Associate Attorney
A recent Florida appellate decision cuts through a misconception that has caused real harm to property owners — and real liability exposure for attorneys. The case is Carner v. Singer, decided by Florida’s Fourth District Court of Appeal on June 10, 2026. The core lesson is simple but important: if your lawsuit is really about collecting money, you cannot file a lis pendens.
The Rule That Everything Else Turns On
A lis pendens is a recorded notice that litigation is pending that affects a specific piece of real property. It clouds title. It stops sales. It freezes refinancing. For a property owner, it is one of the most disruptive things a creditor can do short of obtaining an actual judgment.
Because it is so powerful, the law limits its use to situations where there is a genuine “fair nexus” between the lawsuit and the specific property being encumbered. That nexus exists only when the litigation itself would directly affect the title to, or the right of possession of, that property.
When the primary purpose of a lawsuit is to recover money damages and the action does not directly affect title or the right of possession of real property, a lis pendens is not authorized.
This is not a technicality. It is a foundational limit on what a lis pendens is for. A lis pendens protects parties whose ownership rights in a specific property are genuinely at stake in litigation. It is not a mechanism for creditors — even creditors with valid, court-ordered claims — to freeze a debtor’s real estate while they pursue a money judgment.
The Future Lien Argument Fails
The most important nuance in the court’s analysis addresses an argument that seems intuitive but is legally wrong: the idea that because a judgment might eventually become a lien on the property, there is a sufficient connection to support a lis pendens today.
The court rejected this squarely. A lien that may result after judgment provides no basis for filing a lis pendens. The nexus must exist at the time of filing — not as a speculative downstream consequence of winning a money case. The chain of possibilities (win the case → get a judgment → reduce to a lien → potentially foreclose) does not create the direct connection to title that the law requires.
This matters enormously in practice. Almost any creditor could construct that chain of logic for almost any debtor who owns real property. If that were enough, the fair nexus requirement would be meaningless — and lis pendens would become a standard collection tactic available to any plaintiff who wants to freeze a defendant’s real estate while litigating a money claim. Florida law does not permit that.
What Happened in This Case
Alan Carner owed his former wife child support and alimony arrearages. She filed a motion to enforce the settlement agreement and collect what she was owed. Straightforward enforcement of a money obligation.
While that proceeding was pending, Alan’s home was on the market — listed at $2.497 million to satisfy a separate mortgage foreclosure. His ex-wife’s attorneys filed a lis pendens against the home, tying it to the support enforcement proceeding. The listing agent was notified. The cloud on title did its work.
When Alan eventually sold the home, he received $1.65 million — $847,000 less than the original asking price. He then sued the attorneys for slander of title, abuse of process, malicious prosecution, and civil conspiracy. The trial court dismissed the case. The Fourth DCA reversed.
The enforcement proceeding was about money. It did not seek to affect Alan’s ownership of the home. It did not assert any equitable interest in the property. It did not claim a lien on the property itself. It sought arrearages — a money judgment. That is exactly the kind of claim that cannot support a lis pendens, no matter how legitimate the underlying debt.
The Section 61.11 Argument Did Not Save Them
The attorneys argued that Florida Statute Section 61.11 authorized the lis pendens because it allows courts to protect support and alimony obligations when a spouse is about to remove assets from the state or fraudulently conceal them. The court dispatched this quickly.
Section 61.11 is a narrow, extraordinary remedy. It applies when a spouse is actually about to flee or hide assets. Alan was listing his home publicly, through a realtor, at a published price. There was nothing concealed or fraudulent about it. The statute simply did not apply.
More fundamentally, even if Section 61.11 had some application, the appropriate remedy would be an injunction addressing what happens to the proceeds after closing — not a pre-sale encumbrance on the title itself. One addresses money; the other clouds property rights. Those are very different instruments.
The Litigation Privilege Does Not Protect a Wrongful Filing
The attorneys also argued they were shielded by Florida’s litigation privilege, which provides absolute immunity for acts taken during judicial proceedings that relate to the proceeding. The court rejected this defense as well.
The privilege protects the content of litigation communications — what attorneys say in pleadings, motions, and filings. It does not immunize the wrongful act of filing something that should never have been filed at all. When the tort being alleged is premised specifically on the impropriety of the filing itself, the privilege cannot swallow the claim whole.
The Florida Supreme Court made the same point about malicious prosecution: you cannot use the litigation privilege to extinguish a tort whose very elements include wrongfully pursuing litigation. The Fourth DCA applied that same logic here. The attorneys filed a lis pendens with no legitimate legal basis. That act — not the words written in it — is what gave rise to the claims.
The Exposure Is Real
Slander of title is the tort of wrongfully, intentionally, and maliciously disparaging the vendibility of title to real property. When an attorney files an improper lis pendens that clouds title and drives down a sale price, that tort is squarely in play. In this case, the alleged damages are $847,000 — and those claims are now headed back to the trial court, directed not just at the former wife, but at her attorneys personally.
The Practical Takeaway
For attorneys: the fair nexus requirement is real, and it has teeth. Before filing a lis pendens in a family law enforcement case — or any case where the underlying claim is fundamentally about money — ask the hard question: does this lawsuit actually affect title to this specific property, independent of whatever might happen after a judgment is entered? If the honest answer is no, the lis pendens is improper, and filing it creates personal liability exposure.
For property owners: a lis pendens filed against your property in connection with a money claim — even a legitimate one — may be legally groundless. You have the right to move to dissolve it, and if it caused you damages, you may have a tort claim for those losses.
A lis pendens is a serious instrument tied to a serious legal purpose. It is not leverage. It is not a collection device. And misusing it has consequences.
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