TL;DR
A notice of commencement is a document recorded with the county before construction starts — required in states such as Florida, Ohio, and Michigan — identifying the property, owner, contractor, and lender so that subcontractors know where to send lien notices. Recording it correctly starts the legal framework that governs payment disputes, and in Florida, paying a contractor before it is recorded can expose the owner to paying twice.
What it means
A notice of commencement is a document recorded with the county before construction starts — required in states such as Florida, Ohio, and Michigan — identifying the property, owner, contractor, and lender so that subcontractors know where to send lien notices. Recording it correctly starts the legal framework that governs payment disputes, and in Florida, paying a contractor before it is recorded can expose the owner to paying twice. Permits in these states often cannot be finalized without it.
Where it sits in the glossary
Notice of commencement is part of the Legal group inside the ProFix Directory glossary. Browse every term in this category from the glossary index.
Why Ohio homeowners should know it
This is a term Ohio homeowners encounter when reading contractor quotes, hiring paperwork, or inspection reports. Understanding it well enough to ask one good follow-up question is usually all the protection a homeowner needs.
ProFix Directory keeps definitions short on the index page and saves the longer context — Ohio-specific rules, where the term comes from, and which ProFix tools touch it — for these per-term pages so the term is easy to cite and easy to share.
ProFix tools that touch this term
See also
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