Construction Payment Dispute Lawyer

You performed the work. The pay application went in on time. The money has not come. In Florida construction, that gap between performance and payment is where businesses get hurt: payroll, suppliers, and equipment notes do not wait for an owner or general contractor to release funds. We represent contractors, subcontractors, and material suppliers across Tampa Bay in construction payment disputes: getting the money owed, with the interest and fee-shifting Florida law attaches to it.

I am a Florida attorney with a family history in construction for generations. I know what a schedule of values is, what a pay application looks like when someone is slow-walking it, and what it means to carry labor and materials for sixty days while the party holding your money uses it as float. I read contracts, pay apps, and lien waivers line by line, because that is where payment disputes are usually won or lost.

One thing before anything else: payment disputes run on two separate clocks. The claim for the money itself (breach of contract, prompt-payment interest, an unpaid account) has a relatively long fuse. The security for that money (a construction lien on the property or a claim against a payment bond) runs on short, unforgiving deadlines measured in days. If you are unpaid right now, check your dates against our construction lien deadline calculator before you finish reading this page.

Common Payment Disputes We Handle

• Slow pay and no pay. An owner or general contractor approves the work, then sits on the pay application without a stated reason.
• Retainage held hostage. The job is done, the punch list is complete, and the withheld percentage still has not been released.
• End-of-job backcharges. Deductions for alleged defects or cleanup costs that appear for the first time when final payment is due.
• The pay-if-paid excuse. A general contractor tells a subcontractor “I haven’t been paid, so you don’t get paid,” a defense that works far less often than GCs believe.
• Disputed change orders. Extra work performed on direction, then denied in writing after the fact.
• Unpaid supplier invoices. Materials delivered and incorporated into the project, with the account left open past terms.
• Insolvency up the chain. The party that owes you is failing, and the question becomes what security (lien, bond, guaranty) still stands behind the debt.

Florida’s Prompt Payment Laws

Florida does not leave construction payment timing to goodwill. A set of prompt-payment statutes (different ones depending on whether the project is private, state, or local government) sets due dates for proper pay requests, requires money to move down the chain once it is received, and attaches interest when it does not. These statutes are the backbone of most payment demands we send.

Private projects: section 715.12

Florida’s Construction Contract Prompt Payment Law, section 715.12, Florida Statutes, applies to written contracts to improve real property. Payment becomes due when a proper written payment request is submitted and the contract’s conditions (required lien waivers, affidavits, and the like) are satisfied. For parties below the owner, the statute also keys the duty to pay on receipt of funds from above. Two features matter most in practice:

• Undisputed amounts cannot be held hostage. A dispute over one line item does not let the paying party withhold money for work that is not affected by the dispute.
• Late money earns real interest. Amounts not paid when due bear interest at the statutory judgment rate under section 55.03 plus 12 percent per year, beginning on the 14th day after payment is due, or the contract rate, if higher. On a six-figure receivable, that interest becomes a meaningful number quickly, and we compute it to the day in every demand.

Passing money down the chain: section 713.346

Under section 713.346, Florida Statutes, anyone who receives payment for improving real property must pay the undisputed amounts owed for the labor, services, and materials that earned that payment, in accordance with the contract terms. A separate statute, section 713.345, addresses criminal misapplication when construction funds are knowingly and intentionally misapplied. The civil payment remedies and any potential criminal issue require separate, fact-specific analysis.

The statute also gives unpaid parties a fast lane. Once an undisputed balance has remained due and payable for more than 30 days, the claimant may file a verified complaint and get an evidentiary hearing on no less than 15 days’ notice. The court can order an accounting of where the money went, enter a temporary injunction, authorize prejudgment attachment, and grant other relief. The prevailing party recovers costs and a reasonable attorney’s fee, at trial and on appeal. When a general contractor has been paid and is simply sitting on your share, this expedited proceeding changes the conversation.

State and public entity projects: sections 255.071 through 255.078

On public projects, chapter 255 sets the payment rules. Under section 255.073, Florida Statutes, once a contractor receives payment from a public entity, it must pay its subcontractors and suppliers their undisputed shares within 10 days, and subcontractors must pay their own subs and suppliers within 7 days of receipt. Late payments bear interest at 2 percent per month. Section 255.078 generally caps retainage at 5 percent on covered public jobs, subject to the statutory exceptions discussed below.

Local government projects: the Local Government Prompt Payment Act

Cities, counties, school boards, and special districts answer to sections 218.70 through 218.80. For construction services, section 218.735, Florida Statutes, requires the local government to pay a proper pay request within 20 business days of receipt (25 business days where the contract requires an agent, such as the project architect or engineer, to approve it first). If the entity rejects a pay request, it must do so within 20 business days and state the deficiencies in writing. The same 10-day and 7-day pass-down duties apply once money is received. Section 218.735 generally caps retainage at 5 percent, subject to its contract-value and federal-funding exceptions, and late payments bear interest at 2 percent per month or the contract rate, whichever is greater.

Every one of these statutes has conditions: a “proper” pay request, compliance with contract documentation, dispute procedures that must be followed. We check the conditions before we send the demand, because a prompt-payment claim built on a defective pay application invites the exact response you are trying to end.

The Security Deadlines: Liens and Bonds

A judgment for breach of contract is only as good as the solvency of the party who owes it. Florida gives construction claimants something better: security. On private projects, that is a construction lien (a recorded claim against the improved property itself) or a claim against a private payment bond if the owner required one. On public projects, liens are not available, and the payment bond required by section 255.05 takes their place. Each remedy has a chain of deadlines, and missing a link usually kills the claim regardless of how clearly the money is owed.

These deadlines are where good claims die. “Final furnishing” is a contested fact: warranty visits and punch-list returns usually do not restart it. Whether a bond exists, whether it was recorded, and whether it is a conditional or unconditional bond all change which notices you owe. Treat the table as a map, not a substitute for advice on your dates: run your project through the lien deadline calculator, then confirm the result with counsel before you rely on it.

Construction liens

Chapter 713 lets qualifying contractors, subs, and suppliers record a lien against the property they improved, and section 713.29 awards attorney’s fees to the prevailing party in a lien enforcement action. The mechanics (who must serve a Notice to Owner, what the claim of lien must contain, the contractor’s final payment affidavit that must precede suit) have their own page. If the property is your security, start with our construction lien lawyer page, and see the lien foreclosure page for what enforcement actually looks like.

Payment bonds

Where a payment bond stands behind the job (required on nearly all public work under section 255.05, optional on private work under section 713.23) your claim runs against a surety with the money to pay it, but only if the notice chain above was honored. Bond claims have their own traps, including bonds that are never recorded and hybrid bond forms that change your obligations. That work lives on our payment bond claim lawyer page.

Pay-If-Paid vs. Pay-When-Paid

The most common defense a subcontractor hears is some version of “the owner hasn’t paid me.” Whether that defense works depends on the words in the subcontract.

A pay-if-paid clause makes the owner’s payment to the general contractor a condition precedent to the GC’s duty to pay the sub: if the owner never pays, the sub bears the loss. A pay-when-paid clause only sets timing: the GC may wait a reasonable time for the owner’s payment, but the debt is still the GC’s debt. Florida courts enforce pay-if-paid clauses only when the language unambiguously shifts the risk of owner nonpayment to the subcontractor. The Florida Supreme Court set the rule decades ago: an ambiguous payment clause is read as fixing a reasonable time for payment, not as transferring the risk. Many clauses that GCs invoke as pay-if-paid do not survive that reading.

Two practical points. First, even a genuine pay-if-paid clause does not erase your lien or bond deadlines: you must protect the security remedies on schedule while the contract fight plays out. Second, whether a surety can borrow its principal’s pay-if-paid defense on a bond claim depends on the bond’s language and the case law applying it; it is a document-specific question, not a rule of thumb. We answer it by reading the bond, not by guessing.

Retainage

Retainage is the slice of each progress payment (historically 10 percent, now more often 5) withheld until the end of the job as security for completion. For many contractors, retainage is the profit margin, which is why fights over its release are so common.

The rules changed in 2023. Sections 255.078 and 218.735 generally cap retainage withheld from each progress payment on state and local government construction contracts at 5 percent. The cap does not apply to contracts for construction services costing $200,000 or less or to federally funded work subject to contrary federal grant requirements. The statutory note to section 255.078 also states that the 2020 amendments do not apply to contracts executed under chapter 337, so transportation contracts require separate review. On private projects there is no statutory cap (the contract governs the percentage) but section 715.12 supplies release mechanics: a punch-list procedure tied to substantial completion, and a 14-day payment clock for retained funds once the statutory conditions are met. Withheld retainage that is overdue accrues the same prompt-payment interest as any other late payment, and retainage claims against public bonds carry their own conditions under section 255.05. If your retainage is being held past completion “pending closeout” with no specific deficiency identified, that is usually a payment dispute wearing an administrative costume.

Suppliers and Unpaid Material Invoices

Material suppliers occupy a distinct position in the payment chain, and we handle their disputes as their own category, not as an afterthought to contractor claims.

A supplier’s leverage rests on three legs. First, the account itself: claims for breach of contract, open account, and account stated, plus whatever the credit application adds. Many include personal guaranties from the contractor’s principals, contractual interest, and fee provisions that convert a stale receivable into a collectible one. Second, lien rights: a supplier to a contractor or subcontractor generally must serve a Notice to Owner within 45 days of first delivery to preserve lien rights, and delivery tickets and invoices become the evidence that the materials reached the job. Third, bond rights on bonded and public projects, with the notice chain shown in the table above. Specially fabricated materials raise their own timing questions (the clock can run from fabrication rather than delivery), so custom-order suppliers should calendar conservatively. If you supply on terms, build the 45-day notice into your standard credit process rather than treating it as an escalation; the deadline calculator makes the dates mechanical.

Backcharges and Change-Order Deductions

A backcharge is a deduction the paying party takes from your contract balance for costs it claims you caused: alleged defects, cleanup, supplementing your crew. Legitimate backcharges exist. So do backcharges invented at final payment to shave the number, supported by nothing but a spreadsheet line. We test them the way they should have been built: contemporaneous notice, documentation of the actual cost, and proof the work was yours to begin with. Where a withholding rests on defective-work allegations, we retain independent licensed engineers when the facts require it, rather than arguing opinion against opinion. When the dispute is really about the scope and pricing of extra work, that is its own fight with its own paper trail, see our change order dispute attorney page.

When the Real Problem Is the Owner’s Insurance Claim

Some payment disputes trace back to a stalled insurance claim: the owner hired you to repair storm or water damage, the carrier underpaid or has not paid, and your invoice is stuck behind the owner’s coverage fight. Your lien and prompt-payment rights against the owner do not depend on the carrier, but the fastest path to payment sometimes runs through fixing the insurance claim itself. We handle that side of the problem too, on our property insurance claims pages.

A Threshold Question: Licensure

Before we send a demand, we confirm the claimant’s contracting license covers the work performed. Section 489.128, Florida Statutes, bars unlicensed contractors from enforcing their construction contracts, a defense owners and GCs raise aggressively, sometimes over technical gaps like qualifying-agent lapses. If licensure is going to be an issue, we would rather find it in our own file review than in the other side’s motion. The flip side of that statute, claims against unlicensed contractors, is covered on our unlicensed contractor page.

How We Handle a Payment Dispute

1. Documents first. The contract, pay applications, schedule of values, change orders, signed and unsigned lien waivers, delivery tickets, and job correspondence. Most payment cases are decided by paper that already exists. If you are being asked to sign a waiver to shake loose a check, read our answer on whether to sign a lien waiver first.
2. Preserve the security. Whatever notice or recording deadline is nearest (Notice to Owner, claim of lien, notice of nonpayment) gets protected before strategy discussions continue. Deadlines do not pause for negotiation.
3. Demand with the statute attached. Our demand letters cite the specific prompt-payment statute that governs the project, compute the accrued interest to the day, and identify the fee-shifting exposure the other side is accruing. A demand that reads like the complaint that will follow it gets treated differently than a dunning letter.
4. Use the fast lanes. Where a paid party is sitting on undisputed money, the section 713.346 expedited proceeding (with its accounting, injunction, and fee remedies) is often faster than conventional litigation. Lien foreclosure and bond suits proceed on their own tracks when security is the leverage.
5. Litigate to collect, not just to win. We evaluate the paying party’s solvency early and aim the case at the deepest reliable pocket, property, surety, guarantor, or the party upstream still holding the funds.

Fees in Payment Cases

Contractor-side payment work may use flat fees for notices, lien recordings, and statutory demands, hourly rates for litigation, or a hybrid arrangement for an appropriate matter. Lien enforcement actions carry prevailing-party attorney’s fees under section 713.29. Public bond claims may carry prevailing-party fees under section 255.05, and section 713.29 addresses claims on private payment bonds under chapter 713. Section 713.346 proceedings also provide for prevailing-party fees, and many construction contracts add their own fee clause. Those provisions can create fee exposure for either side, so we review them before filing. The proposed fee structure and cost responsibilities are provided in writing before representation begins. More detail is on our who pays attorney fees page.

Talk to a Construction Payment Dispute Lawyer in Tampa Bay

Cory Cannon represents contractors, subcontractors, and suppliers in payment disputes across Tampa, St. Petersburg, Sarasota, Bradenton, and the surrounding counties. I come from generations in the Florida construction trades; reading a pay application is not a skill I acquired for litigation. If you are owed money on a project, bring us the contract and the pay apps. The initial consultation is free, and the first thing we will do is check your deadlines. See our for contractors page for how we work with construction businesses, our construction litigation overview for related disputes, or contact us to get the file reviewed.