The Phone-Call Change Order, the Unsigned Spouse, and Six Sunken Sabals
You own a small landscape company working in unincorporated Brevard County. In March a homeowner signed your one-page proposal for a $52,400 installation: 3,200 sq ft of 'Floratam' sod, 14 live oaks in 25-gallon containers, six 65-gallon sabal palms, 18 tons of river rock, and an irrigation retrofit. The proposal listed plant counts and unit prices and carried a line reading 'balance due on completion.' The husband signed; the wife did not. In week two the homeowner phoned your foreman and asked for 900 additional sq ft of sod and a 12-foot paver walkway. The crew built both. You never issued a written change order. On June 12 the last work was performed. In July you invoiced $9,180 for the additions. The homeowner says the additions were 'already included,' complains that the sabal palms look sunk below grade, and refuses to release the $14,600 final payment. You never served a Notice to Owner. The property is the owners' homestead.
1. The homeowner disputes the $9,180 in added work. What should have happened before the crew started, and what can you still do to support collection?
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The core failure is procedural: anything that changes price or scope must be captured in a written, signed change order before mobilizing. A phone call to a foreman is not authorization you can prove, and 'balance due on completion' language does not cover added scope.
What you can still do:
- Build the file from independent evidence: dated delivery tickets for the extra 900 sq ft of sod and for paver base and sand, the foreman's daily logs, photos of the walkway during construction, and any texts or call records from the week of the request.
- Send a written confirmation of the change using the same unit prices already in the signed proposal, with a 10-day deadline, then a demand letter.
- The unit prices in the contract are your strongest asset - damages become a quantity dispute rather than an argument about whether the work was worth anything.
- Florida small claims (county court) currently handles claims up to $8,000; the balance would go on the county civil docket, which changes the cost-benefit calculation.
Going forward: no crew starts extra work without a signed field change order, even a handwritten one photographed and texted to the office the same day.
2. You are considering recording a construction lien to force payment. Analyze the Notice to Owner question, the homestead issue, and the deadlines.
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Two separate questions get confused here, and only one of them matters.
Notice to Owner: Chapter 713 requires a Notice to Owner from lienors not in privity with the owner - suppliers, subcontractors, sub-subs - within 45 days of first furnishing. You contracted directly with the owner, so the missing NTO does not by itself destroy your lien rights. Do not let that fact drive the decision.
Homestead: the property is the owners' homestead. Under Article X, section 4 of the Florida Constitution, a lien on homestead is valid only if the contract is executed by both spouses (or by the owner and the spouse). Only the husband signed, so a claim of lien is very likely unenforceable - and recording a lien you cannot support exposes you to challenge and to damages under Chapter 713.
Deadlines that do matter: a claim of lien must be recorded within 90 days after final furnishing. Your last work was June 12, so the outside date is around September 10. Suit to foreclose must follow within one year, or 20 days after a Notice of Contest.
Practical answer: do not record against this homestead unless the contract is cured (obtaining the spouse's signature after the fact is difficult but worth attempting), and otherwise pursue the debt as an ordinary contract action - demand letter, then county court. Never use a lien threat as leverage on a homestead you cannot lien.
3. The homeowner claims the sabal palms were planted too deep. How do you evaluate the claim, and how should it affect the $14,600 final payment?
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Check the palms before you argue. Sabal palmetto should be set so the top of the root ball - the original grade line on the trunk - sits at, or a couple of inches above, finished grade. Palms do not thicken with age and cannot tolerate soil, mulch, or fill pushed up around the bud or root-initiation zone; burying the trunk invites rot and can kill the palm. A very common site failure is not deep planting at installation but the bed or sod being raised around the palm afterward.
Procedure: expose the trunk 6–12 inches down on two sides, locate the root-initiation zone and the transition from the nursery root ball, and photograph it with a tape in frame. If fill is the problem, remove the excess soil and re-grade the bed away from the trunk rather than lifting a 65-gallon palm. If the palm is genuinely below surrounding grade, reset it in a hole twice the root-ball width, keep the root ball intact, backfill with native sand, water in, and stake only if unstable.
Handle it in writing, in the same letter as the payment demand: offer the inspection, state the correction you will make, and separate the palm issue from the payment dispute. Withholding the entire $14,600 over six palms is not defensible; withholding the cost of remediation is.