In 2019, a Miami woman bought a home after a clean title search; five years later, a disputed $55,650 code enforcement lien is blocking its renovation or sale

When Angelica Martinez bought her home in Miami’s Little Havana neighbourhood in 2019, she did what most buyers do: she hired an attorney, carried out a title search and checked the property’s history for any outstanding debts or liens. Everything seemed perfect. Five years after the purchase, Martinez faces the threat of foreclosure over a $55,650 code enforcement lien that the City of Miami says accumulated against her property. The lien has prevented her from renovating or selling the home, and her attorney argues that it should never have existed in the first place.“The City of Miami is stopping my client from fixing her own home over a lien that doesn’t exist,” Ari Pregen, an attorney with The Code Clinic who represents homeowner Angelica Martinez, told CBS News.A Little Havana homeowner says she feels trapped in the home she purchased.City of Miami code inspectors said they observed contractors replacing roof framing, installing a wood fence and constructing a concrete driveway without permits during a proactive inspection in September 2024.Martinez acknowledges hiring the crew to repair her roof. But she and her attorney dispute her responsibility for the fence and driveway work, which became the subject of the city’s code enforcement case.“It’s just a mistake; a very expensive mistake they’re making me pay for,” Martinez told the outlet.Her attorney argued that city records show the previous owner completed renovations in 2018. Though the permits from that project do not mention the fence or driveway, Google Earth images from February 2019 appear to show both improvements already in place. This was months before Angelica Martinez bought the property. She talks about the whole process of purchasing the property.“I got an attorney, did a title search, everything went through review making sure there was no debt or lien on the house to make sure the house was clean for me to purchase. Zero violations existed. My attorneys reviewed the whole history of the house. There was no issue whatsoever,” she told the broadcaster.Following the 2024 inspection, she agreed to lower the fence and bring the driveway into compliance. Her attorney also acknowledged that homeowners can be held responsible for correcting such violations, even when they were not the people who originally carried out the work. According to him, the city inspectors signed an affidavit certifying that Martinez had completed the corrections.“Everything was reviewed and they told me I was done and I could go ahead living in my house without any issues,” Martinez recalled.However, the City of Miami’s account differs. According to Miami’s Code Enforcement Department, Martinez was found in violation by the Code Enforcement Board at a hearing on 22 January 2025. The board gave her 120 days to comply and ordered a $150 per day fine if the violations remained after the deadline. The city says the permits for the driveway and fence were submitted on 31 July 2025 and finalised on 9 February 2026. The department said no request for additional time was filed before the deadline expired. What happened next was a lien: $150 multiplied by hundreds of days, bringing it to a $55,650 lien.Pregen argues that such a lien should not exist. His team reportedly went through the city’s public records and found no record of any lien against the property. “We looked for the lien in three different ways in the city’s own public records and there is no lien recorded. It isn’t there, and yet they’re still trying to use it to freeze her life,” he said.Martinez says the dispute has prevented her from renovating the house or putting it up for sale. She remains in a home trapped between conflicting accounts of compliance and penalty calculations. A mitigation hearing is scheduled before the City of Miami Code Enforcement Board on 22 September.