Add or Remove a Name From a Deed in Florida

Florida does not require you to hire a lawyer to change who is named on a deed. The mechanics are simple: you sign a new deed and record it.

The mechanics are not what goes wrong. What goes wrong is a tax nobody expected, a signature nobody realized was required, a survivorship word nobody wrote down — or a decision that quietly costs the next generation more than the house cost you. This page covers all of it, with the statutes, so you can decide whether your situation is the simple kind.

Do I need a lawyer to add a name to a deed in Florida?

Table of Contents

Legally, no. Under §689.01, an interest in Florida real property is conveyed by a written instrument signed by the owner in the presence of two subscribing witnesses. To be recorded it must also be acknowledged before a notary. There is no requirement that a lawyer prepare it.

Two witnesses is the part people miss. Many states abolished the witness requirement; Florida did not. A deed signed in front of a notary alone, with no witnesses, does not satisfy §689.01. Note also that the same statute permits witnesses to appear by audio-video communication technology — the remote online notarization framework added by chapter 2020-102, the same one used for electronic wills.

So the form is not the hard part. Everything below is.

Do you need a lawyer to remove a name from a deed?

Here is the thing almost nobody realizes until they try:

You cannot remove someone from a deed. Only that person can give up their interest.

A deed transfers what the signer owns. If your name and your brother’s name are both on the title, you can sign a deed transferring your interest — you cannot sign one transferring his. Removing him requires him to sign a deed conveying his interest, voluntarily.

If he will not sign, a deed is not the instrument you need. The routes are:

A partition action under Chapter 64 — a lawsuit asking the court to divide the property or order it sold and the proceeds split. Available to any co-owner.
A divorce judgment. A final judgment of dissolution of marriage can order a transfer, and the judgment itself can be recorded or can compel the signature.
A court order in probate, where the co-owner has died and title needs to be cleared — see “What if the other owner has died?” below.
A quiet title action, where the record shows an interest that should not be there at all — an old lien, a defective conveyance, a forged instrument.

This is the single most common reason someone searching “how to remove a name from a deed in Florida” ends up needing a lawyer. Not because the deed is complicated — because a deed is the wrong tool.

Can you remove someone from a deed without their consent or knowledge?

No, and the attempt creates a much larger problem than the one it was meant to solve.

A deed purporting to convey someone’s interest, signed by anyone other than that person or their lawful attorney-in-fact, is a forgery. A forged deed is void — not merely voidable — which means it conveys nothing at all, no matter how many times the property is sold afterwards and no matter that a later buyer paid full price and knew nothing about it. Murphy v. Osorio, 299 So. 3d 446 (Fla. 3d DCA 2020); Knowles v. Edwards, 967 So. 2d 255 (Fla. 3d DCA 2007); Zurstrassen v. Stonier, 786 So. 2d 65 (Fla. 4th DCA 2001). The distinction matters because the bona fide purchaser defense is available against a voidable deed — one procured by fraud or undue influence — and not against a void one. Schlossberg v. Estate of Kaporovsky, 303 So. 3d 982 (Fla. 4th DCA 2020). Recording it does not cure it. Title insurance generally does not save the party who procured it.

The practical consequences run further than the deed. Depending on the circumstances it may constitute criminal conduct, and where the true owner is elderly the conduct sits squarely inside Florida’s §825.103 elder exploitation framework.

If you believe a deed has been recorded against your property without your signature, that is not a deed problem. It is a title dispute — a cloud on title that has to be removed by a court — and it needs to be addressed quickly. The longer a forged instrument sits in the chain of title, the more transactions have to be unwound. See contesting a Florida deed and undue influence.

Two names on the deed: how you hold title decides everything

This is the section most Florida deed articles skip, and it is the one that decides whether the deed does what you wanted at all.

When a deed puts two people on the title, Florida law does not assume they want the survivor to take the whole thing. It assumes the opposite. §689.15:

The doctrine of the right of survivorship in cases of real estate and personal property held by joint tenants shall not prevail in this state; that is to say, except in cases of estates by entirety, a devise, transfer or conveyance heretofore or hereafter made to two or more shall create a tenancy in common, unless the instrument creating the estate shall expressly provide for the right of survivorship; and in cases of estates by entirety, the tenants, upon dissolution of marriage, shall become tenants in common.

Three ways to hold Florida real property, and the deed has to say which one.

Tenancy in common — the default

Each owner holds a separate, divisible share. There is no survivorship. When one owner dies, that share does not go to the other owner — it goes to whoever inherits under the will or under Florida intestacy, which means it goes through probate. Any co-owner can sell their share, mortgage it, or force a partition.

This is what you get if the deed says nothing. A deed reading simply “to Maria Reyes and Daniel Reyes” is a tenancy in common by operation of §689.15.

Joint tenancy with right of survivorship

The survivor takes the whole property automatically at the first owner’s death, outside probate. Florida recognizes it — but only where the instrument expressly provides for it. The words have to be in the deed. There is no implied survivorship and no fixing it afterwards without a new deed signed by everyone.

Tenancy by the entireties

Available only to a married couple. Where Florida real property is conveyed to spouses and the deed says nothing to the contrary, a tenancy by the entireties is created as a matter of law — Bridgeview Bank Group v. Callaghan, 84 So. 3d 1154 (Fla. 4th DCA 2012). Two consequences matter. The survivor takes the whole property automatically at the first death. And while both spouses live and stay married, a creditor of one spouse alone cannot reach it: entireties property belongs to neither spouse individually, and only a creditor of both spouses jointly can attach it — Beal Bank, SSB v. Almand & Associates, 780 So. 2d 45 (Fla. 2001); Williams v. M & R Construction of North Florida, Inc., 305 So. 3d 353 (Fla. 1st DCA 2020).

Note the closing words of §689.15: on dissolution of marriage, a tenancy by the entireties silently becomes a tenancy in common. The divorce judgment changes how the property is held whether or not anyone signs a new deed.

The trap. A parent adds an adult child to the deed “to avoid probate.” The deed recites no survivorship language. That is a tenancy in common. When the parent dies, the parent’s half is a probate asset and goes through probate anyway — after the family has already paid the documentary stamp tax, destroyed the stepped-up basis, and exposed the house to the child’s creditors and divorce. Every cost of the strategy, and none of the benefit.

If the goal is “make sure the house goes to my kids without probate,” see the comparison table below. There is a Florida instrument built for exactly that, and adding a name is not it. Related reading: right of survivorship in Florida.

Which deed form do you actually need?

“Deed” is a category, not a document. Which form you use changes what the new owner receives and what happens to the existing title insurance.

Deed form	What it warrants	Typical use
Quitclaim deed (also written quit claim deed)	Nothing. It transfers whatever interest the signer happens to have — which may be none. It does not promise the signer owns anything.	Transfers within a family; adding or removing a spouse; clearing a questionable interest
General warranty deed	Full covenants of title going back through the entire chain of title, including defects that arose before the seller owned it	Arm’s-length sales
Special warranty deed	Warrants only against defects arising during the grantor’s own ownership	Estates, trusts, institutional sellers, some new construction
Gift deed	Not a separate Florida form. It is any of the above recording nominal consideration, and it is the phrasing that drives the doc-stamp result below	Family transfers for no money
Lady bird deed (enhanced life estate deed)	Nothing transfers during your lifetime. You keep the power to sell, mortgage or revoke without anyone’s consent; the property passes at death outside probate	Passing a homestead to children while keeping full control
Traditional life estate deed	Transfers the remainder now and is irrevocable. You cannot sell or refinance without the remainder holders’ signatures	Rarely the right answer in Florida since the lady bird deed exists

Florida has no transfer-on-death deed for real estate. A number of states have adopted one; Florida has not. If you have read about a TOD deed or a beneficiary deed and want that result in Florida, the lady bird deed is the instrument that produces it. Florida does allow transfer-on-death designations on bank and brokerage accounts and on vehicle titles — just not on real property by that name.

One title-insurance point that catches people. If you hold an owner’s policy and you quitclaim the property into a new configuration, the coverage may not follow. Ask before you sign, not after. More on the individual forms: types of deeds in Florida and the Florida quit claim deed.

Can I add someone to my deed if I have a mortgage?

You can sign the deed. Whether you should is a different question, and there are two separate problems.

The due-on-sale clause. Almost every mortgage lets the lender demand payment in full if the property is transferred without consent. Adding a co-owner is a transfer of an interest.

Federal law does more work here than most people expect. On a loan secured by residential real property containing fewer than five dwelling units, the Garn-St Germain Depository Institutions Act, 12 U.S.C. §1701j-3(d), provides that a lender “may not exercise its option pursuant to a due-on-sale clause upon,” among other things:

(6) a transfer where the spouse or children of the borrower become an owner of the property;
(7) a transfer resulting from a decree of a dissolution of marriage, legal separation agreement, or from an incidental property settlement agreement, by which the spouse of the borrower becomes an owner of the property;
(8) a transfer into an inter vivos trust in which the borrower is and remains a beneficiary…

Adding your own spouse or your own child to the deed of your own house generally falls inside that protection, and the implementing regulation at 12 C.F.R. §191.5 says the same. What the statute does not do:

It does not release you from the note. You remain fully liable.
It does not make the new co-owner a borrower. Adding a name does not add a borrower.
It does not reach a fiancé, a sibling, a friend, a business partner, or a building with five or more dwelling units — where due-on-sale risk is real.
It does not excuse you from telling the lender, and it does not stop the lender from requiring assumption paperwork or affecting a future refinance.

And the new co-owner’s creditors can now reach their share.

Then there is the tax.

The documentary stamp tax nobody expects

This is the surprise that generates the angriest phone calls, and the rate depends on which county you are in.

Where	Rate per $100 of consideration	Authority
All Florida counties except Miami-Dade	70¢	§201.02(1)(a)
Miami-Dade County — single-family dwelling	60¢	§201.031
Miami-Dade County — anything else (duplex, investment condo, commercial, vacant land)	$1.05 — 60¢ plus a 45¢ surtax	§201.031

The Department of Revenue’s wording on the surtax is precise: it “is not due on a document that transfers only a single-family dwelling.” So a Miami-Dade house is cheaper to transfer than a house in Broward or Palm Beach — and a Miami-Dade rental duplex is half again more expensive than either.

Most people assume that a transfer for no money means no consideration and no tax. That is half right, and the half that is wrong is expensive.

An unpaid mortgage counts as consideration. The statute counts “the amount of any mortgage, purchase money mortgage lien, or other encumbrance, whether or not the underlying indebtedness is assumed.”

So: you add your adult son to the deed of a house carrying a $200,000 mortgage. No money changes hands. He now holds a half interest in property encumbered by that debt — $100,000 of consideration — and documentary stamps are due on a transaction in which nobody paid anybody anything. $700 in Broward. $600 in Miami-Dade.

The good news the internet gets wrong. If there is no mortgage, there is effectively no doc stamp — the fair market value of a gifted house is not consideration. The Department of Revenue’s own published example: an owner transfers an interest in unencumbered Broward County real property with a fair market value of $1,000,000 to her children, with no mortgage and no other consideration. Where the deed recites nominal consideration such as “$10 or other good and valuable consideration,” the tax due is seventy cents. Value only becomes the measure where property is exchanged for something other than money.

Two exemptions are worth knowing:

Marriage deeds. A transfer of homestead property between spouses is exempt where the only consideration is the mortgage or lien encumbering it — §201.02(7)(b).
Divorce deeds. No tax is due on a deed between spouses or former spouses pursuant to a dissolution of marriage where the property is transferred following the divorce and it was the marital home at the time of divorce. Sequence matters — sign after the final judgment, not before. Where the property was not the marital home, tax is due on the consideration including any mortgage.

Already paid it? The Department of Revenue allows a taxpayer to seek a refund of documentary stamp tax paid on a divorce transfer within one year of the dissolution of marriage. Most people never learn this until the window has closed.

Who pays? All parties to the document are liable for the tax regardless of who agrees to pay it, and if one party is exempt the non-exempt party owes it. In practice it is paid to the county clerk at recording.

If you are married and it is your homestead, your spouse must sign

Article X, Section 4(c) of the Florida Constitution is explicit:

The owner of homestead real estate, joined by the spouse if married, may alienate the homestead by mortgage, sale or gift.

Read that as a requirement, because that is how it operates. If the property is your homestead and you are married, your spouse must join in the deed — even if the spouse’s name is nowhere on the title, even if you owned the house long before the marriage, even if you are simply adding a child.

A homestead conveyance without spousal joinder does not work. Florida courts have described such a deed as void, void ab initio, voidable, ineffective and a nullity, and the label is not uniform across every fact pattern — Pitts v. Pastore, 561 So. 2d 297 (Fla. 2d DCA 1990). Several of the strongest “void ab initio” decisions arose under the 1885 Constitution, which imposed requirements the current one does not. What is settled enough to plan around is the category: the Fourth District has grouped deeds violating the constitutional homestead protection with forged deeds as the two classic examples of deeds that are void rather than merely voidable — Schlossberg v. Estate of Kaporovsky, 303 So. 3d 982 (Fla. 4th DCA 2020). Either way, a buyer, a lender or a title underwriter will treat the deed as a defect in the chain of title, and unwinding it is litigation.

This catches people constantly, because the deed itself looks perfectly ordinary. Nothing on the form asks whether you are married or whether the property is your homestead.

Will adding a name raise my property taxes?

Usually not — and the live internet is unnecessarily frightening about this. Under §193.155(3)(a), a transfer is not a “change of ownership” that resets the assessment to just value where the same person continues to hold the homestead exemption. The statute expressly covers adding a co-owner who does not apply for an additional exemption, and removing a joint tenant where the original owner keeps title. Transfers between spouses, transfers to a surviving spouse or minor child by operation of law, and a surviving joint tenant continuing the same exemption are also carved out.

What triggers a reassessment is usually the paperwork after the deed — a new co-owner filing for their own homestead exemption on the parcel — not the deed itself. Save Our Homes portability under §193.155(8) is a separate question and worth asking before you sign.

The devise restriction

Homestead also carries the restriction in §732.4015 — if you are survived by a spouse or minor child, the homestead generally cannot be left by will at all. Deed planning and estate planning are the same conversation here, not two. See also Florida homestead and probate and surviving spouse rights.

The most expensive mistake: losing the stepped-up basis

This is the one that costs real money, and it is almost never explained by a form service.

When someone inherits property, its tax basis is reset to the fair market value at the date of death under IRC §1014 — the stepped-up basis. When someone receives property as a lifetime gift, they take the giver’s basis instead, under IRC §1015 — carryover basis.

Work an ordinary example. You bought the house in 1994 for $80,000. It is worth $500,000 today.

Your daughter inherits it. Her basis becomes $500,000. She sells the next month for $500,000 and owes capital gains tax on nothing.
You add her to the deed today. She receives a half interest carrying a $40,000 carryover basis. On the same sale, her half realizes roughly $210,000 of taxable capital gain.

Adding a child to a deed to “avoid probate” is one of the most common pieces of kitchen-table advice in Florida, and in a great many cases it converts a tax-free inheritance into a six-figure capital gains bill. It also exposes the house to that child’s creditors, bankruptcy and divorce during your lifetime. More detail: lady bird deed tax consequences.

The gift tax return nobody files

Florida has no state gift tax and no inheritance tax. The federal return is a different matter, and it catches people who owe nothing.

Adding someone to your deed for free is a completed gift of a fractional interest in real property. For 2026 the annual exclusion is $19,000 per recipient and the basic exclusion amount — the lifetime figure — is $15,000,000.

Half of a $500,000 house is a $250,000 gift. That is far above the annual exclusion, so IRS Form 709 is due even though no gift tax is payable. The $231,000 above the exclusion comes off the lifetime exemption instead. A married couple can elect to split gifts and shelter $38,000.

Two practical notes. A lady bird deed is not a completed gift, so it does not require a Form 709. And a return that is never filed leaves an unresolved item in an estate that someone else has to deal with later.

Medicaid and the five-year look-back

If long-term care is anywhere on the horizon, this belongs in the conversation before the deed is signed, not after.

Adding someone to your deed for no consideration is an uncompensated transfer. Under 42 U.S.C. §1396p(c), transfers made within the five-year look-back period before a Medicaid application for institutional care produce a penalty period — a stretch of months during which Medicaid will not pay for the nursing home, calculated from the value transferred.

The counterpoint is the reason the lady bird deed exists. Because nothing transfers during your lifetime, an enhanced life estate deed is not an uncompensated transfer for look-back purposes — so it does not start a penalty period. This is one of the strongest arguments for the instrument, and it disappears the moment you sign an ordinary deed instead.

Adding a child to the deed, a lady bird deed, or a trust?

Most people arriving at this page want one outcome: the house goes to the children without probate. Three instruments claim to do it. They are not close to equivalent.

	Adding a child to the deed now	Lady bird deed	Revocable living trust
Avoids probate on the home	Only if survivorship language is expressly used — §689.15. Without it, a tenancy in common and probate anyway	Yes, automatically	Yes
Capital gains basis for the child	Carryover basis — IRC §1015	Stepped up to fair market value at death — IRC §1014	Stepped up — IRC §1014
Documentary stamp tax at signing	Yes, on the mortgage share — §201.02(1)(a)	No — nothing transfers during life	Generally no
Can you still sell or refinance alone?	No — you need the child’s signature	Yes — full control retained	Yes
Exposed to the child’s creditors or divorce	Yes, immediately	No	No
Medicaid five-year look-back transfer	Yes	No	No
Federal gift tax return required	Usually — Form 709	No	No
Revocable if you change your mind	No — not without their signature	Yes	Yes

For most families whose actual goal is “make sure the house goes to my kids without probate,” the lady bird deed is the instrument they were looking for. Compare in detail: lady bird deed vs living trust, and whether a lady bird deed can be contested.

What if the other owner has died?

The same principle that governs living co-owners governs this one: you cannot deed a deceased person off the title. A dead person cannot sign, and no surviving owner can sign for them. What you record instead depends entirely on how title was held.

How title was held	What happens at death	What clears the record
Tenancy by the entireties (married couple)	The surviving spouse already owns the whole property. Nothing passes through the estate	Record a certified death certificate. Title underwriters commonly also want an affidavit of continuous marriage before a sale or refinance
Joint tenancy with right of survivorship	The surviving joint tenant owns the whole property	Record a certified death certificate
Tenancy in common	The decedent’s share is a probate asset and passes by will or intestacy	Summary administration or formal administration, and letters issued to a personal representative
Homestead, owned solely by the decedent	Title passes outside the estate under Art. X §4(c) and §732.401 — to the surviving spouse and descendants in the shares the statute sets, by operation of law	Never a deed. Often an order determining homestead status from the probate court — see the note under this table on when one is actually needed

Three things worth knowing before anyone signs anything.

The surviving spouse has a six-month decision to make. Where the decedent is survived by a spouse and descendants, the default under §732.401(1) is a life estate to the spouse with a vested remainder to the descendants. But §732.401(2) lets the surviving spouse elect instead to take an undivided one-half interest as a tenant in common — and the election must be made within six months after the death, during the spouse’s lifetime. Once made it is irrevocable.
An order determining homestead status is not always required. Where homestead descends as a life estate under §732.401(1), title passes at death by operation of law and no court order is strictly necessary. The order is what you need when homestead status is disputed, when a personal representative has to establish that the property sits outside the estate rather than being administered, or when a title underwriter requires it before a sale or refinance — which, in practice, is most of the time.
Entireties and survivorship property is not “protected homestead” at all. §731.201(33) expressly excludes real property owned in tenancy by the entireties or in joint tenancy with rights of survivorship from the Probate Code’s definition of protected homestead — because it never enters the estate in the first place. In re Ritter’s Estate, 407 So. 2d 386 (Fla. 3d DCA 1981).

There is no deadline for “transferring the deed” as such — but you cannot sell, refinance or insure cleanly until the record is cleared, and the probate route has its own clocks.

Can someone sign the deed for you under a power of attorney?

Only if the document says so in a very specific way, and Florida is stricter than most states here.

A Florida power of attorney must itself be signed by the principal with two subscribing witnesses and a notary. Beyond that, §709.2202(1) requires the principal to sign or initial next to each of certain enumerated authorities before the agent has them at all. Two of them land directly on this page:

“Make a gift” — §709.2202(1)(c). Adding a family member to a deed for no money is a gift.
“Create or change rights of survivorship” — §709.2202(1)(d). That is precisely what a survivorship deed does.

A general power of attorney that grants broad “real property” authority but has no separate initials next to those two lines does not authorize an agent to add a child to the principal’s deed.

Even where gift authority was properly initialed, there is a ceiling. Unless the power of attorney says otherwise, §709.2202(4) limits a general grant of gift-making authority to the annual federal gift tax exclusion under 26 U.S.C. §2503(b) per recipient per year — $19,000 in 2026, or double that where the principal’s spouse consents to a split gift. Half of a Florida house is worth a great deal more than $19,000, so a general gift power will not cover it. The power of attorney has to grant the larger authority expressly.

And none of it displaces the homestead rule above: the agent cannot supply the spouse’s joinder.

What does it cost to add or remove a name on a Florida deed?

There are three separate costs, and only one of them is the lawyer.

Cost	Amount	Paid to
Recording	A per-page fee set by statute and collected by the county, plus a small charge for each additional name indexed. Modest next to the tax below	The county clerk or comptroller
Documentary stamp tax	70¢ per $100 of consideration statewide; 60¢ in Miami-Dade on a single-family dwelling, $1.05 otherwise. Usually the mortgage balance attributable to the interest transferred. Frequently the largest line	The state, collected by the clerk at recording
Preparation	Depends entirely on the situation — see the note under this table	Whoever prepares the deed

What preparation should cost depends on what the deed has to survive. A transfer between spouses on an unencumbered homestead is a different piece of work from one that has to account for a mortgage, a doc-stamp exposure, a survivorship decision, a basis question and a Medicaid look-back. Tell me what you are trying to accomplish and I will tell you what it takes before you commit to anything. See also Florida deed preparation.

Timing is usually days rather than weeks. Recording is typically same-day to a few days depending on the county. The delay, when there is one, is almost always in getting a reluctant co-owner to sign — which is the part no amount of speed on the paperwork fixes.

How to add or remove a name on a Florida deed, step by step

Pull the current recorded deed. Not the tax bill — the recorded instrument, from the county clerk’s official records. What people believe is on the title and what is on the title differ more often than you would expect, and the exact legal description has to be copied from the recorded deed.
Confirm how title is currently held. Tenancy in common, joint tenancy with right of survivorship, or tenancy by the entireties. This determines what you are able to do and what happens at death — see “Two names on the deed” above.
Decide whether a deed is even the right instrument. If the goal is passing the house at death, a lady bird deed or a trust is almost always better than adding a name now.
Price the tax exposure before signing. Documentary stamps on any encumbrance, the carryover basis consequence for whoever eventually sells, a Form 709 if the gift exceeds $19,000, and the Medicaid look-back if long-term care is foreseeable.
Check homestead and marital status. If it is homestead and you are married, the spouse joins the deed — whether or not the spouse is on the title.
Choose the deed form and say how title will be held. Quitclaim, warranty or special warranty — and if you want survivorship, the deed must expressly say so under §689.15. Silence produces a tenancy in common.
Draft it with the correct legal description taken from the recorded instrument, not from the tax bill. A wrong or abbreviated legal description is the most common defect that surfaces years later in a title search, and it takes a corrective deed to fix.
Execute it properly — signed by the person giving up the interest, in the presence of two subscribing witnesses, and notarized.
Record it in the county where the property sits and pay the documentary stamps at recording.
Tell your insurer and your lender. A change in ownership can affect the homeowner’s policy, the title insurance and the mortgage.

To talk it through, call (305) 224-6811 or send a message through the contact page.

Frequently asked questions

Can I add my child to my deed to avoid probate?

You can, and it usually costs more than it saves. The child takes your tax basis on their share under IRC §1015 instead of the stepped-up basis they would receive by inheritance under IRC §1014, the house becomes exposed to their creditors and divorce, and the transfer sits inside the Medicaid five-year look-back. Worse, if the deed does not expressly provide for survivorship, §689.15 makes it a tenancy in common and your half goes through probate anyway. A lady bird deed avoids probate, keeps the step-up, and leaves you in control.

If I add someone to my deed, do we own it 50/50 or does the survivor get everything?

Fifty-fifty as tenants in common, unless the deed expressly says otherwise. §689.15 abolishes automatic survivorship between joint tenants in Florida — a conveyance to two or more people creates a tenancy in common “unless the instrument creating the estate shall expressly provide for the right of survivorship.” The exception is a married couple: where Florida real property is conveyed to spouses and the deed shows no contrary intent, a tenancy by the entireties is created as a matter of law.

Does Florida have a transfer-on-death deed for real estate?

No. Florida has not adopted a transfer-on-death or beneficiary deed for real property. The Florida instrument that produces the same result is the lady bird deed, also called an enhanced life estate deed: the property passes automatically at death, outside probate, while you keep full power to sell, mortgage or revoke during your lifetime.

How do I remove a deceased spouse’s or co-owner’s name from a Florida deed?

You do not record a deed — a deceased person cannot sign one. If title was held as tenancy by the entireties or joint tenancy with right of survivorship, the survivor already owns the property and the record is cleared by recording a certified death certificate. If it was a tenancy in common, the decedent’s share is a probate asset and passes through summary or formal administration. If it was homestead owned solely by the decedent, the instrument is an order determining homestead status from the probate court.

Do I have to file a gift tax return if I add someone to my deed?

Usually yes, and usually with no tax to pay. Adding a name is a completed gift of a fractional interest. For 2026 the annual exclusion is $19,000 per recipient, so any half-interest worth more than that requires IRS Form 709 — the excess reduces your $15,000,000 lifetime basic exclusion rather than producing a check. Florida itself has no gift or inheritance tax.

Will adding a name to my deed raise my property taxes?

Usually not. Under §193.155(3)(a) adding a co-owner is not a “change of ownership” that resets the assessment, so long as the original owner keeps the homestead exemption and the new co-owner does not apply for an additional exemption. The reassessment risk generally comes from the exemption paperwork afterwards, not from the deed.

Does adding a name to my deed affect Medicaid eligibility?

It can. An uncompensated transfer within the five-year look-back under 42 U.S.C. §1396p(c) creates a penalty period during which Medicaid will not pay for nursing home care. A lady bird deed does not, because nothing transfers during your lifetime.

Does adding a name to a deed require the mortgage company’s approval?

The mortgage almost certainly contains a due-on-sale clause. On residential property with fewer than five dwelling units, 12 U.S.C. §1701j-3(d)(6) bars the lender from accelerating on a transfer that makes the borrower’s spouse or children an owner. That protection does not extend to a fiancé, a sibling or a friend, it does not release you from the note, and it does not make the new owner a borrower. Read the note before you sign anything.

How much does it cost to add or remove a name from a deed in Florida?

Recording fees are modest. Documentary stamp tax is calculated on the consideration — typically the share of any mortgage balance attaching to the interest transferred — at 70¢ per $100 statewide, or 60¢ in Miami-Dade on a single-family dwelling. If there is no mortgage and the deed recites nominal consideration, the tax can be as little as 70¢ total. If a co-owner will not sign voluntarily, the cost changes entirely, because the route becomes a partition action rather than a deed.

Do I owe documentary stamp tax if no money changes hands?

Only on the debt. An unpaid mortgage counts as consideration under §201.02 whether or not it is assumed, so a half interest in a house carrying a $200,000 mortgage produces $100,000 of consideration and $700 in stamps ($600 in Miami-Dade). On unencumbered property the Department of Revenue’s own example puts the tax on a $1,000,000 gift to children at seventy cents, because fair market value is not consideration on a gratuitous deed.

What is the documentary stamp tax rate in Miami-Dade County?

60¢ per $100 of consideration, plus a 45¢ surtax — but the surtax is not due on a document transferring only a single-family dwelling. So a single-family home is 60¢ per $100, and everything else is $1.05 per $100. The authority is §201.031, and it makes Miami-Dade cheaper than the rest of Florida for houses and more expensive for everything else.

Who pays the documentary stamp tax on a deed?

All parties to the document are liable regardless of who agrees to pay it, and if one party is exempt the non-exempt party owes the tax. It is collected by the county clerk at recording.

My ex-spouse is still on the deed after the divorce. What do I do?

Check the final judgment first. It may already order the transfer, in which case the remedy is enforcement rather than negotiation. Two further points: removing an ex-spouse from the deed does not remove them from the mortgage — those are separate documents and the lender is not bound by your divorce. And if you already paid documentary stamp tax on a marital-home transfer, the Department of Revenue allows a refund claim within one year of the dissolution.

Do both spouses have to sign if only one of us is on the title?

For homestead property, yes. Article X, Section 4(c) requires the owner to be joined by the spouse to alienate homestead by mortgage, sale or gift, whether or not the spouse is on the title.

Quitclaim deed or warranty deed — which should I use to add a family member?

A quitclaim deed is the common instrument for transfers within a family, and it is usually fine. Understand what it does: it transfers whatever interest the signer happens to have and warrants nothing. It does not confirm that the signer owns anything, and it can disturb an existing owner’s title insurance coverage. A warranty deed carries full covenants of title; a special warranty deed warrants only against defects arising during the grantor’s ownership.

What happens if the legal description on the deed is wrong?

It usually surfaces years later, in a title search, when someone is trying to sell or refinance and cannot. The fix is a corrective deed — sometimes called a scrivener’s error deed — signed by the original parties, which is straightforward while everyone is alive, cooperative and locatable, and a lawsuit when they are not. Copy the legal description from the recorded instrument, never from the tax bill.

Can I undo a deed after it has been recorded?

Not unilaterally. Once a deed is delivered and recorded, the interest has moved, and getting it back requires the new owner to sign a deed conveying it back — with a second round of documentary stamps. A deed procured by fraud, forgery or undue influence can be set aside by a court, but that is litigation, not paperwork. This is why the decision matters more than the form.

Can I add someone to a deed if the property is held in a trust?

The trustee signs, not the beneficiary, and only if the trust instrument gives the trustee that power. A conveyance out of a trust has its own documentary stamp analysis — where property encumbered by a mortgage is transferred, the consideration is the mortgage multiplied by the percentage of the interest transferred. Read the trust before drafting the deed.

Can I take my name off the deed to get out of the mortgage?

No. The deed and the note are separate documents. Signing away your ownership does not end your obligation to pay, and it leaves you liable for a property you no longer own — the worst of both. Getting off the loan requires a refinance by the remaining owner, a lender-approved assumption, or a sale.