Which place’s debt rules apply—and who can help?

Florida Debt and Debt-Relief Law — S_FL Comprehensive Reference Investigation

Assigned area: A066 — State, local, territorial, and tribal rules

Focused jurisdiction: Florida

Research key: S_FL

Baseline and actual check date: October 22, 2026, America/Los_Angeles

Status convention: “Current” means verified as operative on October 22, 2026. “Future-effective,” “proposed,” “vacated,” “historical,” “partial,” and “unresolved” are expressly labeled. A webpage update date is not treated as an effective date.

This is a reusable legal-research reference, not individualized legal advice. Florida substantive law, federal overlays, court procedure, federal/tribal boundaries, agency programs, and creditor-contract issues are separated below. No particular creditor’s settlement policy, minimum settlement percentage, tax result, credit-score result, or willingness to compromise is assumed.

Executive findings and verified Florida matrix

Florida does not have one unified “debt settlement license” statute. Its core debt-management law is Part IV of Chapter 817, which regulates “credit counseling agencies,” “credit counseling services,” and “debt management services”; it imposes fees, debtor-fund safeguards, disbursement duties, civil liability, and criminal penalties. A particularly important 2024 amendment creates an exemption for a telemarketer or seller furnishing a “debt relief service” within the federal Telemarketing Sales Rule if the entity complies with the TSR and does not receive the debtor’s funds for disbursement to creditors. Thus, a non-custodial TSR-covered settlement model and a custodial debt-management-plan model can fall into materially different Florida regimes. [S_FL-C002–C009] 1

Florida separately regulates consumer collection agencies through Chapter 559 and the Office of Financial Regulation, but the Florida Consumer Collection Practices Act’s conduct restrictions are broader than registration. Section 559.72 regulates collection conduct by a “person,” and §559.77 authorizes a debtor action against a violating person; therefore an entity exempt from consumer-collection-agency registration is not automatically exempt from the FCCPA’s substantive collection-conduct rules. [S_FL-C010–C016] 2

Florida’s limitation periods must not be collapsed into a single “Florida debt SOL.” The current statute supplies, among other periods, five years for a written-instrument contract, four years for a contract or liability not founded on a written instrument, including specified store-account/sale-of-goods claims, three years for medical debt for services rendered by a Chapter 395-licensed facility beginning when the facility refers the debt to a third party for collection, twenty years for an action on a Florida court-of-record judgment, and a specialized one-year period for certain residential mortgage deficiency claims. Accrual, tolling, borrowing law, and the nature of the claim can change the result. [S_FL-C020–C024] 3

Florida has unusually significant ordinary-collection exemptions. A head of family—defined as a natural person providing more than half the support of a child or other dependent—has all disposable earnings of $750 per week or less exempt, and earnings above $750 remain protected unless the statutory written-waiver requirements are satisfied; qualifying exempt earnings retain protection in a financial institution for six months if traceable. The 2026 personal-property statute protects up to $5,000 of equity in one motor vehicle, plus up to $4,000 of personal property when the debtor does not claim or receive constitutional homestead benefits, subject to statutory exceptions. [S_FL-C037–C043] 4

Florida’s constitutional homestead protection is separate from the tax homestead exemption and from federal bankruptcy restrictions. Article X, §4 protects qualifying homestead from forced sale and ordinary judgment liens, up to 160 contiguous acres outside a municipality or one-half acre within a municipality, but expressly excepts taxes and assessments, purchase obligations such as mortgages, improvement/repair obligations, and specified labor obligations. [S_FL-C041] 5

Florida mortgage foreclosure is judicial. Deficiency relief is not automatic: §702.06 places a deficiency decree within the court’s discretion and, for owner-occupied residential property, caps the amount by reference to debt/judgment amount and fair market value. Separately, §95.11 establishes the special limitation period for a deficiency claim on specified one-to-four-family residential property. [S_FL-C044–C046] 6

A secured creditor may repossess personal property after default without judicial process only if it proceeds without breach of the peace. Sale/disposition, notice, application of proceeds, and any surplus or deficiency are governed by Article 9 of Florida’s UCC; these rules must be layered with any applicable motor-vehicle retail-installment law and the particular contract. [S_FL-C047–C048] 7

Florida enacted meaningful protections for debts owed to Chapter 395-licensed health facilities. Section 395.3011 treats debt sale, adverse credit reporting, denial of medically necessary care because of earlier unpaid covered bills, lawsuits, liens, seizures, foreclosure and garnishment as “extraordinary collection actions,” and generally bars such action until statutory prerequisites are satisfied, including financial-assistance review, an itemized statement, insurance adjudication where applicable, and a 30-day traceable warning. [S_FL-C050–C053] 8

The CFPB’s January 2025 federal Medical Debt Rule must not be published as current law. CFPB materials state that the rule was vacated by the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Texas on July 11, 2025. Some eCFR material may still display regulatory text, but the vacatur controls its operative status. [S_FL-C052] 9

Section-by-section status matrix

Debt relief, collection practices, limitation periods, and credit reporting

Debt settlement, debt-management plans, counseling and customer funds

S_FL-C002 — Definition. Florida’s operative statutory trigger is functional rather than the marketing label. Section 817.801 treats services provided for a fee to adjust, compromise or discharge unsecured indebtedness as debt-management services, and separately includes receiving debtor money for distribution to creditors. A company therefore cannot determine applicability merely by calling itself a “settlement,” “resolution,” “counseling,” or “DMP” company. 10

S_FL-C003 — Licensing/registration conclusion. The reviewed 2026 text of §§817.801–817.806 contains definitions, fees, exemptions, financial controls, disbursement duties and enforcement but does not itself create a Florida OFR licensing or registration certificate for a provider solely because it performs Part IV debt-management services. This is a deliberately bounded negative finding: activities performed alongside debt relief can independently trigger other statutes, and collection agencies have their own Chapter 559 registration regime. 10

S_FL-C004 — Fees. Section 817.802 allows no more than $50 for the initial setup/consultation. Thereafter the provider can charge no more than $120 a year for additional consultations; if providing the custodial service described in §817.801(4)(b), the monthly fee is capped at the lesser of 15% of the amount the debtor pays the provider that month or $75. A reasonable separate insufficient-funds charge is authorized. 11

The cap should not be published as “all Florida debt settlement companies may charge 15%.” The 15% calculation is tied to the monthly amount paid to the agency and to the statutory custodial/disbursement category—not a percentage of enrolled debt, savings, or settled balance. The 2024 TSR exemption further changes whether Part IV applies at all to qualifying non-custodial telemarketing debt-relief sellers. [S_FL-C004, C006] 27

S_FL-C005 — Exemptions. Section 817.803 exempts Florida law practice, debt adjustment by the creditor of its own debt, and specified regulated or government-linked entities. No blanket exemption based solely on nonprofit status was found in the current provision. 12

S_FL-C006 — TSR interface. Effective from the 2024 statutory amendment, §817.803 also excludes a seller/telemarketer providing a debt-relief service within the federal Telemarketing and Consumer Fraud and Abuse Prevention Act/TSR when the entity is required to comply with that federal regime and does not perform the custodial function of receiving debtor funds and disbursing them to creditors. Federal TSR restrictions must therefore be analyzed as a separate federal layer rather than assumed to disappear because Florida grants the Part IV exemption. 13

S_FL-C007 — Customer funds. A covered custodial provider must maintain the statutory audit/insurance protections for funds held for consumers. Section 817.805 requires amounts received for creditors, less authorized fees and creditor contributions, to be disbursed to creditors within 30 days. A creditor contribution cannot reduce what is credited to the consumer’s account. 10

S_FL-C008 — Enforcement. Section 817.806 creates a consumer civil action with actual damages no lower than the amount the consumer paid the provider and reasonable attorney fees/costs, while separately classifying violations criminally as third-degree felonies. 10

S_FL-C009 — Contract/cancellation gap. I did not locate in §§817.801–817.806 a universal Florida statutory debt-settlement cooling-off period comparable to the fee provisions above. Federal telemarketing requirements, general contract law, cancellation rights supplied by a particular agreement, and other statutes may govern. A publication claiming a universal Florida “X-day debt-settlement cancellation period” should therefore be held until a specific controlling authority is identified. 10

Collection agencies, original creditors, debt buyers and federal overlays

S_FL-C010–C012 — Registration versus conduct. Chapter 559 defines consumer debt by primary personal/family/household purpose and generally requires consumer collection agencies to register with OFR. Statutory registration exemptions include specified original creditors, Florida Bar members and regulated financial entities. Florida expressly provides that its collection law is additional to the FDCPA and that the provision offering greater consumer protection prevails where inconsistent. 2

The OFR license/registration lookup is therefore a useful screening tool but not a dispositive answer to whether collection conduct is lawful. OFR provides a public “Verify a License” function covering collection agencies, and Chapter 69V-180 of the Florida Administrative Code contains the registration procedure and related rules. 28

S_FL-C013 — Prohibited conduct. Section 559.72 prohibits, among other things, threats of force, abusive or profane language, harassment, false legal threats, simulated legal/government documents, misrepresentation of attorney involvement, specified third-party disclosure, direct contact with a debtor known to be represented by counsel subject to statutory exceptions, and collection communication between 9 p.m. and 8 a.m. in the debtor’s time zone absent prior consent. The present text incorporates 2025 legislative changes and should be used instead of older summaries of Florida contact hours. 2

S_FL-C014 — Debt sale. Under §559.715, an assignee must provide written notice of assignment as soon as practical and at least 30 days before “any action to collect” the debt; the assignee becomes the real party in interest. This does not mean an assignment automatically proves its admissibility, amount, chain of ownership, contract terms or standing when those matters are contested in litigation. 2

S_FL-C015 — Complaints and administrative enforcement. OFR is statutorily authorized to receive complaints about persons collecting consumer debts. Registered agencies must respond to specified OFR information demands; administrative sanctions can include fines, suspension/revocation and penalties for unregistered activity. 2

S_FL-C016 — Private FCCPA remedies. Section 559.77 permits a debtor to sue a violating person for actual damages and additional statutory damages up to $1,000, with attorney-fee/cost provisions; punitive and equitable relief can also be available. The statute supplies a two-year limitations period for the FCCPA claim itself and a bona-fide-error defense. That two-year FCCPA deadline is not the deadline to sue on the underlying debt. 2

S_FL-C017 — Federal FDCPA/Reg F. Federal Regulation F adds communication and validation requirements for entities within the federal debt-collector definition. The current rule establishes rebuttable call-frequency presumptions: generally, more than seven calls about a particular debt in seven consecutive days, or another call during the seven days following a telephone conversation about that debt, triggers the regulatory presumption of violation, subject to enumerated exclusions. Compliance with the numerical presumption does not immunize independently harassing conduct. 15

S_FL-C018 — Validation/documentation. Regulation F §1006.34 governs validation information, while FDCPA §809 governs the consumer’s statutory dispute/verification mechanism. These are federal collector obligations, not proof that the underlying account is legally enforceable in court. A lawsuit can raise separate standing, authentication, hearsay, contract, account-stated, assignment, arbitration and limitations issues. 15

Limitation, accrual, revival and credit-reporting clocks

S_FL-C020 — Core Florida periods. The present §95.11 classification relevant to ordinary consumer debts is:

S_FL-C021 — Accrual. Section 95.031 states Florida’s general accrual principle: the limitation clock runs from accrual, ordinarily when the last element of the cause of action occurs, subject to statutory exceptions. The date of last payment, charge-off, assignment, first delinquency and lawsuit filing therefore cannot automatically be substituted for “accrual” without analyzing the cause of action. 29

S_FL-C022 — Tolling and borrowing. Section 95.051 provides statutory tolling grounds. Section 95.10 is Florida’s borrowing provision: when the cause arose in another state or country and that jurisdiction’s law bars it because of lapse of time, Florida does not maintain the action. A contract’s choice-of-law clause, forum clause and the place where the cause “arose” can therefore require a separate conflict-of-laws analysis. 30

S_FL-C023 — Revival/acknowledgment. Section 95.04 specifically says an acknowledgment or promise sufficient to take an already barred debt out of the statute must be in writing and signed by the person to be charged. That statute does not justify a broad publication statement that “any $1 payment automatically restarts any Florida debt.” The legal effect of pre-expiration partial payment and contract-specific conduct requires claim- and case-specific authority. 17

S_FL-C024 — Debt sale. Assignment changes ownership, not the historical facts underlying accrual. Reading §§95.11 and 559.715 together, no statutory rule was located that grants a fresh limitation period simply because a creditor sells or assigns an account. This is a statutory inference rather than a separately located Florida Supreme Court holding and should be labeled accordingly. 16

S_FL-C025 — Credit reporting is a different clock. FCRA §605 imposes separate reporting limitations for collection/charge-off information. These federal reporting periods do not determine whether Florida judicial enforcement is timely and do not shorten the life of a valid Florida judgment. The date-of-first-delinquency framework is consequently a credit-reporting concept, not a Florida limitations-reset rule. 31

Litigation, judgments, exemptions, secured debts and special debt classes

Court process, answer deadlines, defaults, evidence and arbitration

Florida civil debt litigation can be in county civil, small claims, or circuit court, and special statutes—especially landlord/tenant and mortgage foreclosure law—can alter ordinary procedure. The official Florida Courts small-claims resource identifies small claims as county-court disputes of $8,000 or less; Florida Courts also provides a self-help/form finder and a DIY “Small Claims Answer” tool. [S_FL-C026–C028] 32

General civil answer deadline — S_FL-C026, PARTIAL. Florida Rule of Civil Procedure 1.140 ordinarily uses a 20-day response period after service of original process and initial pleading, but this investigation did not obtain a clean, current, non-PDF official rule text adequate to make that a universally applicable publication rule. Special statutes, service waivers, amended pleading rules, governmental defendants and particular summons forms can change timing. Accordingly, “Florida debt lawsuit = always 20 days” is a publication hold; the summons and governing case type must be checked. Florida Courts’ current materials continue to cross-reference Rule 1.140 as the rule governing responsive-pleading timing. 33

Small claims — S_FL-C027, PARTIAL. Small claims uses a notice-to-appear/pretrial framework rather than treating every case like ordinary civil litigation. The current rules underwent amendments effective January 1, 2026. The official self-help answer tool is useful, but a defendant must follow the actual summons/notice and current Rule 7.090; old versions circulating online should not be used as current law. 32

Eviction — S_FL-C028. Residential nonpayment cases have a distinct statutory path. Section 83.56 supplies the rent-demand notice before suit; §51.011 governs statutory summary procedure; §83.60 governs defenses and the rent-registry obligation. Failure to deposit the amount required by §83.60 or timely move to determine rent can produce severe possession consequences even where a separate money dispute remains. 23

Service and venue — S_FL-C029, PARTIAL. Florida Chapter 48 governs service and Chapter 47 ordinary state venue; federal FDCPA §811 also imposes a special venue rule on covered debt collectors suing consumers. This investigation did not fully verify every 2026 Chapter 47/48 amendment, so a public “where can a creditor sue?” tool should not be released without a separate chapter-level service/venue pass and contract review. 34

Default — S_FL-C030, PARTIAL/current-change warning. Florida’s Supreme Court amended Rules 1.440 and 1.500 effective January 1, 2026, including changes concerning default procedure and notice. This is a high-risk area for outdated forms and articles. The actual official amendment opinion was located, but because its operative appendix was in PDF and was not fully captured for this investigation, exact default-motion wording remains a publication hold rather than being reconstructed from secondary summaries. 35

Vacating default — S_FL-C031, PARTIAL. Rule 1.540 and due-process principles can support relief from certain judgments/defaults, but the basis, timing and required showing differ depending on whether the judgment is void, resulted from mistake/excusable neglect, newly discovered evidence, fraud, satisfaction or another ground. This report does not publish a universal “one-year vacatur” rule because void-judgment and other grounds differ materially.

Standing/evidence — S_FL-C032. Section 559.715 makes the assignee real party in interest and requires assignment notice, but that is not a statutory substitute for admissible evidence proving a disputed account. A publication aimed at debt-buyer lawsuits should separately analyze Florida Evidence Code business-record authentication, account-stated doctrine, chain-of-assignment proof and current appellate decisions before supplying litigation scripts. 2

Arbitration — S_FL-C033, PARTIAL. Whether a consumer debt must be arbitrated ordinarily depends on the actual governing agreement and applicable federal/state arbitration law. Because no creditor/product was assigned, no complete creditor contract was available to review. No creditor should be described as having or lacking arbitration, delegation, opt-out or small-claims provisions without the complete version of the relevant agreement.

Judgment life, interest, satisfaction and liens

S_FL-C034 — Interest. The Florida CFO’s current table gives 7.87% per annum and a daily decimal rate of 0.000215616 beginning October 1, 2026. Section 55.03 establishes the rate-setting framework and provides that the rate is established when judgment is obtained and generally adjusts each January 1 until payment; a written contract or obligation can affect the rate. 18

S_FL-C035 — The four “judgment clocks” must be separated.

A Florida court-of-record judgment has a 20-year action/enforcement period under §95.11, while §55.081 prevents a judgment from remaining a lien on Florida property after 20 years. A real-property lien obtained by recording under §55.10 ordinarily starts with a ten-year term and can be extended another ten years by timely rerecording with the required affidavit, subject to the 20-year outer limit. A personal-property judgment lien certificate under §55.204 generally lasts five years, with one second five-year lien available in the specified filing window. None of these clocks is the same thing as FCRA credit reporting. 16

S_FL-C036 — Satisfaction. Section 55.141 allows a final money judgment to be satisfied through payment into the court registry before actual execution levy; after payment of the judgment, interest, execution costs if any and recording charge, the clerk records a satisfaction and the resulting judgment lien is discharged. Separately, §55.206 requires a personal-property judgment lienholder, after written demand following full or partial release, to supply the statutory release statement within 30 days. 36

Garnishment, bank accounts and ordinary collection exemptions

S_FL-C037 — Head-of-family wages. A debtor is a “head of family” for §222.11 when providing more than one-half of a child’s or other dependent’s support. All disposable earnings up to $750/week are exempt. Above $750/week, earnings are still exempt unless a waiver meeting the statute’s formal requirements exists. Even with a valid waiver, garnishment cannot exceed the federal Consumer Credit Protection Act ceiling. Qualifying earnings deposited into a bank remain protected for six months if traced and identified; commingling alone does not defeat traceability. 4

S_FL-C038 — Non-head-of-family wages. Florida expressly incorporates the federal CCPA ceiling for a person who is not head of family. Because this investigation did not separately capture the current federal wage-threshold inputs for a 2026 worked example, no current dollar withholding calculation is published here; the federal formula should be refreshed before deployment. 4

S_FL-C039 — Claiming exemptions. Section 77.041’s statutory notice is operationally important. The individual defendant generally has 20 days after receipt of the notice to file the notarized claim-of-exemption/request-for-hearing form and must furnish copies to the plaintiff and garnishee. If the plaintiff objects, it must file a sworn response within eight business days after hand delivery or fourteen business days after mail service; absent a timely objection, the clerk dissolves the writ. 20

S_FL-C040 — Bank-account minimum balance. No generally applicable Florida statute was verified in Chapter 77/222 that automatically protects a fixed minimum dollar balance in every consumer bank account simply because the account belongs to a judgment debtor. Florida instead protects categories/sources of funds, including traceable qualifying wages and numerous benefits identified in the statutory garnishment notice. This negative finding is not a conclusion that every dollar outside those categories is attachable; federal benefit-protection rules, tenancy-by-the-entireties issues, ownership, trust law and other exemptions require separate analysis. 20

S_FL-C041 — Homestead. Constitutional homestead is exempt from forced sale and ordinary judgment lien to the acreage limits, but taxes/assessments, purchase-money obligations, improvement/repair obligations and specified labor obligations are express exceptions. This is why a credit-card judgment and a residential mortgage do not have equivalent rights against the same home. 5

S_FL-C042 — Personal property. Article X separately states a $1,000 constitutional personal-property exemption. Section 222.25 currently protects up to $5,000 of the debtor’s interest in one motor vehicle, prescribed health aids, specified tax-credit/refund interests, and an additional $4,000 of personal property when constitutional homestead benefits are not claimed or received. The $4,000 exemption and specified tax-refund protection do not apply to child- or spousal-support debt. 5

S_FL-C043 — Bankruptcy is a different election. Ordinary state-law execution exemptions and bankruptcy exemptions should never be merged in consumer content. Section 222.201 specifically addresses bankruptcy and allows §522(d)(10) categories in addition to state exemptions. Federal bankruptcy law also contains its own homestead and residency limitations. A bankruptcy calculator therefore needs a distinct federal/state eligibility layer rather than simply importing the ordinary garnishment table. 37

Mortgages, vehicles, rent, medical debt and utilities

S_FL-C044 — Mortgages. Section 702.01 provides that Florida mortgages are foreclosed in equity, making foreclosure judicial rather than a purely nonjudicial power-of-sale procedure. Chapter 702 also contains complaint and note-related requirements. Federal servicing/loss-mitigation rules remain a separate overlay and were not fully revalidated in this Florida-only pass. 22

S_FL-C045 — Mortgage deficiencies. Section 702.06 leaves deficiency relief to judicial discretion; for owner-occupied residential property, the deficiency cannot exceed the difference between the judgment amount—or outstanding debt in a short sale—and fair market value at the relevant sale. Section 95.11 supplies a separate one-year limitations rule for the specified one-to-four-family residential deficiency category. 6

S_FL-C046 — Mortgage assistance. Loan-modification, FHA/VA/USDA/GSE and servicer loss-mitigation rights are program- and loan-type-specific. They should not be expressed as a Florida-law promise that every homeowner receives the same foreclosure pause or modification. A narrower mortgage-program investigation is appropriate before publishing assistance eligibility.

S_FL-C047 — Vehicle repossession. Section 679.609 allows a secured party after default to take possession judicially or without judicial process only if the self-help repossession proceeds without breach of the peace. 7

S_FL-C048 — Vehicle sale and deficiency. Article 9 requires commercially reasonable disposition and governs notice, proceeds and any resulting surplus/deficiency. The relevant statutory chain is §§679.610, 679.611 and 679.615, with special consumer-goods provisions elsewhere in Article 9. A vehicle-specific analysis must also identify whether Chapter 520 or another retail-installment statute applies and read the actual contract. 38

S_FL-C049 — Rent and eviction arrears. The rent-possession remedy is not ordinary debt collection. Section 83.56 establishes the landlord’s statutory nonpayment-notice process; §51.011 applies expedited summary procedure; §83.60 requires specified rent deposits into the court registry or a timely motion to determine rent, with failure potentially causing waiver of defenses other than payment and rapid possession relief. A landlord’s claim for money damages or lease-break damages requires its own analysis and can survive separately from possession. 23

S_FL-C050 — Facility medical billing/assistance. Chapter 395 facilities must publish information about financial-assistance policies, application processes, payment plans, discounts, charity care and collection procedures. Section 395.3011 then restricts “extraordinary collection actions” until the statutory assistance, billing, insurance and advance-notice conditions have been met. 39

The statute contains an important debt-sale nuance: its 30-day collection-warning paragraph includes an exception for a facility’s debt-sale contract that bars interest/fees and other extraordinary collection actions by the buyer and requires return of the debt if the buyer determines the individual is eligible for facility assistance. That is a statutory condition, not a general representation that every medical debt buyer operates that way. 24

S_FL-C051 — Medical limitation. The three-year Florida limitations period is expressly confined to services rendered by a facility licensed under Chapter 395 and begins when the facility refers the debt to a third party for collection. A general article saying “all medical debt in Florida has a three-year SOL” would therefore be overbroad. 16

S_FL-C052 — VACATED federal medical-debt rule. The CFPB’s 2025 rule restricting lenders’ use of medical information and medical debt on credit reports was vacated July 11, 2025. It is not a valid basis, as of October 22, 2026, to promise Florida consumers that federal law categorically removes medical debt from credit reports. 9

S_FL-C053 — CRA policies are policy, not law. As of the checked materials, TransUnion and Experian state that paid medical collections and medical collections initially below $500 do not appear under their current nationwide policies, with a one-year delay before eligible unpaid medical collections appear. The three nationwide bureaus previously announced related changes. These are credit-bureau policies, not Florida statutory rights; they can change and must be refreshed before publication. 40

S_FL-C054 — Utilities; narrower follow-up required. Florida Administrative Code Rule 25-6.105 is the operative PSC rule titled “Refusal or Discontinuance of Service by Utility,” effective January 7, 1993, within Chapter 25-6 governing electric public utilities. It should not be presented as a universal statewide shutoff rule for every municipal electric system, electric cooperative, water utility, sewer authority or local assistance program. This seed specifically needs provider- and utility-type follow-up. 25

Support, fines, government overpayments and tax debt

S_FL-C055 — Support. Ordinary consumer exemptions do not universally defeat domestic-support enforcement. Section 222.25 expressly removes its specified tax-refund and $4,000 personal-property exemptions for debts owed for child or spousal support. Federal and Chapter 61 income-withholding rules require a separate support-specific calculation and should not be replaced by the ordinary 25%-type consumer garnishment explanation. 21

S_FL-C056 — Fines/court debt. Section 95.11(12) provides that specified court costs, fees and fines owed to the state can be collected at any time. It therefore would be incorrect to apply a generic four- or five-year consumer-contract SOL to state court financial obligations. 16

S_FL-C057 — Government overpayments: unresolved as a single category. “Government overpayment” is not one debt type. Unemployment/reemployment-assistance overpayments, Medicaid, SNAP, public-assistance recovery, federal Social Security overpayments and local program recoupment arise under different statutes and administrative processes. This investigation did not verify every program, so a single Florida “government overpayment settlement rule” is a publication hold.

S_FL-C058 — State/local tax relief: partial. Florida constitutional homestead expressly does not protect a home from the taxes and assessments imposed on it. Beyond that point, tax collection and relief must be divided among Florida Department of Revenue liabilities, property taxes administered through county officials, local assessments and federal IRS debt. No generalized Florida tax-settlement percentage or eligibility rule is supported by this investigation. 5

Consumer remedies, assistance, coercion, identity theft, military/older adults, and jurisdictional boundaries

State complaints and private remedies

For collection problems, the most targeted state regulator is OFR where Chapter 559 registration/collection-agency jurisdiction applies; its public lookup permits consumers and publishers to verify a collection-agency registration. The Florida Attorney General separately publishes debt-collection consumer guidance and accepts consumer complaints. [S_FL-C059–C060] 28

S_FL-C059 — State consumer-law overlap. FCCPA remedies are directly verified above. Florida’s general deceptive-practices law may also be relevant to deceptive debt-relief or collection conduct, but a complete current FDUTPA exemption/remedy analysis was not completed in this pass; it is therefore not used here to create an additional universal damages promise.

S_FL-C060 — Complaint channels. A complaint is not the same thing as a lawsuit and ordinarily does not itself stop an answer deadline, garnishment, foreclosure or limitation period. OFR’s registration/complaint mechanism and the Attorney General’s consumer-protection complaint system are useful enforcement channels, but consumers facing process must separately preserve court deadlines. 28

Coercion, identity theft and vulnerable consumers

S_FL-C061 — Identity theft. The Florida Attorney General maintains an Identity Theft Victim Kit and a fraud hotline/complaint process. Identity-theft debt should not be treated as an ordinary “settle or pay” account until ownership is addressed; federal FCRA identity-theft procedures and any creditor fraud process add separate remedies. 41

S_FL-C062 — Military. The Florida Attorney General maintains a Military and Veterans Assistance Program focused on fraud and consumer problems affecting servicemembers/veterans. Section 95.11 itself recognizes that limitation questions involving servicemembers can be affected by Chapter 250 and the federal Servicemembers Civil Relief Act. The attempted direct retrieval of §250.5201 failed in this session, so exact Florida Chapter 250 payment/interest/stay rights are a publication hold pending primary-text retrieval rather than being reconstructed here. 42

S_FL-C063 — Older/vulnerable adults. The Attorney General maintains a Senior Protection Team. Florida §825.1035 provides a civil injunction process connected with exploitation of a vulnerable adult. The debt-law significance is that suspicious transfers, coercive “settlements,” powers of attorney and exploitation should be screened as an abuse/exploitation issue rather than assumed to be an ordinary voluntary consumer transaction. 43

Current, future-effective and proposed court changes

S_FL-C064 — Current 2026 amendment. Rule 1.500 default procedure was amended effective January 1, 2026. Any form or article written against the pre-2026 default text should be treated as stale until compared with the amended rule. 35

Future-effective: Florida Supreme Court materials located during this investigation include civil-rule/form amendments stated to become effective January 1, 2027, including changes touching post-judgment forms. They are not current law on October 22, 2026 and must be tagged future-effective rather than incorporated prematurely. 44

Proposed/pending: A 2026 Florida Supreme Court rules proceeding concerning, among other provisions, Small Claims Rule 7.090 was located as a proposal/pending matter. A proposal is not a current rule. 45

County, municipal, local and tribal limits

S_FL-C065 — Local/county. Florida statutes and statewide procedural rules do not eliminate county-level operational differences such as clerk procedures, administrative orders, hearing scheduling, local self-help materials, property-tax administration, municipal utility programs and local filing practices. A county page cannot override a controlling state statute, but a statewide procedural article should direct readers to the actual clerk/circuit materials for implementation.

S_FL-C066 — Tribal law. Florida §285.16 states that the state assumes civil and criminal jurisdiction over specified matters arising in Indian reservations. That statute must be read through federal Indian law and tribal sovereignty. Florida authority has recognized tribal sovereign immunity as a separate limitation on state-court jurisdiction. Consequently, a transaction involving the Seminole Tribe, Miccosukee Tribe, a tribal entity, or a lender claiming tribal status cannot be analyzed simply by saying “the borrower lives in Florida, so Florida debt law controls everything.” Entity status, immunity/waiver, federal law, the tribe’s own law and the contract must all be identified. 26

No named tribal lender, tribal lending code or complete tribal creditor contract was assigned here. Tribal lending is therefore a narrower follow-up topic, and no lender-specific policy or enforceability conclusion is made.

Worked examples and practical comparisons

Florida debt-management fee examples

Example A — custodial DMP. Assume a provider is actually subject to §817.802 and receives $600 per month from the debtor for distribution to creditors.

15% × $600 = $90.

Statutory monthly ceiling = lesser of $90 and $75.

Maximum monthly fee under this formula = $75.

The initial setup/consultation charge remains separately capped at $50. This example does not apply where §817.803 exempts the provider. [S_FL-C004] 46

Example B — smaller custodial payment. Assume $300 is received that month:

15% × $300 = $45.

Lesser of $45 and $75 = $45.

This illustrates why “Florida allows $75 every month” is wrong: $75 is a ceiling, not an automatic permitted fee. 11

Limitation example

Assume, solely for illustration, a cause of action on a written instrument accrued on June 15, 2022, Florida law governs, and no tolling, borrowing, bankruptcy stay or other exception applies.

Accrual: June 15, 2022

• 5 years under §95.11 written-instrument category

= June 15, 2027 illustrative limitation date.

Change the cause of action or statutory classification and the result changes. A Chapter 395 facility medical debt also uses a different statutory trigger—third-party collection referral—rather than simply the date services were rendered. [S_FL-C020–C022] 3

Judgment-interest example

Assume an ordinary Florida money judgment has $12,000 principal outstanding during a period when the applicable statutory rate is the October 1, 2026 CFO rate and assume, for illustration only, no payment, fee, compounding issue or contract rate changes the calculation.

Daily rate decimal = 0.000215616.

$12,000 × 0.000215616 = $2.587392 per day.

For 30 illustrative days: $2.587392 × 30 = $77.62176, approximately $77.62.

This is not a forecast for a full year. Section 55.03’s annual January 1 adjustment mechanism means the applicable rate must be rechecked when the calendar year changes. [S_FL-C034] 18

Judgment-lien example

Assume a Florida judgment is entered and a certified copy satisfying §55.10 is recorded on March 1, 2026.

Initial real-property lien period: 10 years → to approximately March 1, 2036.

Timely rerecording can establish an additional ten-year extension.

Outer judgment/lien life under §§55.081 and 55.10 cannot exceed the applicable 20-year underlying period, approximately March 1, 2046 in this simplified example. 19

For personal property, a judgment-lien certificate filed March 1, 2026 ordinarily lapses five years after filing; §55.204 allows a second five-year lien if filed during the statutory window surrounding lapse. That is a different filing system and clock. 19

Head-of-family wage examples

Assume a worker provides more than one-half of the support of a dependent.

At $700/week disposable earnings, the entire amount is within §222.11(2)(a)’s $750 head-of-family protection. Florida ordinary judgment garnishment = $0 from those earnings, subject to debt-specific exceptions. 4

At $1,100/week, the fact that earnings exceed $750 does not automatically make the excess garnishable. Section 222.11(2)(b) says those earnings may not be attached unless the head of family agreed otherwise in a waiver meeting the statute. A valid waiver then remains subject to the federal garnishment ceiling. 4

Vehicle-exemption example

Assume a debtor owns a vehicle worth $14,000 with a valid secured loan balance of $11,000.

Vehicle value: $14,000

Less secured debt: $11,000

Debtor equity: $3,000.

Because §222.25(1) protects up to $5,000 of the debtor’s interest in one vehicle, the $3,000 equity falls inside that statutory amount in this simplified ordinary-execution example. The exemption does not defeat the vehicle lender’s own valid purchase/security interest. [S_FL-C042] 21

Owner-occupied mortgage deficiency example

Assume for illustration:

Foreclosure judgment amount = $300,000

Fair market value at sale = $260,000

Difference = $40,000.

Under §702.06’s owner-occupied residential cap, $40,000 is the mathematical ceiling created by those assumed inputs, not an automatic award. The court retains statutory discretion and the applicable one-year limitation and other defenses remain separate. 6

Repossession deficiency example

Assume, only to illustrate Article 9’s proceeds logic:

Secured obligation = $25,000

Disposition proceeds = $18,000

Assumed authorized disposition expenses = $1,000

Net amount available toward obligation = $17,000

Illustrative remaining deficiency = $8,000.

That arithmetic does not establish legal liability for $8,000. Notice compliance, commercial reasonableness, the contract, the amount of the secured obligation, consumer-goods rules, credits, damages for Article 9 violations and any applicable retail-installment statute must first be analyzed. 38

Source register and claim/evidence register

Source register

“Opened” means the substantive authority was opened/read through the research tool; “discovery-only” means it was located but not sufficiently opened/captured to serve as final standalone proof. For PDFs, claims are not treated as fully verified where the operative page was not captured.

Claim/evidence register

Granular coverage, opportunities, gaps, and researcher self-check

Required seed-topic coverage

Publication opportunities

Several Florida-specific tools would be materially more useful than a generic debt article:

Florida debt-law classification engine. Inputs would include consumer versus commercial purpose, written versus nonwritten claim, Chapter 395 facility status, last-event/accrual dates, assignment, prior judgment, property security and support/government status. Output would identify the possible §95.11 category without falsely declaring a deadline where accrual/choice-of-law remains unresolved. [C020–C024]

Debt-relief applicability/fee calculator. It should first ask whether the provider receives/disburses debtor funds and whether it is a TSR-covered seller/telemarketer before showing the §817.802 formula. That sequencing prevents the common error of treating $75 or 15% as a universal Florida settlement fee. [C002–C007]

Florida garnishment exemption screener. It could ask head-of-family status, weekly disposable earnings, waiver, source of bank deposits, age of traceable wage deposits, benefits, homestead status, vehicle equity and support-debt status, then generate the §77.041 claim-of-exemption checklist. [C037–C043]

Judgment-clock visualizer. One timeline should separately show judgment enforceability, real-property lien, personal-property judgment lien, interest-rate changes and FCRA reporting. [C025, C034–C036]

Annotated Chapter 395 medical-debt document. §§395.301 and 395.3011 lend themselves to an annotated “before collection escalation” checklist: financial-assistance policy, itemized bill, insurer adjudication, grievance status, payment-plan status and 30-day traceable notice. [C050–C053]

Repossession deficiency worksheet. It should show original obligation, sale proceeds, expenses, credits, Article 9 notice/commercial-reasonableness flags, and a separate “legal deficiency not established until these issues are checked” warning. [C047–C048]

Unresolved questions and publication holds

The most consequential remaining holds are not cosmetic.

First, ordinary civil summons/service/answer/default/vacatur deserves a separate 2026 rules investigation using the official current Rules of Civil Procedure and operative Supreme Court PDF pages, because default procedure changed January 1, 2026 and further rules are already scheduled for January 1, 2027. 35

Second, partial-payment revival and revolving-credit-card characterization need controlling Florida appellate cases before a public calculator tells a consumer that a payment did or did not reset a statute. The signed-writing rule for an already barred debt is verified, but that is not the whole doctrine. 17

Third, utility shutoff, government overpayments, support enforcement and tax relief should be split into narrower program/provider investigations; those are not legally coherent single debt categories. FAC 25-6.105, for example, cannot safely be generalized to every Florida utility. 25

Fourth, tribal lending requires a dedicated federal/tribal investigation before publishing jurisdiction or enforceability statements. §285.16 alone does not answer sovereign immunity, tribal-entity status, waiver, federal preemption or contract choice-of-law. 26

Fifth, military debt protections remain held for a direct primary-text pass because the attempt to retrieve §250.5201 failed. The AG’s MVAP and §95.11’s express servicemember cross-reference verify that the issue exists, but they are not a substitute for the statute and federal SCRA provisions. 42

Researcher self-check

This investigation checked the 2026 Florida Statutes directly for the central debt-management, collection, limitation, judgment, garnishment, exemption, medical-debt, foreclosure, repossession, landlord/tenant and tribal-jurisdiction provisions; checked official Florida OFR licensing material and administrative rules; checked the official Florida CFO’s October 2026 judgment-interest rate; checked official Florida Courts/self-help and rules-change materials; and checked current federal Regulation F and official CFPB/CRA materials where federal reporting/collection overlays were material. 60

I specifically checked for changed amounts rather than relying on older references. One consequential example is Florida’s motor-vehicle exemption: older materials commonly show $1,000, but the current 2026 statute shows $5,000, with history identifying Chapter 2024-110. 61

I separately checked the status of the federal medical-debt rule rather than treating eCFR text or a 2025 announcement as current. Official CFPB material states the rule was vacated July 11, 2025, so it is labeled VACATED here. 9

I also distinguished the January 1, 2026 court-rule changes that are presently operative from identified amendments scheduled for January 1, 2027 and from a pending/proposed small-claims rules matter. 35

The investigation did not verify every Florida appellate debt-buyer/evidence/revival case, every federal bankruptcy exemption calculation, every county clerk administrative order, every Florida utility tariff, every governmental-overpayment program, every child-support withholding rule, every state/local tax-relief program, or any unnamed creditor/tribal lender’s complete contract. Those items are expressly marked partial, unresolved, provider-specific, contract-specific or held rather than inferred.

No borrower-specific private data was accessed. No creditor was contacted. No account, publication, external system or local/shared library was changed or written to. This researcher self-check records the checks actually performed and the limitations of this investigation; it is not an independent legal review or second-source audit.