Florida Lis Pendens Cost & Procedure Calculator

How this calculator works

A Florida lis pendens — literally "suit pending" — is a notice recorded in the county Official Records under F.S. § 48.23 that the underlying real property is the subject of a pending civil action. The lis pendens is not itself a lien. It is a notice mechanism: any subsequent purchaser, lender, or lienor who acquires an interest after the lis pendens is recorded takes subject to the outcome of the pending litigation under principles of constructive notice. The practical effect is to freeze the marketability of the property for the duration of the lawsuit because no Florida title insurance underwriter will insure a conveyance over an active lis pendens absent a bond, a court order, or a release.

The calculator answers four planning questions for an owner, plaintiff, or attorney looking at a real-estate dispute:

1. What does it cost to record the lis pendens under the F.S. § 28.24 fee schedule, and what is the filing fee for the underlying complaint under F.S. § 28.241?
2. What is the attorney drafting fee for the lis pendens itself, alongside the underlying complaint?
3. If the opposing party is considering dissolution by bond, what does the F.S. § 48.23(3) bond range look like at 100% to 115% of claimed damages?
4. What is the recommended approach for the specific dispute type — foreclosure, specific performance, partition, quiet title, divorce, or construction-lien foreclosure?

When you record a Florida lis pendens

Six recurring Florida fact patterns drive lis pendens practice:

• Mortgage foreclosure under F.S. Chapter 702. Every Florida residential and commercial mortgage foreclosure complaint is paired with a lis pendens recorded the same day. The lis pendens binds the foreclosure outcome on any subsequent purchaser or lender. A buyer who would purchase the property mid-foreclosure (or a refinance lender who would take a mortgage on the property mid-foreclosure) takes subject to the foreclosure judgment and the eventual judicial sale.
• Construction lien foreclosure under F.S. § 713.26. A lienor filing a foreclosure of a recorded claim of lien records a lis pendens with the foreclosure complaint. The lis pendens binds any conveyance during the lien-foreclosure suit. Note that the underlying claim of lien (the encumbrance) and the lis pendens (the notice of suit) are different documents serving different functions; the owner has two independent escape hatches under F.S. § 713.24 (bond off the lien) and F.S. § 48.23(3) (dissolve the lis pendens).
• Association lien foreclosure (condominium under F.S. § 718.116 / HOA under F.S. § 720.3085). Same pattern — association foreclosure suits record a lis pendens on the unit or parcel to bind any conveyance during the suit.
• Specific performance suits. A buyer seeking specific performance of a real-estate purchase contract records a lis pendens to prevent the seller from conveying the property to a third party during the suit. This is the most common pretrial battleground in Florida real-estate-contract disputes — the seller routinely moves to dissolve the lis pendens under F.S. § 48.23(3), putting the bond fight at the heart of the case.
• Partition actions under F.S. Chapter 64. Co-owners suing for partition record a lis pendens to bind any conveyance during the action. Dissolution by bond is rare because all co-owners are typically parties.
• Divorce property division. A spouse claiming an equitable interest in marital real property — most often the homestead — records a lis pendens to prevent the titled spouse from conveying it during the dissolution proceeding. The lis pendens raises immediate homestead and tenancy-by-the-entireties questions; Florida family-law counsel often handle the lis pendens themselves rather than handing it off to real-estate counsel.

The Florida lis pendens cost stack

The cost structure is largely predictable in advance, and the components are statutory:

• Recording fee under F.S. § 28.24. $10 for the first page plus $8.50 for each additional page. A typical residential lis pendens of 4 pages costs $10 + (3 × $8.50) = $35.50 to record. Counties occasionally add small administrative surcharges; the statutory schedule is uniform statewide.
• Filing fee for the underlying complaint under F.S. § 28.241. $401 is the planning baseline for a civil action with an amount in controversy above $50,000 — which captures essentially every Florida real-property matter. Smaller construction-lien foreclosures occasionally fall into the $300 tier. Counties may add minor surcharges.
• Attorney drafting fee. $500 to $1,200 for a routine drafted lis pendens paired with the underlying complaint; $750 is the planning midpoint. The drafting work itself is small — the lis pendens is a short procedural document — but the substantive judgment about whether the underlying claim is one that "affects title" within F.S. § 48.23 is the area where counsel adds the most value. A wrongful lis pendens under F.S. § 48.23(4) carries material exposure.
• Dissolution bond under F.S. § 48.23(3). When the opposing party considers moving to dissolve the lis pendens by posting a bond, the court typically sizes the bond at 100% to 115% of the defendant's claimed damages from being prevented from conveying the property during the action. The claimed-damages calculation typically includes lost-resale profit relative to a backup buyer, carry costs during the suit (mortgage interest, taxes, insurance, HOA dues), and consequential damages. On a contested specific-performance suit where the seller claims $250,000 in lost-resale damages, the bond range is $250,000 to $287,500 — often the largest single financial number in the case. The bond runs in addition to the surety premium (typically 1% to 3% of bond face annually) and any cash collateral the surety requires.

The all-in cost to file the suit and record the lis pendens on a routine 4-page residential matter lands in the $1,000 to $1,500 range: ~$35 recording, $401 filing, $750 attorney drafting. The dissolution-bond figure, when in play, is in a different order of magnitude entirely.

The 1-year duration under F.S. § 48.23(2)

A recorded Florida lis pendens is effective for 1 year (365 days) from the date of recording unless extended by court order or extinguished sooner by final judgment in the underlying action. The 1-year duration is a critical procedural deadline:

• A plaintiff who lets the 1 year lapse without seeking renewal or moving the case to final judgment loses the constructive-notice benefit. Any intervening purchaser may then take free of the suit.
• On slow cases — contested commercial foreclosures, complex partition actions, multi-year specific-performance disputes — plaintiff's counsel must track the 1-year window and move to extend before it lapses.
• Re-recording without a court order does not refresh the notice. The F.S. § 48.23(2) renewal must come from the court.

Most routine matters reach final judgment within the 1-year window: residential foreclosures typically 6 to 12 months; quiet title actions 4 to 8 months uncontested; partition actions 6 to 12 months. Specific-performance suits and contested commercial foreclosures are the main exceptions.

The dissolution-bond fight under F.S. § 48.23(3)

F.S. § 48.23(3) gives the court discretion to require either party to post a bond. The two procedural plays:

• Plaintiff is required to post a bond to keep the lis pendens in place — common where the defendant has a third-party buyer ready to close and the lis pendens is preventing the closing.
• Defendant is allowed to dissolve the lis pendens by posting a bond — common where the underlying claim sounds in money damages (specific performance with a damages alternative, for example) rather than purely in equitable relief on the property itself.

Either way, the court sizes the bond at "such sum as it deems just" — and in practice Florida circuit courts set the figure at 100% to 115% of the claimed damages, with the midpoint at 107.5%. The claimed-damages composition routinely includes:

• Lost-resale profit relative to a backup buyer at a higher price (the central component in specific-performance suits)
• Carry costs during the suit — mortgage interest, property taxes, hazard insurance, HOA dues, vacancy holding costs
• Consequential damages — closing-cost reimbursement, lost rental income, finance-charge differentials

On a $250,000-claimed-damages specific-performance suit, the bond range is $250,000 to $287,500. Layer on the surety premium (1% to 3% of bond face annually — call it $2,500 to $8,625) and the surety's cash collateral requirement (typically 10% to 25% of bond face, or $25,000 to $72,000), and the all-in defendant cost of dissolving the lis pendens is materially higher than the face value of the bond.

A worked example: specific-performance suit, $400K contract

A Florida buyer enters into a $400,000 purchase contract on a Pinellas County residence. Two weeks before closing the seller backs out and accepts a $450,000 offer from a backup buyer. The original buyer's counsel files a specific-performance complaint and records a lis pendens the same day. The 4-page lis pendens costs $35.50 to record under F.S. § 28.24. The $401 filing fee under F.S. § 28.241 covers the complaint. The attorney's drafting fee for the lis pendens itself is $750.

Total cost to record: ~$1,187 ($35.50 + $401 + $750). Modest.

The seller moves to dissolve the lis pendens under F.S. § 48.23(3). The seller's counsel argues the claimed damages are $52,000 — the $50,000 differential between the original $400,000 contract and the $450,000 backup, plus $2,000 in carry costs during the suit. The court accepts the figure and sets the dissolution bond at the 107.5% midpoint: $55,900. The seller approaches a surety, which requires a 2.5% annual premium ($1,400) and 20% cash collateral ($11,180). The seller's all-in cost to dissolve the lis pendens — bond plus premium plus collateral — is approximately $68,500 for one year.

The strategic read: the original buyer's $1,187 lis pendens has effectively forced the seller into a $68,500 decision tree — pay the bond and dissolve, or litigate the merits and live with a frozen property for the duration of the suit. That asymmetry is the central feature of lis pendens practice in specific-performance suits and is the reason the lis pendens recording is so often the decisive pretrial move.

Wrongful lis pendens damages under F.S. § 48.23(4)

F.S. § 48.23(4) is the procedural backstop against pretextual lis pendens. A defendant who prevails on the underlying claim may recover damages — including lost-resale profit, carry costs during the suit, consequential damages, and the defendant's attorney's fees — from a plaintiff who recorded a lis pendens without a "good-faith, fair-on-its-face claim that affects title."

The bar is not "plaintiff loses the underlying claim." It is "plaintiff filed without a good-faith claim affecting title" — which captures pretextual lis pendens recorded primarily to coerce settlement rather than on any colorable theory. Wrongful-lis-pendens claims are typically litigated as counterclaims in the underlying action or as standalone follow-on suits after the underlying action is dismissed. The exposure can be material: in a contested specific-performance suit on a $400,000 contract, the seller's wrongful-lis-pendens damages might include $50,000 in lost-backup-buyer profit plus carry costs plus six-figure attorney's fees.

The practical consequence: file a lis pendens only on a substantive claim with an objectively defensible nexus to title. The drafting cost is small; the wrongful-lis-pendens exposure on a marginal claim is large.

What the calculator does not do

This is a planning-stage cost estimator. It does not:

• Replace Florida real-estate or litigation counsel. The substantive judgment about whether the underlying claim is one that "affects title" within F.S. § 48.23 — and whether the lis pendens is therefore properly recorded — is a question for Florida-licensed counsel.
• Compute the surety premium or cash-collateral requirements on a dissolution bond. Surety underwriting is a function of the defendant's creditworthiness and the bond face; the calculator surfaces the bond range but not the all-in cost of obtaining the bond from a surety.
• Project wrongful-lis-pendens damages exposure under F.S. § 48.23(4). That figure depends on the underlying claim's strength, the property's market dynamics, and the defendant's specific damages — all case-specific.
• Track the 1-year F.S. § 48.23(2) duration. The calculator surfaces the rule; tracking the actual recording date and renewal motion is plaintiff's-counsel work.
• Handle non-Florida lis pendens. Lis pendens is a creature of state law; this calculator is Florida-specific.

How this page is maintained

The substantive statutory framework — F.S. § 48.23 (lis pendens) and F.S. § 28.24 (recording fees) — has been stable in its core structure for decades. The recording fee schedule under F.S. § 28.24(12) is periodically adjusted by the Florida Legislature; the $10 first page plus $8.50 each additional page reflects the 2025-2026 schedule. The filing fee schedule under F.S. § 28.241 is also legislatively adjusted from time to time. The 1-year duration under F.S. § 48.23(2) and the 100% to 115% bond range under F.S. § 48.23(3) are practitioner heuristics that have held steady. We sample drafting-fee quotes from active Florida real-estate and litigation counsel across Miami-Dade, Broward, Palm Beach, Orange, Hillsborough, Pinellas, Duval, Lee, Polk, and Brevard each year and refresh the planning midpoint accordingly.

Last reviewed: 2026-05-15 against F.S. § 48.23 (lis pendens), F.S. § 28.24 (county clerk recording fees), and F.S. § 28.241 (circuit court civil action filing fees).