complaint, and the clerk dockets it under the original case number with its own supplemental proceeding number, before the same judge. Section 56.29(3)(a) adds a burden shift: where within 1 year before service of process on the debtor in the original action the debtor held title to, or paid the purchase price of, personal property that a spouse, a relative, or a person on confidential terms now claims, it is the debtor who must prove the transfer was not made to delay, hinder, or defraud. Section 56.29(3)(b) then directs the court to void such a conveyance and order the sheriff to take the property – excepting property exempt from levy and property already held by a bona fide purchaser for value without notice.
The homestead conversion, and why it usually survives
The classic Florida move is turning nonexempt cash into a house, and two statutes look like the answer: Fla. Stat. 222.29 makes a chapter 222 exemption ineffective where it results from a fraudulent transfer under chapter 726, and 222.30(2) makes any conversion of an asset into exempt form a fraudulent asset conversion where the debtor intended to hinder, delay, or defraud. Neither reaches the homestead. In Havoco of America, Ltd. v. Hill, 790 So. 2d 1018 (Fla. 2001), the Florida Supreme Court answered a certified question from the Eleventh Circuit and held that Article X, section 4 protects a homestead bought with nonexempt funds even where the debtor’s specific intent was to defeat creditors: that intent is not among the three exceptions the constitution enumerates, and no statute may add a fourth. What survives is the narrow equitable lien recognized where the funds poured into the home were themselves obtained by fraud or egregious conduct. Sections 222.29 and 222.30 keep full force against conversions into exemptions the legislature created rather than the constitution – the annuity protection of 222.14, the retirement protection of 222.21 – and that distinction is one for counsel.
Where Florida Collections Actually Stall
The nine situations that bring creditors to us.
The Homestead Swallowed the Equity
Seven figures of value sit in a residence Article X, section 4 will not let an ordinary money judgment force to sale. The work moves to the acreage question and the non-homestead parcels.
A 222.11 Affidavit Ends the Garnishment
The debtor swears head-of-family status, the disposable figure lands at or under $750 a week, and the writ comes back with nothing lawful to withhold.
The Certificate Never Touched the Cash
The Department of State filing is on record and the creditor assumes the accounts are locked. Section 55.202 excludes money and negotiable instruments, so the balance is untouched until a chapter 77 writ issues.
The Joint Account Is Presumed Entireties
The debtor is married and the account is jointly titled, so Beal Bank puts the burden on the creditor to prove it is not entireties property. Titling history decides it.
The Snowbird File
The Florida address turns out to be seasonal. Permanent residence, homestead status, and which county actually holds title are all open questions before a certified copy goes anywhere.
The Levy Costs More Than It Returns
Under section 56.27(1) proceeds pay the sheriff’s costs, then $500 to the levying creditor, then priority lienholders – so seizing a low-value item can consume its own sale.
The Deed Went to a Relative
Section 56.29(3)(a) flips the burden: personal property the debtor titled or paid for within 1 year before service of process, now claimed by a spouse or relative, is presumed suspect until the debtor proves otherwise.
The Cash Became a Homestead
Nonexempt funds went into a Florida house. Under Havoco of America v. Hill the homestead still holds, even where the purchase was aimed at defeating creditors – Article X, section 4 lists only three exceptions.
Chapter 726’s Clock Ran First
Section 726.110 extinguishes an actual-intent claim 4 years after the transfer, or 1 year after discovery if later; an insider preference under 726.106(2) dies in 1 year, discovered or not.
How We Work a Florida File
Confirm, locate, map by county, document.
Confirm the Debtor
Identity first. Florida has a lot of common-name overlap and a steady stream of new arrivals, and a writ aimed at a namesake is worse than no writ.
Locate and Qualify
A current, corroborated address, plus whether it reads as a permanent Florida residence or a seasonal one, and the current employer where one is developable.
Map by County
Recorded real property county by county, titled vehicles and vessels, business filings and entity roles, so recordings and levies land in the right place.
Document for Counsel
Every finding sourced and dated, with an honest confidence note – including what we could not confirm – so your attorney can act on it.
Our Role: Find and Verify
Lawful Florida research, accurately sourced.
The legal decisions stay with you and your counsel: which lien to file and when, whether homestead or head-of-family applies on these facts, whether to move under section 56.29. We supply the factual layer underneath all of it – confirming the debtor’s identity, developing and corroborating where they actually live and work in Florida, and researching recorded property, titles, entity affiliations, and other holdings through public records and lawfully licensed data under a permissible purpose. That is a public-records research product, not a consumer report, and we are not a consumer reporting agency; nothing we produce is for employment, tenant, credit, or insurance-underwriting decisions.
We are a skip-tracing and public-records research firm. Nobody on this team holds a Florida private investigator’s licence and nothing on this page claims investigative licensure; we are not a law firm and not a collection agency. We do not garnish, levy, record liens, contact the debtor to demand payment, or decide what is exempt, and we never pretext, impersonate, or access private financial account contents. We also never guarantee that a given debtor has reachable assets – in a state with Florida’s exemptions, sometimes the honest answer is that the collectible pool is small, and saying so early saves you filing fees. What we do guarantee is candor: every finding arrives with its source, a plain confidence note, and the point at which a trail goes cold. The broader service is our skip tracing practice; the Florida judgment file is one of its most common uses.
Some Florida files are declined at the door. Chapter 741 lets a person obtain an injunction for protection against domestic violence under section 741.30, and the Attorney General administers an Address Confidentiality Program under sections 741.401 and following for people for whom an unlisted address is the safeguard. Where a request carries the marks of either – an injunction already in the court file, a substitute address of record, a stated interest that does not reconcile with the judgment – we say no and we say why. A Florida judgment is a lawful reason to research a debtor’s property. It is not a lawful reason to find somebody who moved because staying was unsafe.
Who We Help Collect
For Florida judgment creditors and their counsel.
Creditors’ Counsel
Circuit and county court files
Out-of-State Creditors
Domesticating under 55.501
Condo and HOA Boards
Unpaid assessment judgments
Florida Landlords
Damage and unpaid-rent awards
Marine and Auto Lenders
Vessel and vehicle deficiencies
Contractors and Suppliers
Construction-lien and contract awards
Whichever seat you are in, the Florida problem is the same one: the statutes are clear and the assets are not. Tell us the debtor’s name, the case number and county, the last address you have, and your permissible purpose, and we will confirm identity, develop a current location and employer, and map what the records show they hold across the state – documented for your file and your attorney.
Our Commitment
We give a Florida judgment the foundation the statutes assume you already have: the debtor identified and located, a permanent residence told apart from a seasonal address, the employer developed where one exists, and recorded holdings mapped county by county so your counsel can apply the homestead, head-of-family, and entireties rules to real facts. Every finding is sourced, dated, and carries an honest confidence note – including what we could not confirm. Researched from Florida’s own public records since 2004 – Sunbiz filings, county official records and clerk dockets – with no pretexting, no reach into private account contents, and nothing here standing in for advice from a Florida attorney.
Frequently Asked Questions
Where do I file a judgment lien in Florida?
In two places. Personal property takes a Judgment Lien Certificate filed with the Florida Department of State under Fla. Stat. 55.202 and 55.203, which creates one statewide lien once the judgment is final with no rehearing motion or stay pending. Real estate takes a certified copy recorded in the official records of each county where the debtor holds title, under Fla. Stat. 55.10, with the lienholder’s address either in the judgment or in an affidavit recorded at the same moment. No single filing reaches Florida land.
How long does a Florida judgment last, and when do the liens expire?
You have 20 years to bring an action on the judgment under Fla. Stat. 95.11(1). The liens are shorter. A Judgment Lien Certificate lapses 5 years after filing, and Fla. Stat. 55.204 allows exactly one second lien, filed between 6 months before and 6 months after that lapse; when the second one runs out, no further lien may be acquired. A recorded real-property lien runs 10 years under Fla. Stat. 55.10 and can be extended once by re-recording before it expires. Nothing operates as a lien more than 20 years after entry.
Can I garnish a Florida debtor’s wages?
Often not. Under Fla. Stat. 222.11 a head of family – someone providing more than half the support of a child or other dependent – whose disposable earnings are $750 a week or less has all of those earnings exempt, not a percentage of them. Above $750 they are still protected unless the debtor signed a conforming waiver: a separate document attached to the contract, in the same language, in at least 14-point type. Exempt earnings stay protected 6 months after deposit if they can be traced.
Can a creditor take the debtor’s house in Florida?
Usually not. Article X, section 4 of the Florida Constitution bars forced sale of a homestead with no cap on value, limited only by area – half an acre inside a municipality, up to 160 contiguous acres outside one. The written exceptions are property taxes and assessments, obligations contracted for the purchase, improvement, or repair of the property, and labor performed on the realty. Whether a given property qualifies turns on ownership and genuine use as a permanent residence, which is a question of fact worth settling early.
What is a Fact Information Sheet, and how long does the debtor have?
It is Form 1.977, Florida’s sworn post-judgment disclosure. Under Florida Rule of Civil Procedure 1.560(b), on the creditor’s request the court orders the debtor to complete it with all required attachments within 45 days, or another reasonable time the court sets. It covers employment, accounts, real and personal property, and transfers, and disobeying the order can be treated as contempt. It is the cheapest opening move in a Florida collection, and worth corroborating against the record rather than accepting at face value.
The debtor moved the asset before I could reach it. Is it recoverable?
Sometimes, under chapter 726. Fla. Stat. 726.105(1)(a) makes a transfer fraudulent where the debtor acted with actual intent to hinder, delay, or defraud a creditor, and 726.105(2) lists eleven badges a court may weigh – an insider transferee, control retained, suit already threatened, insolvency, concealment. Fla. Stat. 56.29(9) lets the claim be brought inside proceedings supplementary, with a money judgment available against the transferee. Watch the clock: 726.110 extinguishes an actual-intent claim 4 years after the transfer, or 1 year after discovery if later, and an insider preference in 1 year.
What does the sheriff need from me before a levy?
More than the writ. You obtain a writ of execution from the clerk of the court that entered the judgment, deliver it to the sheriff in the county where the property physically sits, and supply a deposit plus written instructions identifying what to seize; Fla. Stat. 56.061 governs what is subject to execution. The Department of State’s guidance says plainly the sheriff will not find it for you. Under Fla. Stat. 56.27(1) proceeds pay the sheriff’s costs, then $500 to the levying creditor, then priority lienholders.
I have an out-of-state judgment against someone who moved to Florida.
Record it under the Florida Enforcement of Foreign Judgments Act, Fla. Stat. 55.501 through 55.509, with the clerk of the circuit court, together with an affidavit giving the debtor’s last known address. No execution or other enforcement process issues until 30 days after the clerk mails notice, and that period is the debtor’s window to contest the judgment’s validity. Use it: confirm the debtor is genuinely resident in Florida rather than seasonally present, and map what they hold here so enforcement starts the day it closes.
Collect Your Florida Judgment
Florida’s statutes are clear; the assets are not. Send us the debtor’s name, the case number and county, the last address you have, and your permissible purpose, and we will confirm identity, develop a current location and employer, and map the recorded holdings across the state – documented for your attorney, typically with a first read back within 24 hours. Contact us to get started.
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