Someone recorded a lis pendens over a money dispute. Does it stop the closing?

A notice of lis pendens tells anyone who buys or lends against a property that a lawsuit is pending which could affect it, and that they take subject to whatever the suit decides. Fla. Stat. § 48.23 is the statute.

That is why it stops a closing even though it decides nothing. A title insurer will not ordinarily insure a buyer free of a recorded lis pendens, because it cannot know what the lawsuit will decide. The notice goes on the commitment as a requirement, and it has to be withdrawn, discharged or allowed to lapse before the buyer gets a clean policy.

None of that depends on whether the lis pendens was properly recorded. A notice with no proper basis blocks a closing exactly as well as a proper one, until a court says otherwise. That is what makes it tempting as leverage.

In Carner v. Singer, No. 4D2025-0467, decided on 10 June 2026, Florida's Fourth District Court of Appeal dealt with a lis pendens recorded over a money claim. Judge Lott wrote the opinion; Judges Ciklin and Gerber concurred, with no dissent.

The facts, as the opinion sets them out: a former wife moved in December 2021 to enforce the marital settlement agreement against her former husband for unpaid alimony and child support. In August 2022 he listed his home for $2,497,000, and four days later her attorneys recorded a lis pendens against it, tied to the enforcement proceeding. The home sold in January 2024 for $1,650,000 — $847,000 below the listing price. He sued the attorneys for slander of title, abuse of process, malicious prosecution and civil conspiracy. The trial court dismissed his complaint with prejudice. The Fourth District reversed.

The court framed the question in one line and answered it in the next: "The question presented in this appeal is whether Former Wife was allowed to file a lis pendens on Former Husband's home based on the pending enforcement proceeding. The answer is no."

The points that matter for a closing:

• A lis pendens needs a fair nexus to the property. Applying the Florida Supreme Court's test from Chiusolo v. Kennedy, 614 So. 2d 491 (Fla. 1993), and Medical Facilities Development, Inc. v. Little Arch Creek Properties, Inc., 675 So. 2d 915 (Fla. 1996), the court said a lis pendens "cannot be filed in every litigation against a property owner. Its use is appropriate only where the dispute is sufficiently connected to the property at issue."
• A future lien is not enough. "In sum, property that might eventually be subject to foreclosure to satisfy a judgment, even in a family case, without more, cannot be properly subjected to a lis pendens." That the case was about alimony and child support, the court said, "bears little on the inquiry."
• There are other tools for a creditor worried about a sale. The attorneys relied on Fla. Stat. § 61.11, which lets a court secure support where a party is about to leave the state or fraudulently convey or conceal property. The court found nothing of the kind — the former husband "was listing the house on the open market through a realtor—nothing fraudulent or surreptitious" — and said that concerns about the sale proceeds "did not authorize a pre-sale lis pendens clouding title to the house." The court pointed to an injunction requiring the proceeds to be deposited as the kind of order § 61.11 does allow.
• Recording one without a basis has consequences. The litigation privilege did not protect the attorneys "to the extent the claims turn on, as an element, the wrongful act of filing the lis pendens."

The court reversed the dismissal and remanded "for further proceedings consistent with this opinion." It said expressly that it was not deciding whether any count states a claim — it did not decide that the attorneys owe him anything. When we checked the court dockets on 6 November 2026, they showed no motion for rehearing and no proceeding in the Florida Supreme Court.

The lis pendens still has to come off before the closing. Carner does not make a recorded notice disappear, and it does not let a title agent ignore one. What it changes is how strong the owner's position is in asking a court to discharge it.

Where the lawsuit is not founded on a duly recorded instrument or a construction lien, § 48.23 lets the court control and discharge the notice the way it would dissolve an injunction. On that motion, the party who recorded the notice has to show the fair nexus. Where the suit is about money — unpaid support, a business debt, an unpaid invoice, a personal loan — Carner is a published appellate decision saying that nexus does not exist.

It is not a new rule, and it is not only the Fourth District's. The opinion collects the same holding from the other districts: the First in Brown v. Brown, 732 So. 2d 1169 (Fla. 1st DCA 1999), a lis pendens on a home to enforce support arrearages that should have been discharged; the Second in Sheehan v. Reinhardt, 988 So. 2d 1289 (Fla. 2d DCA 2008); the Third in Blue Star Palms, LLC v. LED Trust, LLC, 128 So. 3d 36 (Fla. 3d DCA 2012), Trujillo v. Garcia, 402 So. 3d 422 (Fla. 3d DCA 2024), and Golubtsova v. Budaev, 418 So. 3d 329 (Fla. 3d DCA 2025); and the Fifth in DeGuzman v. Balsini, 930 So. 2d 752 (Fla. 5th DCA 2006), which the court quoted: "a lien which may result after a judgment provides no basis for the filing of a lis pendens notice." What Carner adds is a family-law case squarely on point, and a holding that the person who records one without a basis can be sued for it.

It also changes the conversation before anyone goes to court. The party who recorded the notice, and their lawyer, now have a reported decision telling them that recording it over a money claim can expose them to a claim for damages. A withdrawal, often in exchange for a holdback from the sale proceeds, is the quicker way to close, and it is more likely when the other side knows what it risks by refusing.

• A suit that does claim the property. Foreclosure, quiet title, partition, specific performance of a contract to sell this property, a claim to an equitable lien or constructive trust on it — these are founded on an interest in the property, and a lis pendens on them is exactly what the statute is for.
• A suit founded on a recorded instrument. A mortgage foreclosure is the common case. Under § 48.23, the court's power to discharge the notice the way it would an injunction applies to actions not founded on a recorded instrument or construction lien.
• The timeline. A motion to discharge needs a hearing, and a hearing date is on the court's calendar, not the closing's. And an order of discharge is not the end of it. Reading Inlet Colony, LLC v. Martindale, 340 So. 3d 492 (Fla. 4th DCA 2022), a 2024 Florida Bar Journal article explains that a party has 30 days from the order to seek review, and that the lis pendens is not fully dissolved until that period has run. Where the closing date cannot move, the contract's extension terms matter as much as the law.
• The one-year lapse. A notice on an action not founded on a recorded instrument or construction lien lapses one year after the action began unless the court extends it. That is a backstop, not a closing plan.

As soon as the lis pendens is found. The seller needs their own Florida litigation counsel to ask for a withdrawal or move to discharge, and possibly to look at whether the notice caused a loss they can recover. A buyer needs their own counsel on whether to wait, extend or walk away under the contract. A title agent cannot do either job.