Can I sell or refinance my Florida homestead with a judgment lien against me?

No, with three exceptions. Article X, section 4(a) of the Florida Constitution exempts a homestead "from forced sale under process of any court" and says that "no judgment, decree or execution shall be a lien thereon".

That overrides the ordinary rule in Fla. Stat. § 55.10, under which a certified copy of a judgment, recorded with the creditor's address, becomes a lien on the debtor's real property in that county.

The Florida Supreme Court reads the protection broadly and its exceptions narrowly. In Havoco of America, Ltd. v. Hill, 790 So. 2d 1018 (Fla. 2001), it held that "a homestead acquired by a debtor with the specific intent to hinder, delay, or defraud creditors is not excepted" from the protection, and called itself "powerless to depart from the plain language of article X, section 4." The one opening it described is narrow: an equitable lien where "funds obtained through fraud or egregious conduct were used to invest in, purchase, or improve the homestead."

Three kinds, all written into the same sentence of the constitution:

1. Taxes and assessments on the property.
2. Obligations contracted for its purchase, improvement or repair.
3. Obligations contracted for house, field or other labor performed on the realty.

Four other claims are outside the protection, or can be, for different reasons:

• A mortgage is not a judgment lien. The constitution lets the owner mortgage the homestead, "joined by the spouse if married" (art. X, § 4(c)), and a mortgage the owner signed is paid off at closing like any other.
• An association's lien for assessments usually comes ahead of homestead, because it relates back to a declaration recorded before the owner bought. That is set out below.
• Unpaid alimony or child support can reach a homestead, but only on proof of fraud or reprehensible conduct. Also below.
• A federal tax lien is a matter of federal law. Nothing on this page answers it.

The constitution's test has three parts, and none of them is the home's value:

• Who owns it. It must be "owned by a natural person", which a company is not. A home held in trust for the person who lives there can qualify, as the next section explains.
• How big it is. Inside a municipality, half an acre of contiguous land, limited to "the residence of the owner or the owner's family". Outside a municipality, 160 acres of contiguous land and the improvements on it.
• That it is the home. The owner, or the owner's family, lives there.

This is a different provision from the homestead exemption on a property tax bill (our guide to that one), though the notice of homestead below has the owner swear to having received the tax exemption. Whether a property qualifies is a question of fact about how it is owned and occupied, and the official records do not answer it.

The protection can still apply. In Callava v. Feinberg, 864 So. 2d 429 (Fla. 3d DCA 2003), a creditor foreclosed a lien on a home titled to a trustee, and the Third District reversed, holding that "even if Callava owns only a beneficial interest in the property, she is entitled to claim a homestead exemption to the forced sale of the property." The constitution, the court said, quoting the Fifth District, "does not designate how title to the property is to be held".

For a revocable living trust, the Florida Trust Code points the same way. Fla. Stat. § 736.0505(1)(a) makes a revocable trust's property subject to the settlor's creditors during the settlor's lifetime only "to the extent the property would not otherwise be exempt by law if owned directly by the settlor." In Engelke v. Estate of Engelke, 921 So. 2d 693 (Fla. 4th DCA 2006), the Fourth District treated a residence held in its owner's revocable trust as owned by a natural person for the homestead exemption.

The record shows a deed to a trustee, not who lives in the house, so on a sale out of a trust that is part of what has to be documented.

Because the record cannot tell a homestead from any other parcel. The search finds a certified judgment against the owner's name in the county where the property is, and on its face that is a lien on everything the debtor owns there.

So it goes on the title commitment as a requirement, and stays until it is paid and satisfied or the homestead position is documented in a form the title insurer accepts. Saying "it's my homestead" at the closing table is not that. Paying it from proceeds is covered on the page about a judgment against the seller.

Fla. Stat. § 222.01 gives an owner a way to put the question to the creditor with a deadline. It is available to a person entitled to the homestead protection who has "a contract to sell or a commitment from a lender for a mortgage on the homestead", so it covers a refinance as well as a sale. It works in four steps:

1. The owner signs a notice of homestead under oath, on the form the statute prints. It gives the legal description and tax parcel number; certifies that the owner has received the homestead tax exemption, has lived there "continuously and uninterruptedly" since a stated date, and that the judgment, by book and page, is not a valid lien on the property; and names the sale or loan, its parties, amount and expected closing date, and who is conducting the closing.
2. It is filed in the public records, and the clerk mails it. The clerk sends a copy to the judgment creditor by certified mail, return receipt requested, at the address in the most recent recorded judgment or its affidavit. Service is complete on mailing (§ 222.01(3)).
3. The creditor has 45 days. Within 45 days after service, the creditor must file an action for a declaratory judgment on the property's homestead status, or an action to foreclose the judgment lien, and record a lis pendens in the county (§ 222.01(4)).
4. If the creditor does nothing, the buyer or lender takes free. The lien "shall be deemed as not attaching to the property by virtue of its status as homestead property" as to the buyer or lender who takes under that contract or commitment within 180 days after the notice was filed.

Its limits are in its text:

• It protects only the buyer or lender under the contract or commitment the notice names.
• It does not reach the excepted debts: taxes and assessments, purchase obligations, and labor, services or materials for the property (§ 222.01(5)).

The statute is quoted from the 2026 Florida Statutes.

Then a court decides. A creditor who sues within the 45 days and records a lis pendens has put the property's homestead status in front of a circuit judge, and the closing waits on the case. Separately from the notice procedure, Fla. Stat. § 222.10 gives the circuit courts jurisdiction, on a creditor's filing, "to determine whether any property, real or personal, claimed to be exempt, is so exempt".

Timing is the usual ground for a contest, because homestead does not undo a lien that was there first. The Florida Supreme Court said so in Bessemer v. Gersten, 381 So. 2d 1344 (Fla. 1980): "the acquisition of homestead status does not defeat prior liens". In a footnote, it put the rule the other way round: "In general, for a lien to be enforceable against homestead property, its existence must be established as of the time the homestead status was acquired."

So the dates on three documents decide most contests:

• Judgment recorded, then the owner moved in. A judgment recorded while the owner held the property as a rental or a second home was a lien before the property was a homestead, and moving in does not remove it.
• Judgment recorded, then the owner bought or inherited the property and moved in at once. The lien and the homestead right attach at the same moment, and Florida gives the homestead priority. The Supreme Court recited that rule in Aetna Insurance Co. v. LaGasse, 223 So. 2d 727 (Fla. 1969), for "a purchase or inheritance of land by a judgment debtor", and then held that it did not help the debtor there. She had inherited a remainder while her mother still held a life estate and "the right of occupancy and use essential to a homestead claim", so the recorded judgment came first.
• The owner moves out. Section 222.01(4) says a lien can attach "at such time as the property loses its homestead status."

Not for assessments. A condominium association has a lien on each unit for its assessments, and under Fla. Stat. § 718.116(5)(a) the lien "is effective from and shall relate back to the recording of the original declaration of condominium". Fla. Stat. § 720.3085(1) gives a homeowners' association the same lien where its governing documents authorize one, relating back to "the date on which the original declaration of the community was recorded". Against a first mortgage of record, each statute dates the lien from the recording of a claim of lien instead.

Relating back is what matters for homestead. In Bessemer, a lien for lot owners' shares of recreation-land rent under a developer's recorded declaration was held to relate back to the declaration, and "[s]ince the acquisition of homestead status does not defeat prior liens, ... the lienor's right prevails over the respondents' homestead right." A community's declaration is almost always recorded before the owner buys, so the association's lien for unpaid assessments comes ahead of the homestead and can be foreclosed against it.

On a sale it rarely gets that far. The association's estoppel certificate states what is owed, and it is paid from the seller's proceeds at closing (how estoppel certificates work).

Only on proof of fraud or reprehensible conduct. Alimony and child support are not among the constitution's three exceptions, but Florida's district courts of appeal have allowed an equitable lien on a homestead for support arrears, and in some cases a forced sale, where the owner used the homestead to defraud the former spouse.

They have not allowed it for non-payment alone. In Isaacson v. Isaacson, 504 So. 2d 1309 (Fla. 1st DCA 1987), the court declined "to hold that, because a husband possesses qualified homestead real property which he refuses to alienate or mortgage to meet support obligations, he has acted 'reprehensibly' as a matter of law". Partridge v. Partridge, 790 So. 2d 1280 (Fla. 4th DCA 2001), reversed a judgment allowing foreclosure where the former wife's affidavit was "void of sufficient facts to support a claim that appellant acted either egregiously, reprehensibly, or fraudulently". Gepfrich v. Gepfrich, 582 So. 2d 743 (Fla. 4th DCA 1991), is the other side: a sale was permitted where the former husband had used the exemption to defraud his former wife.

The Florida Supreme Court listed these district court cases in a footnote to Havoco and expressed no opinion on them. A support lien that a family court has imposed and recorded is a requirement on the commitment like any other, and the family case belongs with the former spouses' lawyers.

The proceeds can keep the protection, on conditions. In JBK Associates, Inc. v. Sill Bros., Inc., No. SC15-977 (Fla. Apr. 28, 2016), the Florida Supreme Court applied the rule it set in Orange Brevard Plumbing & Heating Co. v. La Croix, 137 So. 2d 201 (Fla. 1962):

• "there must be a good faith intention, prior to and at the time of the sale, to reinvest the proceeds in another homestead" within a reasonable time;
• "the funds must not be commingled with other monies";
• only the part intended for the next homestead is protected. "Any surplus over and above that amount shall be treated as general assets of the debtor."

In JBK, a creditor garnished an account holding a seller's share of a homestead's sale proceeds, kept separately as a homestead account, and the court held the protection was not lost. The opinion sets no number of days for a reasonable time. What happens to the proceeds after closing is the seller's attorney's to advise on, not ours.

When the creditor answers the notice with a lawsuit; when the owner has moved out, rents the property, or holds it in a company or trust; when the judgment was recorded before the owner bought or moved in; when the debt may be one of the three exceptions, or is for support; and for protecting the proceeds after closing. Those belong with a Florida real estate attorney or the owner's own counsel.