Who this guide serves, and what it covers
This guide is written for the Canadian who owns a long-term rental in Florida and is staring at a tenant who has stopped paying, stopped complying, or stopped communicating, usually from 2,000 kilometres away. It walks the full legal sequence of a residential eviction under Part II of chapter 83, Florida Statutes, the Florida Residential Landlord and Tenant Act: grounds, notices, filing, the rent registry, judgment, and the sheriff's writ, with the timelines and costs a remote owner should actually budget.
Scope first, because Florida law splits tenants into regimes. This page covers residential tenancies under a lease or month to month arrangement, the regime of the annual lease documented in the guide to Florida leases under chapter 83. It does not cover removing a short-term guest from a vacation rental, which follows different rules, or commercial tenancies. If your property runs as a nightly rental, start with the vacation rental management guide instead.
One framing fact changes the whole mood: Florida is among the fastest eviction jurisdictions in North America, precisely because the statute channels everything through a summary procedure and a brutal rent-deposit rule. A Canadian owner used to provincial tenancy boards should expect a process measured in weeks, not seasons, provided every procedural step is executed exactly. The same statute punishes shortcuts severely, which is where this guide begins.
The golden rule: no self-help, ever
Every instinct of a frustrated absent owner, cut the power, change the locks, have the manager remove the tenant's things, is a statutory violation in Florida with a price tag attached.
Verified fact: section 83.67, Florida Statutes, prohibits a landlord from causing, directly or indirectly, the termination or interruption of any utility service furnished to the tenant, from preventing the tenant's access to the unit, and from removing outside doors, locks, walls, or windows outside genuine maintenance. A landlord who violates the section is liable for the tenant's actual and consequential damages or 3 months' rent, whichever is greater, plus costs and attorney's fees, with repeated violations subject to separate awards. Source: Florida Statutes, s. 83.67, Online Sunshine, consulted June 9, 2026.
Read that liability the way a judge will: on a 2,400 USD monthly rent, one improvised lockout starts at 7,200 USD plus the tenant's lawyer, and it also hands the tenant leverage over the lawful eviction you still have to run. The rule binds your property manager as your agent too: "my manager did it" is not a defence, it is vicarious liability. The only lawful path to possession against an unwilling tenant runs through county court and ends with a sheriff, and the entire design of the summary procedure exists to make that path fast enough that self-help is never worth it.
Step one: the statutory notice, exactly right
Every eviction starts with a written notice whose form, content, and arithmetic come straight from section 83.56. Florida recognizes three workhorse notices for residential tenancies.
The 3-day notice for non-payment. If rent is unpaid when due, the landlord delivers a written demand for the rent or possession, and the tenant has 3 days, excluding Saturdays, Sundays, and legal holidays, to pay in full or vacate. The notice must state the amount of rent due; this is a rent instrument, not a collections letter, and stuffing it with late fees and charges the lease does not define as rent is the classic way to void it.
The 7-day notice with opportunity to cure, for curable violations: the unauthorized dog, the parked trailer, the unapproved occupant. It specifies the noncompliance and warns that the lease terminates if the violation is not corrected within 7 days of delivery. If the same conduct recurs within 12 months, the landlord may terminate without offering a second cure.
The 7-day unconditional notice, for noncompliance the statute treats as beyond cure: destruction of the premises, repeated violations within 12 months, or conduct of that gravity. The tenant has 7 days to vacate, with no cure offered.
Verified fact: under section 83.56(3), the non-payment default must continue for 3 days, excluding Saturday, Sunday, and legal holidays, after delivery of the written demand; under 83.56(2), curable noncompliance carries a 7-day cure window and recurrence within 12 months permits termination without a new cure notice. Delivery of these notices may be made by mailing, by personal delivery, by e-mail where the parties have agreed under s. 83.505, or, if the tenant is absent, by leaving a copy at the residence. Source: Florida Statutes, s. 83.56, consulted June 9, 2026.
Two execution details decide cases. Count the 3 days correctly: serve on a Thursday and the clock runs Friday, Monday, Tuesday. And document delivery: a dated photo of the posted notice, the mailing receipt, or the e-mail trail, because "the notice was defective" is the first line of every tenant defence.
Step two: filing in county court under the summary procedure
If the notice expires uncured, the landlord files an eviction complaint in the county court of the county where the property sits, attaching the lease and the notice. Possession claims travel under section 51.011, Florida's summary procedure, which compresses every deadline: the tenant has 5 days, excluding weekends and legal holidays, from service to file a written answer, and the rest of the calendar moves with the same urgency. A separate count for unpaid rent or damages can ride in the same complaint under the ordinary 20-day clock; many remote owners pursue possession first and money later, or never, which is a strategic choice about collectability rather than law.
Service of process is the step distance owners underestimate. The summons must be served by the sheriff or a certified process server, with the statute's fallback of posting on the door for possession-only claims when the tenant cannot be personally served. A posted service supports possession but not a money judgment, one more reason the possession count is the train and the money count is the caboose.
Step three: the rent registry, Florida's decisive rule
What makes Florida structurally landlord-friendly is not the short notices; it is section 83.60(2).
Verified fact: if the tenant raises any defence other than payment, the tenant must deposit the accrued rent alleged in the complaint, and rent as it comes due during the case, into the registry of the court, or file a motion to determine the amount, within 5 days, excluding Saturdays, Sundays, and legal holidays, of being served. Failure to do so is an absolute waiver of the tenant's defences other than payment, and the landlord is entitled to an immediate default judgment for possession, with the writ to issue without further notice or hearing. Source: Florida Statutes, s. 83.60(2), consulted June 9, 2026.
In practice this single rule resolves most contested files. A tenant who is not paying rent usually cannot fund the registry either, and the defences evaporate by operation of law within a week of service. The contested evictions that genuinely run months are the ones where the tenant deposits the money, which at least means the rent is accumulating safely at the clerk rather than disappearing.
Step four: judgment, the writ, and the sheriff's 24 hours
Possession arrives in three documents. The judgment for possession, entered after default, after the registry waiver, or after a hearing. The writ of possession, issued by the clerk to the sheriff. And the sheriff's notice on the door.
Verified fact: under section 83.62, after judgment for the landlord the clerk issues a writ commanding the sheriff to put the landlord in possession after 24 hours' notice conspicuously posted on the premises, and Saturdays, Sundays, and legal holidays do not stay that 24-hour period. At execution, the landlord or agent may remove personal property found on the premises to or near the property line, and may ask the sheriff to stand by, at an hourly rate, while the locks are changed. Source: Florida Statutes, s. 83.62, consulted June 9, 2026.
This is the moment your property manager, not you, should be standing at the door with a locksmith: the lockout becomes lawful exactly here, in the sheriff's presence, and not one day earlier. Photograph the unit's condition the same hour; the security deposit reconciliation that follows has its own statutory clock and its own dispute pattern, covered in the guide to Florida security deposits under s. 83.49.
Realistic timelines and budget
Typical range: as of June 2026, an uncontested non-payment eviction in most Florida counties runs about 3 to 6 weeks from notice to sheriff's lockout: 3 business days of notice, a few days to file and serve, the tenant's 5-day window expiring, default paperwork, then the writ queue at the sheriff's office, which is the most county-dependent step. A contested case where the tenant funds the registry typically runs 1 to 3 months; one with counsel on both sides and genuine defences can run longer. These are practice observations, not statutory promises.
Typical range: direct costs as of June 2026 typically land in the few-hundred-dollar band for filing and service, county fee schedules vary, plus the sheriff's writ fee, with flat attorney fees for an uncontested residential eviction commonly quoted in the high hundreds to low four figures USD. The larger budget line is almost always the rent you will not collect: two to three months of it across the cycle is a realistic planning figure for a non-payment file.
Set those numbers against the asset: on a 2,400 USD rent, the all-in cost of doing it correctly is routinely smaller than the 83.67 exposure of doing it badly once.
Running it from Canada: the remote-landlord playbook
Nothing in chapter 83 requires your presence in Florida at any step, and a well-built file runs entirely through two professionals you already should have.
The property manager is your operational arm: monitoring the default, preparing and posting the notice with date-stamped photos, coordinating the process server, meeting the sheriff at the writ, changing the locks, and documenting the unit. Florida property managers run evictions weekly; the selection criteria are in the guide to choosing a Florida property manager, and eviction handling belongs in the management agreement before you ever need it: who pays the filing fees, who signs, who appears.
The attorney is your procedural arm. An individual owner may technically file in proper person, but a Canadian owner managing by e-mail has no business drafting around a defective-notice defence, and an owner who holds the property through an LLC or corporation should assume the entity must appear through licensed counsel in court, as Florida practice requires for business entities. The economics are not close: the uncontested flat fee is a fraction of one month's rent.
Two cross-border wrinkles complete the picture. First, your court dates: contested hearings can usually be attended remotely where the county offers it, but plan for counsel to stand in rather than building travel around a docket. Second, the money: a judgment for unpaid rent against a departed tenant is collectable in theory and rarely in practice, which is why experienced owners weigh the registry balance, the deposit, and speed of possession above the paper judgment.
How Florida compares with the regimes Canadians know
Residential tenancy law in Canada is provincial, and most provinces run evictions through a specialized tribunal rather than a court. The comparison below is the calibration most Canadian owners need on day one.
| Aspect | State (FL): ch. 83 Part II | Provincial (QC): Tribunal administratif du logement | Provincial (ON): Landlord and Tenant Board | Provincial (AB · BC · SK · MB · NS · NB · PEI · NL) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Forum | County court, summary procedure (s. 51.011) | Administrative tribunal (TAL) | Administrative tribunal (LTB, N4 notice regime) | Each province's residential tenancy board or branch |
| Non-payment notice | 3 days excluding weekends and holidays (s. 83.56(3)) | No fixed cure notice; lease termination through the tribunal once rent is 3 weeks late | N4 with a 14-day cure period for monthly tenants | Cure periods commonly between 10 and 14 days, province by province |
| Tenant defence economics | Registry deposit within 5 days or defences waived (s. 83.60(2)) | No equivalent deposit rule | No equivalent deposit rule; arrears can accrue through the hearing | No equivalent deposit rule |
| Enforcement | Sheriff, 24 hours after posting (s. 83.62) | Bailiff after tribunal decision | Court-enforced order after LTB ruling | Provincial enforcement offices |
Opinion: measured end to end, Florida's process is materially faster and more creditor-friendly than any Canadian provincial regime, chiefly because of the registry rule, and tribunal backlogs in several provinces have widened that gap in recent years. The flip side is procedural: Florida forgives nothing on notice arithmetic and service, where Canadian tribunals are often more indulgent of landlord paperwork. Speed for precision is the trade.
A worked example: a March 2027 default in Pinellas County
Sylvie, of Longueuil, rents her Clearwater townhouse for 2,400 USD a month, managed locally. Rent due March 1, 2027 does not arrive. Her manager calls and e-mails on March 2 and 3; nothing.
March 4, a Thursday: the manager posts and photographs the 3-day notice for 2,400 USD of rent, no late fees on the face of the notice. The 3 days run Friday, Monday, Tuesday, March 5, 8, 9. Nothing is paid. March 10: Sylvie's eviction attorney files the possession complaint in Pinellas County court, 2 days later the process server posts the summons after two attempted personal services. The tenant files nothing and deposits nothing; on the sixth business day the registry waiver and default line up, and the clerk issues the writ. The sheriff posts the 24-hour notice and, on the first business day following, stands by while the manager's locksmith changes the cylinders. Possession recovered: April 2, 2027, 29 days after the missed due date.
Typical range: the file's direct costs, filing, service, writ, and an uncontested flat legal fee, land near 1,500 USD, June 2026 pricing observation, against 2,400 USD of lost March rent and a deposit reconciliation still to run under s. 83.49. Had Sylvie instead told the manager to change the locks on March 5, her statutory exposure under s. 83.67 would have started at 7,200 USD plus fees, and the lawful eviction would still have been ahead of her.
What the tenant can throw back: defences a landlord should anticipate
The registry rule filters out defences that are merely tactical, but Florida tenants hold real statutory cards, and a remote owner should know the three that actually appear.
First, the condition defence. A tenant may assert the landlord's material failure to maintain the premises under s. 83.51 as a defence to non-payment, but the statute disciplines it: the tenant must have given their own 7-day written notice of the defect and, to litigate it, still faces the registry deposit. An owner whose maintenance file is clean and documented through the manager neutralizes this card before it is played; an owner who ignored the January leak hands the tenant a rent-withholding narrative for the March hearing.
Second, retaliation. Section 83.64 presumes retaliatory conduct when an eviction follows closely on a tenant's complaint to a code authority, participation in a tenants' organization, or assertion of statutory rights. The presumption is rebuttable, good cause like genuine non-payment defeats it, but timing optics matter: filing the eviction the week after a code complaint invites the defence even on a clean ledger.
Third, the procedural kill shots: defective notice arithmetic, padded rent demands, bad service. These are not exotic; they are the routine way evictions are lost and refiled, which is why the first half of this guide dwells on execution detail. A lost file costs the filing fees again, but mostly it costs another month of free occupancy.
What tenants cannot do is convert the county court file into a damages forum: counterclaims beyond the summary procedure's scope are typically severed, and the registry rule keeps the rent question at the centre. The Florida design is possession first, everything else second.
The cheapest eviction is the one you never file
Three habits measurably reduce the odds of ever using this guide, and all three run fine from Canada.
Screening with discipline. Verified income at a sensible multiple of rent, an eviction-record search in the counties the applicant lived in, landlord references actually called, and identical criteria applied to every applicant, both for fair-housing compliance and because exceptions are where defaults live. Your manager does this daily; your job is refusing to override the criteria for a sympathetic story in February.
A lease built for enforcement. Florida gives you the statutory machinery, but the lease defines what counts as rent, authorizes e-mail notice under s. 83.505, fixes late-fee mechanics, and names the manager as agent for notices. Every one of those clauses is a pre-positioned answer to a future defence; the annotated walkthrough lives in the chapter 83 lease guide.
Early, written escalation. Most defaults resolve in the first ten days when the response is immediate, documented, and unemotional: due-date reminder, day-2 written notice of intent, day-4 statutory notice. Distance is no excuse with a manager on site, and tenants calibrate quickly to an owner whose process never blinks. The owners who lose months are the ones who negotiated informally by text until April.
Opinion: for a Canadian owner, the single highest-return investment in this whole domain is not legal at all: it is paying for the better property manager, the one whose notice photos are time-stamped, whose ledgers reconcile, and who has met the county sheriff's civil unit before. Every statutory advantage Florida offers assumes execution, and execution is exactly what you cannot supply from Longueuil in January.
Common mistakes
Florida eviction files die on procedure. These are the recurring wounds, most of them self-inflicted.
- Any flavour of self-help. Utilities, locks, doors, intimidation by the manager: s. 83.67 prices each one at actual damages or 3 months' rent, whichever is greater, plus the tenant's lawyer.
- Bad notice arithmetic. Counting weekends in the 3 days, or starting the clock on the day of delivery. Serve Thursday, the third day is Tuesday.
- Padding the 3-day notice. Demanding late fees and charges the lease does not define as rent voids the instrument and restarts the whole sequence.
- Accepting rent after the notice without advice. Accepting payment with knowledge of the default can waive the right to proceed on that notice; partial payments during a case have their own statutory choreography. Decide with counsel, not at the mailbox.
- Sloppy service trail. No photo of the posted notice, no mailing receipt, no e-mail agreement under s. 83.505: the cheapest defence a tenant can buy.
- An LLC filing without counsel. Business entities appear through licensed attorneys in Florida courts; a manager or member filing in the company's name invites dismissal.
- Forgetting the deposit clock after possession. Section 83.49 runs its own deadlines for claiming against the security deposit, and blowing them converts your claim into the tenant's.
- Ignoring the tax tail. The unpaid rent, the eviction costs, and the lost weeks all live inside your U.S. and Canadian rental filings, the 1040-NR Schedule E and the T776; an eviction year is precisely when the paper trail matters.
The remote owner's eviction checklist
- Before any default: confirm your management agreement covers evictions, notice authority, and who fronts costs; identify an eviction attorney in the property's county.
- Day 1 of default: manager contacts the tenant in writing; you set the decision date for the notice, not "let's see next week".
- Serve the correct notice for the ground, rent-only amounts on a 3-day, with date-stamped proof of delivery.
- Calendar the deadline excluding Saturdays, Sundays, and legal holidays.
- On expiry, file immediately in the county court through counsel; attach lease and notice.
- Track service and the tenant's 5-day window; instruct counsel to move for default and registry waiver the day they mature.
- On the writ, have the manager, locksmith, and camera at the property for the sheriff's appointment.
- Document the unit, inventory any property left behind, and start the s. 83.49 deposit clock the same day.
- Relist through the manager, and run the loss through both tax files at year-end.
- Post-mortem the screening: the cheapest eviction is the application you decline next time.
Frequently asked questions
How long does a Florida eviction really take?
Uncontested non-payment files commonly run 3 to 6 weeks from notice to lockout, driven mostly by service speed and the sheriff's writ queue in your county. A tenant who funds the court registry and fights can extend that to 1 to 3 months or more. Treat anything quoted in days as marketing.
Can I refuse a partial payment after serving the 3-day notice?
You can, and many counsel advise it: accepting rent with knowledge of the default can waive the notice you just served. If accepting partial money makes commercial sense, do it on legal advice and with the statutory steps observed, not informally through the manager.
The tenant left in the night and abandoned furniture. Do I still need the court?
If the unit is genuinely surrendered or abandoned under the statute's tests, possession can be recovered without an eviction, but misreading abandonment is how lockout liability starts. The conservative play for an absent owner is counsel's sign-off before the locks change, and the writ route whenever the facts are murky.
Can I shut off utilities I pay for myself between tenants or during the case?
During any occupancy, no: s. 83.67 reaches interruption of any utility furnished to the tenant whether or not you control or pay for it. The liability is per violation, and repeated violations stack. After lawful possession, the accounts are yours again; see the utilities guide.
Is "cash for keys" legal in Florida?
Yes. A negotiated, documented move-out agreement with payment on surrender of keys is lawful and often rational arithmetic against 4 to 6 weeks of process and an uncollectable judgment. Opinion: for a remote Canadian owner, a modest cash-for-keys deal that ends a doubtful file in 5 days is frequently the best financial outcome on the menu, provided it is papered like the contract it is.
My guest in the vacation rental refuses to leave. Same process?
No. Transient occupants of a vacation rental are not chapter 83 tenants, and Florida law provides faster removal mechanisms for genuine guests who overstay. The boundary between guest and tenant is factual; the vacation rental management guide covers the prevention side, and counsel should handle the removal side the first time it happens.
Do I have to fly down for any of this?
No step requires the owner's physical presence: the notice, filing, default, writ, and lockout all run through your manager and counsel. The only appearances that may matter are contested hearings, where your attorney stands in and remote attendance is often available. Your job is decisions and documentation, from wherever you are.