Florida Land Trust: What Section 689.071 Actually Does

A Florida land trust is a private title-holding arrangement created under Fla. Stat. § 689.071, the Florida Land Trust Act. A trustee holds legal and equitable title to your real property; you hold the beneficial interest and keep every practical power of ownership through a private, unrecorded land trust agreement. Your name does not appear on the recorded deed. That is the instrument, and it is genuinely useful — but almost everything published about what a land trust in Florida does for probate, for creditors and for your homestead is stated more confidently than the statute supports.

What is a land trust is two different questions depending on who is asking. Nationally the phrase usually means a conservation organisation that holds land to protect it from development — that is what you find if you search North Florida Land Trust or land trust on its own. That is not this. A Florida land trust under section 689.071 is a private ownership structure descended from the Illinois land trust, and it has nothing to do with conservation. Same two words, entirely different instrument.

Search for a land trust Florida investors actually use, an FL land trust, or land trusts Florida attorneys set up, and you are looking for the same instrument — a title-holding trust under the Florida Land Trust Act. This page sets out what that Act actually says, what a land trust costs, what it does and does not protect, the one thing about probate that every competing page in this market gets wrong, and the drafting decisions that determine whether you have a land trust at all. Every proposition below is tied to the statute, rule, advisement or decision behind it. We at Lorenzo Law draft these from our offices in Coral Gables and Fort Lauderdale for property anywhere in Florida.

The short answers

Question	Answer	Where it comes from
Is there a Florida land trust statute?	Yes — the Florida Land Trust Act	§ 689.071, enacted 1963, restructured effective 28 June 2013
Who holds title?	The trustee holds both legal and equitable title	§ 689.071(3)
Who controls the property?	You do, as beneficiary, through the power of direction	§ 689.071(8)(f)
Is my name on the public record?	No. Only the trustee is named in the recorded deed	§ 689.071(8)(g); § 689.073(2)
Is the beneficial interest personal property?	Only if the document says so. Real property is the default	§ 689.071(6)
Does it avoid probate?	Not by itself. Section 689.071 contains no successor-beneficiary provision. It takes separate drafting	See does a land trust avoid probate
Does it protect assets from creditors?	No. The beneficial interest is fully reachable, and there is no charging order protection	§ 689.071(8)(a), (d); contrast § 605.0503(3)
Do I keep my homestead exemption?	Only if the beneficiary independently qualifies under chapter 196 — which usually means a life interest	§ 689.071(8)(h); § 196.041(2); Fla. AGO 2008-44
If I am married, does my spouse have to sign?	On homestead, yes — even if the spouse is not on the title	Art. X, § 4(c), Fla. Const.; Isaacs; Brown v. Towd Point
Does my Save Our Homes cap reset?	Generally no — but only while you keep qualifying for homestead	§ 193.155(3)(a)1.b.
Do I pay documentary stamp tax to fund it?	Generally no, where you keep 100% of the beneficial interest	Fla. Admin. Code R. 12B-4.013(28)(a)
Do I pay it when I sell the beneficial interest?	Yes — even where the interest is declared personal property	§ 201.02(4)
Can I 1031 exchange out of one?	Yes, if the trustee is a bare titleholder acting at your direction	Rev. Rul. 92-105; Treas. Reg. § 301.7701-4(a)
Will my mortgage be accelerated?	Usually not on an owner-occupied 1–4 unit home. No protection on rentals or LLCs	12 U.S.C. § 1701j-3(d)(8); 12 CFR § 191.5(b)(1)(vi)
Do I report it to FinCEN?	Not today — the rule was vacated on 19 March 2026 and is on appeal	Flowers Title Cos. v. Bessent (E.D. Tex.)
Is it a reporting company under the CTA?	No. Neither is your Florida LLC beneficiary, as of the 14 August 2026 final rule	FinCEN BOI final rule
Does the Florida Trust Code apply?	No, except two liability provisions	§ 736.0102(3); § 689.071(7)
Is it revocable?	Almost always, but nothing in the Act requires it	See revocable or irrevocable
What does it cost?	Flat fee, quoted in writing before any work starts	See what a Florida land trust costs

What is a Florida land trust, and what is a land trust used for?

What is a land trust in Florida? A Florida land trust is a specialised legal arrangement in which real property is held by a trustee for the benefit of one or more beneficiaries. Section 689.071(3) is unusually blunt about the mechanics: a qualifying recorded instrument vests in the trustee both legal and equitable title, and full rights of ownership. That is not the split you find in an ordinary trust, and it is the source of most of the confusion about what land trusts in Florida can and cannot do.

What you hold is the beneficial interest. Section 689.071(2)(a) defines that as any interest in a land trust held by a beneficiary, vested or contingent, however small. Through the power of direction in the land trust agreement, you tell the trustee what to do — sell, lease, mortgage, refinance, convey — and the trustee does it. In practice the land trust trustee is a nominee: a titleholder who acts, and who does not decide.

Unlike a traditional living trust in Florida, which may hold any type of asset, a land trust is built around real estate. And unlike an irrevocable trust in Florida, where the grantor surrenders control, a revocable land trust leaves you in the driver’s seat throughout. Working with an experienced Florida land trust attorney matters here for a narrow and specific reason set out under when a land trust is not a land trust: get the recorded language wrong and you do not have a defective land trust, you have a conventional trust governed by the Florida Trust Code, with every duty the Act was designed to switch off.

Personal property or real property — the single most important sentence in the document

Most published material states flatly that Florida law classifies the beneficial interest as personal property. It does not. Section 689.071(6) provides that where the recorded instrument or the trust agreement contains a provision defining and declaring the interests of beneficiaries of a land trust to be personal property only, that provision controls — and that “if no such personal property designation appears in the recorded instrument or in the trust agreement, the interests of the land trust beneficiaries are real property.”

Real property is the default. The statute classifies nothing; the drafter does. Four consequences turn on which side of that line your document falls:

• Judgment liens. A recorded judgment becomes a lien on real property under § 55.10. Where the beneficial interest is personal property, that recorded judgment does not attach to it and a creditor has to work harder. Where the declaration is missing, the interest is real property and the lien attaches.
• How a lender takes security. Section 689.071(8)(c) sends a personal-property beneficial interest to chapter 679, Florida’s UCC Article 9 — a financing statement, not a mortgage. A real-property beneficial interest requires a recorded security document in the county specified in the recorded instrument, or where the trust property sits.
• How you assign it. In Goldman v. Mandell, 403 So. 2d 511 (Fla. 5th DCA 1981), an assignment of beneficial interest was upheld even though it had not been witnessed like a deed — precisely because the deed declared the interest personal property only.
• What it is not. The declaration does not exempt you from documentary stamp tax on a sale of the interest. See documentary stamp tax, because section 201.02(4) says so expressly.

The Florida Land Trust Act: what section 689.071 actually does

The Florida Land Trust Act is codified at Fla. Stat. § 689.071. It was enacted in 1963 and substantially restructured by chapter 2013-240, Laws of Florida, effective 28 June 2013. It is not new law, and any page describing it as new is describing something else. The 2013 restructuring added the duty-limitation definition, the anti-merger provision, the separation-of-title rule and the express exclusion of the Florida Trust Code — and it created a dividing line that still matters, because trusts on either side of it are tested differently.

What the recorded deed has to say

A deed to “Jane Smith, as Trustee” does not create a Florida land trust. Section 689.071(12)(a) is explicit: “A trust is not a land trust governed by this section if there is no recorded instrument that confers on the trustee the power and authority prescribed in s. 689.073(1).”

That cross-reference is the whole ballgame. Section 689.073(1) requires the recorded instrument to designate the person or entity “trustee” or “as trustee” and to confer on that trustee the power and authority to protect, to conserve, to sell, to lease, to encumber, or otherwise to manage and dispose of the real property described in it. Practitioners call it the Illinois Land Trust formula. Leave it out and the Act does not apply to you.

The four duties — and the 2013 dividing line

Section 689.071(2)(c) defines a land trust as an arrangement under which title is vested in a trustee by a qualifying recorded instrument and under which the trustee has no duties other than four enumerated ones:

1. to convey, sell, lease, mortgage or otherwise deal with the trust property as directed by the beneficiaries or by the holder of the power of direction;
2. to sell or dispose of the trust property at the termination of the trust;
3. to perform ministerial and administrative functions delegated in the trust agreement or by the beneficiaries; and
4. for timeshare estate trusts, the duties required under chapter 721.

• Created on or after 28 June 2013. If the trustee’s duties under the agreement exceed those four, it is not a land trust at all — it is a chapter 736 trust.
• Created before 28 June 2013. It qualifies if the recorded instrument confers the section 689.073(1) powers and either the documents expressly say it is a land trust, or that intent is discernible from them — without regard to whether the trustee’s duties exceed the limited four.

If your land trust in Florida was set up before June 2013 and has never been reviewed, this is the paragraph to bring to a lawyer. Almost nothing published on Florida land trust law mentions the distinction.

What the Act switches off

• The statute of uses. Section 689.071(4): section 689.09 and the statute of uses do not execute a land trust or vest the property in the beneficiaries, notwithstanding any lack of duties on the part of the trustee or the otherwise passive nature of the land trust. This is what lets the trustee be genuinely passive.
• Merger. Section 689.071(5): the doctrine of merger does not extinguish a land trust or vest the property in the beneficiary, regardless of whether the trustee is the sole beneficiary.
• The Florida Trust Code. Section 736.0102(3) and section 689.071(12) exclude land trusts from chapter 736. Only two provisions survive, via section 689.071(7): section 736.08125 (the trustee’s attorney fees and costs) and section 736.1013 (personal liability for contracts and torts). Freeman v. Berrin, 352 So. 3d 452 (Fla. 2d DCA 2022), confirmed it — holding that the Trust Code’s trustee-removal provision does not reach a land trust.
• Beneficiary liability for the trust’s debts. Section 689.071(8)(a): beneficiaries are not liable, solely by being beneficiaries, for a debt, obligation or liability of the land trust. Note the words solely by being beneficiaries — this protects you from the trust’s debts, not your interest from your own creditors.
• A guardian ad litem in foreclosure. Section 689.071(8)(i): in a foreclosure against trust property or other litigation affecting title, no guardian ad litem is needed to represent a beneficiary’s interest.

One qualification worth stating plainly, because the marketing rarely does. Switching off chapter 736 does not leave your trustee accountable to nobody. Freeman v. Berrin recognised that a land trustee remains subject to common law fiduciary duties to the extent they are not overridden by the statute. What you have lost is the Trust Code machinery — mandatory accountings, the duty to inform, the statutory removal procedure — not the underlying obligation of good faith.

How does a land trust work? Three parties, three documents

Understanding how a land trust works — and what a land trust is used for once it exists — begins with three roles and, contrary to most descriptions, three documents rather than two.

• The grantor or settlor creates the trust and conveys the real property into it. Usually this is you, and usually you are also the initial beneficiary.
• The trustee holds legal and equitable title and acts only on direction. See who can be your trustee.
• The beneficiary holds the beneficial interest and every economic benefit of ownership — income, use, control, proceeds.

• The deed to the trustee. Recorded. A warranty deed or quitclaim deed naming the trustee as grantee, carrying the section 689.073(1) powers language. This is the only document the public ever sees.
• The land trust agreement. Never recorded. It identifies the beneficiaries, allocates percentages, sets the power of direction, declares whether the beneficial interest is personal property, and sets out what happens on death, incapacity and termination. This is the document that does all the work, and it is the one nobody can read.
• The memorandum of trust. Sometimes recorded, sometimes handed to a title underwriter or bank on request. A short instrument confirming the trust exists, its name and date, and the trustee’s authority — without disclosing beneficiaries. Most descriptions of land trust documents omit it; in practice it is what unsticks a closing.

A Florida land trust agreement typically contains the legal description, the designation of the trustee, identification of the beneficiary or beneficiaries and their proportions, the powers and duties of each party, the power of direction, the personal-property declaration, succession provisions and termination conditions.

So when real property is held in a land trust, who controls it? You do. Section 689.071(8)(f) provides that the power of direction is held for the use and benefit of all holders of a beneficial interest, that absent contrary provision it follows percentage ownership, and that holders of the power are presumed to act in a fiduciary capacity for all beneficiaries. The same subsection contains a protection that matters in family and investor arrangements: a beneficial interest in a land trust is indefeasible, and the power of direction may not be exercised so as to alter, amend, revoke, terminate, defeat, or otherwise affect or change the enjoyment of any beneficial interest. A majority holder cannot direct your interest out of existence.

What happens at your death is a different question, and it is the one this market answers badly. It is dealt with next.

Debunking Florida land trust myths — what the statute actually says

Each row below pairs a claim that circulates widely about Florida land trusts with what the statute says. Every citation was read against the current Florida Statutes. Several of these claims appear on the first page of Google today.

Common claim	What the statute says
The beneficial interest in a Florida land trust is personal property	Only where the recorded instrument or the trust agreement expressly declares it. Section 689.071(6) makes real property the default where no such provision appears
Naming a successor beneficiary keeps the property out of probate	Section 689.071 contains no successor beneficiary provision at all. Subsection (9) governs successor trustees. Whether a death-time designation is a valid nonprobate transfer or a testamentary disposition requiring the will formalities in section 732.502 turns entirely on drafting
Co-owners of a beneficial interest take by survivorship	Not automatically. Section 689.15 makes tenancy in common the default unless the instrument expressly provides for survivorship. Section 689.071(8)(b)2. permits joint tenancy with right of survivorship or tenancy by the entireties where it is drafted in
A land trust protects homestead	Section 689.071(8)(h) preserves only the ad valorem homestead tax exemption, and only where the beneficiary independently qualifies under chapter 196. The statute says nothing about the constitutional creditor exemption or the restrictions on devise of homestead
A deed to a person as trustee creates a land trust	No. Section 689.071(12)(a) and section 689.073(1) require the recorded instrument to also confer the enumerated powers to protect, conserve, sell, lease, encumber or otherwise manage and dispose of the property
The power of direction lets beneficiaries restructure their interests	Section 689.071(8)(f) provides that a beneficial interest is indefeasible and that the power of direction may not be exercised to alter, amend, revoke, terminate, defeat or otherwise change the enjoyment of any beneficial interest
A land trust can replace a revocable living trust	Section 736.0102(3) excludes land trusts from the Florida Trust Code except for two liability provisions. There is no duty to inform or account and none of the Trust Code beneficiary protections apply
The trust fails if the trustee is also the sole beneficiary	It does not. Section 689.071(5) disapplies the doctrine of merger regardless of whether the trustee is the sole beneficiary, and section 689.071(4) disapplies the statute of uses
A land trust is an asset protection trust	It is not. There is no charging order protection for a beneficial interest — compare section 605.0503(3) for an LLC — and the interest is directly reachable. See land trust asset protection
Assigning the beneficial interest avoids transfer tax	No. Section 201.02(4) taxes a document transferring a beneficial interest under section 689.071 even though such interest may be designated as personal property, notwithstanding section 689.071(6)

Does a Florida land trust avoid probate? The honest answer

Almost every page you will read on this subject — including, until this revision, parts of ours — says that a Florida land trust transfers automatically to successor beneficiaries at death and bypasses the Florida probate process entirely. That is not what section 689.071 provides, and the difference is worth real money to your family.

The Florida Land Trust Act contains no successor-beneficiary provision. Subsection (9) governs successor trustees — what happens if the person holding title dies, resigns or dissolves. There is nothing in the Act that moves the beneficial interest at your death. Unlike a payable-on-death account, a life insurance beneficiary designation, an enhanced life estate deed or a revocable trust, the statute supplies no transfer mechanism.

So by default, the beneficial interest passes through your estate — which means probate — unless one of three things is separately true:

1. The beneficial interest is held with an express right of survivorship. Section 689.15 provides that the doctrine of survivorship does not prevail in this state, and that a transfer to two or more persons creates a tenancy in common unless the instrument expressly provides otherwise. Section 689.071(8)(b)2. permits beneficiaries to hold as joint tenants with right of survivorship — but only if somebody drafted it in. La Pierre v. Kalergis, 251 So. 2d 885 (Fla. 1st DCA 1971).
2. The beneficial interest is held as tenancy by the entireties by a married couple. Also expressly permitted by section 689.071(8)(b)2., and also a drafting decision.
3. The beneficial interest itself sits inside a revocable living trust or another nonprobate vehicle. This is the belt-and-braces answer, and it is the one we use most often: the land trust holds title and delivers the privacy; the revocable trust holds the beneficial interest and delivers the probate avoidance. Each instrument does the job it is actually built for.

The trap: a death-time designation can be void

The obvious fix — write into the unrecorded land trust agreement that “on my death the beneficial interest passes to my children” — is exactly where the risk sits. A provision that creates no interest at all during your lifetime and operates only at death looks like a will, and a will that was not executed with the formalities of section 732.502 — signed at the end, in the presence of two attesting witnesses who sign in your presence and each other’s — is invalid.

The governing test is the Florida Supreme Court’s decision in Zuckerman v. Alter, 615 So. 2d 661 (Fla. 1993). An inter vivos trust is not testamentary if, by its terms, an interest passes to the beneficiary during the settlor’s life — even though that interest does not take effect in enjoyment or possession until the settlor’s death. And the disposition is not made testamentary merely because the settlor reserved a beneficial life interest, a power to revoke, a power to modify, or a power to control the trustee as to administration. Accord Alter v. Zuckerman, 585 So. 2d 303 (Fla. 3d DCA 1991). The related point in Darian v. Weymouth, 76 So. 3d 15 (Fla. 4th DCA 2011), is that creating a trust does not by itself vest the interests the trust agreement describes.

The line, then, runs between a present contingent remainder created now — valid — and a death-only disposition creating nothing until you die, which may be void as an improperly executed will. That distinction is invisible to a reader of a form. It is the entire difference between a plan that works and a family in litigation, and it is the single clearest answer to the question of what a Florida land trust attorney is for.

Two further points, because they are asked constantly:

• There is no such thing as a “succession certificate” in Florida. If you have been told your family will present a death certificate and a succession certificate to the trustee, that is not a Florida instrument and no Florida trustee, clerk or title underwriter will know what it is. What exists is an affidavit of successor beneficiary or an assignment of beneficial interest — creatures of your trust agreement, not of statute.
• If the property is homestead, none of this is the first question. The first question is Article X, section 4(c). See homestead, your spouse, and Save Our Homes, because a homestead land trust can fail before it ever reaches the probate analysis.

A land trust will not replace your will. If the beneficial interest was never structured to pass outside probate, your will is what directs it — and if you have no will, the intestacy rules do. That is the whole of land trust inheritance in Florida: the trust controls title, the will or the survivorship drafting controls who ends up with the benefit. Keep both, and keep them consistent with each other.

Handled properly, a land trust plus the right succession structure does keep the property out of the Florida probate process — which typically runs six months to two years for real estate. What it does not do is get there by itself, and any page telling you otherwise is describing an instrument the Legislature did not write. See also when probate is not necessary in Florida.

Land trust vs living trust, irrevocable trust, LLC and lady bird deed

Five structures do overlapping jobs with Florida real estate and they are not interchangeable. The distinctions below are statutory, not stylistic. The row most people should read twice is effect on probate, and the row most investors should read twice is charging order protection.

Feature	Florida land trust	Revocable living trust	Irrevocable trust	Florida LLC	Lady bird deed
Governing law	§ 689.071. Chapter 736 does not apply, per § 736.0102(3)	Chapter 736, the Florida Trust Code	Chapter 736	Chapter 605	No statute — common law plus title standards
What it holds	Florida real property titled to the trustee	Any asset, including accounts and investments	Any asset	Any asset	One described parcel
Trustee or manager duties	Limited to the four categories in § 689.071(2)(c)	Full Trust Code fiduciary duties	Full Trust Code fiduciary duties	Operating agreement plus ch. 605	None — no fiduciary
Duty to inform and account	None. The Trust Code is excluded	Yes, § 736.0813	Yes, § 736.0813	Records access under ch. 605	N/A
Privacy on the public record	Beneficiaries need not be named, § 689.071(8)(g)	The trust is not recorded, but deeds name the trustee	Same	Articles and annual report are public	Beneficiary is public from the day it records
Who controls decisions	The beneficiaries, through the power of direction	The settlor, who may revoke or amend	Generally not revocable by the settlor	Members or manager	You, alone, for life
Nature of the interest	Personal property only if expressly declared, § 689.071(6). Real property by default	An equitable interest in the trust	An equitable interest in the trust	Membership interest — personal property	Life estate plus remainder
Effect on probate	Depends entirely on how succession is drafted — see above	Avoids probate for assets actually funded into it	Avoids probate for assets held in it	Membership interest is a probate asset unless separately handled	Avoids probate for that parcel
Charging order protection	None	None	Depends on the terms	Yes — sole and exclusive remedy, § 605.0503(3)	None
Homestead tax exemption	Yes if the beneficiary qualifies under ch. 196, § 689.071(8)(h)	Yes, on a life beneficial interest	Usually lost	No — an LLC is not a natural person	Yes
Documentary stamp on funding	Generally none where you keep 100% of the beneficial interest	Generally none	Depends	Watch § 201.02(1)(b) conduit-entity rules	Generally none
Due-on-sale safe harbour	Arguable on an owner-occupied home; see below	Yes, § 1701j-3(d)(8)	Not if you cease to be a beneficiary	No — not covered at all	Generally yes
Annual state filing or fee	None	None	None	Annual report required	None
CTA reporting company	No	No	No	No, as of the 14 Aug 2026 final rule	N/A

The honest summary, and the answer to Florida land trust vs revocable trust as well as to the difference between land trust and living trust structures generally: a living trust vs land trust comparison — or a land trust vs living trust one, the query runs both ways — is not really a contest, because they solve different problems. A revocable living trust in Florida avoids probate across every asset you fund into it. A Florida land trust delivers title privacy that a living trust cannot. Land trust vs irrevocable trust is a different axis again — that is a control-for-protection trade, and the land trust is not on the protection end of it. And land trust vs LLC comes down to one row: the charging order. Most sophisticated Florida investors do not choose between them. They use both, in the order set out under asset protection.

People also search this as LLC vs land trust for owning Florida property, and as a guide to LLC vs land trust for owning Florida property — the answer is in the charging order row. For the long-form treatments, see our pages on the Florida irrevocable trust, the lady bird deed, lady bird deed versus a living trust, the dynasty trust, the special needs trust in Florida, and Florida trust law on distributions. Florida community property trusts under sections 736.1501–736.1512, in force since 1 July 2021, are a separate married-couple planning tool — the double basis step-up they are marketed for remains untested, so we treat it as a possibility rather than a promise. And no, Florida is not a deed of trust state: Florida uses mortgages, which is why the land trust here is a title-holding device and not a security instrument.

Florida land trust asset protection: what it does, and what it does not

This is the question people actually arrive with — do land trusts provide asset protection, or only privacy? — so here is the direct answer before the detail. Pages promising land trusts asset protection are describing something section 689.071 does not provide. A Florida land trust is a privacy and title-holding instrument, not an asset protection trust. It is sold as one often enough that the distinction is worth drawing carefully, and the parts of it that are real are worth knowing precisely.

What it genuinely does

• It separates the trustee’s title from your interest. Section 689.071(8)(d) provides that the trustee’s legal and equitable title is separate and distinct from the beneficial interest, and that an encumbrance attaching to one does not attach to the other — unless by its terms or by operation of other law it attaches to both. So a judgment against your trustee does not become a lien on your property, and vice versa.
• It can keep a recorded judgment off the real estate. Where the beneficial interest is validly declared personal property under section 689.071(6), a judgment recorded under section 55.10 does not automatically become a lien on it — a creditor has to proceed under chapter 679 or in proceedings supplementary instead. Note the condition. Where that declaration is missing, the interest is real property and the lien attaches on recording. This is the practical payoff of the personal-property clause, and it is why leaving it out is not a stylistic choice.
• It does not make you liable for the trust’s debts. Section 689.071(8)(a): beneficiaries are not liable, solely by being beneficiaries, for a debt, obligation or liability of the land trust, and one beneficiary is not liable for another’s.
• It removes the “deep pocket” signal. Holding each property in its own land trust means a plaintiff’s lawyer running a name search against you does not find a portfolio. That is a real, if soft, benefit, and it is the honest version of the compartmentalisation claim.

What it does not do — the land trust liability protection myth

• There is no charging order protection. None. This is the single biggest difference between a land trust and an LLC, and it is why the marketing is misleading. Section 605.0503(3) makes a charging order the sole and exclusive remedy by which a judgment creditor of a member may satisfy a judgment from that member’s interest in a multi-member Florida LLC — confirmed in Capstone Bank v. Perry-Clifton Enterprises, LLC, 230 So. 3d 970 (Fla. 1st DCA 2017) and Pansky v. Barry S. Franklin & Associates, P.A., 264 So. 3d 961 (Fla. 4th DCA 2019). Section 689.071 contains no equivalent. A judgment creditor can go straight at your beneficial interest.
• The beneficial interest is directly reachable. Where it is personal property, it is subject to UCC Article 9 foreclosure — Magnuson v. Jones, 491 So. 2d 1315 (Fla. 5th DCA 1986), allowed judicial sale and foreclosure of an assigned beneficial interest. It is also transferable by simple assignment, which is exactly what makes it leviable.
• It is a self-settled arrangement. Where you are both the person who created it and the person who benefits from it, there is nothing between you and your own creditors.
• You must disclose it. A judgment debtor is required to disclose a beneficial interest in a trust agreement in post-judgment discovery. Proceedings supplementary under chapter 56 reach the interest and its transfer history — Rosenberg v. U.S. Bank, 360 So. 3d 795 (Fla. 3d DCA 2023). Any page claiming your other holdings are “protected from discovery” is wrong.
• Transfers made to defeat a creditor are voidable. Chapter 726, Florida’s Uniform Fraudulent Transfer Act, applies in full. A transfer made with actual intent to hinder, delay or defraud, or made without reasonably equivalent value while insolvent, is voidable under sections 726.105 and 726.106. Setting up a land trust in Florida after a claim has surfaced is not planning.
• Bankruptcy. The trust may survive, but your beneficial interest becomes property of the bankruptcy estate under 11 U.S.C. § 541.

The structure people actually want: a land trust with an LLC as beneficiary

If privacy and creditor protection are both goals, the answer is not to choose between the two instruments. It is to stack them: the land trust holds title, so your name is off the deed, and an LLC is the beneficiary of the land trust, so the interest a creditor has to chase is a membership interest wearing section 605.0503(3) charging-order protection. Each instrument does what it is good at. That is what a land trust with an LLC as beneficiary is for, and it is why sophisticated Florida investors rarely run a land trust on its own.

Some structures run the other way as well — an LLC as trustee of the land trust, which keeps a human name off the recorded instrument entirely. Both arrangements have real tax and operational consequences and neither should be assembled from templates.

Where maximum creditor protection is the actual objective, the honest recommendation is often a different instrument altogether: an asset protection trust in Florida, a domestic asset protection trust, an irrevocable trust in Florida, or a multi-entity structure. There are real limitations of asset protection trusts in Florida too, and a self-settled spendthrift trust is not among the tools Florida law gives residents. We would rather tell you that at the outset than sell you a land trust that does not do what you came for.

Homestead, your spouse, and Save Our Homes

If the property is your Florida homestead, this section comes before every other consideration on the page. Three separate protections are involved, they have three different answers, and most published material runs them together.

The homestead tax exemption — conditional, not automatic

Section 689.071(8)(h) provides that “the principal residence of a beneficiary shall be entitled to the homestead tax exemption even if the homestead is held by a trustee in a land trust, provided the beneficiary qualifies for the homestead exemption under chapter 196.” The proviso is the whole sentence.

Section 196.041(2) grants the exemption where the person’s possessory right rests on an instrument granting to him or her a beneficial interest for life, that interest being declared to be equitable title to real estate for constitutional purposes. Florida Attorney General Opinion 2008-44, which is squarely about land trusts, reaches the same place: a beneficiary qualifies where the possessory right is based on an instrument granting a beneficial interest for life, and the trustee may alternatively qualify if the trustee actually resides there.

County practice is stricter still. Published property appraiser guidance treats a land trust beneficiary holding a personal property interest as having no interest in real property at all, and therefore as ineligible. So the sentence you will read elsewhere — that homestead exemptions usually continue if the beneficiary occupies the home — is backwards for a standard land trust drafted with the personal-property declaration. The exemption survives when the agreement grants a life beneficial interest and reserves the right to reside there as a permanent residence, which is a deliberate drafting choice and one that sits in some tension with the free assignability the instrument is otherwise sold on. Confirm the position with your county property appraiser before you rely on it; homestead is administered county by county.

The constitutional creditor exemption — supported, but unsettled

Article X, section 4(a) of the Florida Constitution exempts from forced sale a homestead owned by a natural person. In a land trust the trustee holds legal and equitable title under section 689.071(3), which raises the obvious question of who the natural person is.

The best authority is favourable but analogical. In HCA Gulf Coast Hospital v. Estate of Downing, 594 So. 2d 774 (Fla. 1st DCA 1992), the court held that the benefit of the homestead exemption from forced sale inured to a trust beneficiary who would otherwise have been entitled to claim it had title passed directly — reasoning that Article X, section 4 defines the class of persons to whom the exemption inures and does not mandate the technique by which a qualified person receives title. Engelke v. Estate of Engelke, 921 So. 2d 693 (Fla. 4th DCA 2006), reached the same result for a revocable trust, though on reasoning that does not transfer cleanly here.

No Florida court has squarely held that constitutional homestead creditor protection attaches to a section 689.071 land trust beneficiary. We think the better argument is that it does, for a resident beneficiary who would otherwise qualify. We will not tell you it is settled, and you should be sceptical of any page that describes a land trust as giving you a “dual layer” of homestead protection.

If you are married, your spouse has to sign — even if the house is only in your name

This is the omission that voids plans, and it is missing from every competing page in this market.

• Alienation. Article X, section 4(c) provides that the owner of homestead, joined by the spouse if married, may alienate it by mortgage, sale or gift. The trigger is being married — not whose name is on the title. Isaacs v. Federal National Mortgage Association, 373 So. 3d 1172 (Fla. 3d DCA 2023), required joinder even though the non-owner spouse had left the homestead and executed a quitclaim deed. Brown v. Towd Point Mortgage Trust 2017-6, 423 So. 3d 887 (Fla. 4th DCA 2025), reaffirmed it. A deed conveying homestead to a land trustee without your spouse’s joinder is void. And note that the trustee’s section 689.073(1) power to encumber does not override the constitutional requirement — your spouse joins the mortgage too.
• Devise. Article X, section 4(c) also provides that homestead is not subject to devise if the owner is survived by a spouse or minor child, except that it may be devised to the spouse if there is no minor child. Section 732.4015 treats a disposition of homestead through a trust as a devise. Applied to a land trust, the practical approach is to treat the beneficiary as the functional owner, which means a death-time designation of the beneficial interest in homestead runs straight into the restriction.

The transaction most commonly recommended online — a married Florida parent keeps the beneficial interest and names the children as successor beneficiaries — is precisely the transaction that fails. See our pages on surviving spouse rights in Florida and the Florida homestead and probate rules.

Does your Save Our Homes cap reset?

Generally no — and the reason is a narrow exception most people have never heard of. Section 193.155(3) reassesses property at just value following a change of ownership, defined to include any transfer of legal title or beneficial title in equity. That description fits a land trust conveyance exactly. But section 193.155(3)(a)1.b. excepts a transfer that is “between legal and equitable title or equitable and equitable title and no additional person applies for a homestead exemption on the property” — which is structurally what putting your home into a land trust is.

Two cautions. First, the exception’s own predicate requires that the person was entitled to and received the homestead exemption and receives it the following year. If the land trust structure causes your property appraiser to deny homestead — see above — the exception fails with it, and you lose the exemption and trigger reassessment at just value. The homestead question and the Save Our Homes question are not independent. Second, adding beneficiaries who then apply for homestead defeats the exception by its terms. On a long-held South Florida homestead the accumulated benefit can run into hundreds of thousands of dollars, so this is not a detail to discover afterwards.

Documentary stamp tax: going in, and coming out

Two different questions, two different answers, and the second one surprises people who were told that assigning a beneficial interest is a tax-free way to sell real estate. It is not.

Funding the trust: generally no tax

The controlling administrative rule is Fla. Admin. Code R. 12B-4.013(28), headed “Trusts Pursuant to Chapter 689, F.S.” Its general principle is that a deed to or from a trustee is taxable only to the extent it transfers beneficial ownership and only to the extent there is consideration. Applying that:

• No change in beneficial ownership — exempt. Rule 12B-4.013(28)(a): if X owns encumbered or unencumbered real property and conveys it to the trustee of a trust of which X is the sole beneficiary, the conveyance is exempt. The mortgage does not matter, which is the opposite of the rule people expect. A Department of Revenue advisement has confirmed there is no tax where the grantor retains 100% of the beneficial interest after the transfer.
• Change in beneficial ownership — taxable. Taxable to the extent of the consideration for the beneficial interest transferred to the other persons.
• Gift in trust — exempt only if unencumbered. Rule 12B-4.013(28)(c) exempts a gift to new beneficiaries only where the property is not encumbered by a mortgage. Adding your children as beneficiaries of a mortgaged property is taxable on the balance attributable to the shifted share.
• Trustee to successor trustee — not taxable. Rule 12B-4.013(28)(d).
• Trustee back to the beneficiary — not taxable to the extent of that beneficiary’s ownership immediately before the conveyance. Rule 12B-4.013(28)(e).

One practical footnote: a deed reciting nominal consideration — “love and affection and $1” — still draws the 70-cent minimum.

Selling the beneficial interest: taxable, personal property or not

This is the paragraph that costs people money, because the privacy pitch and the tax position point in opposite directions. Assigning the beneficial interest keeps the transaction off the public record. It does not keep it out of chapter 201.

Section 201.02(4) provides expressly that the tax imposed by section 201.02(1) is also payable upon documents that convey or transfer, pursuant to section 689.071, any beneficial interest in lands or other real property, even though such interest may be designated as personal property, notwithstanding the provisions of section 689.071(6). The Legislature closed this door deliberately. The Department of Revenue has applied it consistently since at least 1984: a document conveying a beneficial interest in a land trust is taxable where the transfer is pursuant to a sale, and the personal property designation does not exempt it. Conveyances to or by a trustee that are not pursuant to a sale remain untaxed.

The rates, including Miami-Dade

Where	Rate	Authority
Statewide	70 cents per $100 of consideration	§ 201.02(1)(a)
Miami-Dade County	60 cents per $100	§ 201.0205
Miami-Dade discretionary surtax	plus 45 cents per $100	§§ 201.031, 125.0167
Miami-Dade single-family residence	No surtax — 60 cents only	§ 201.031: “no surtax on any document pursuant to which the interest… involves only a single-family residence”

The single-family carve-out includes a condominium unit and a detached dwelling, and it is worth real money: on a $1,000,000 Miami-Dade commercial parcel the surtax alone is $4,500, and on the house next door it is zero. Broward, Palm Beach and Monroe are all at the statewide 70 cents with no surtax.

One open point we will not overstate: section 201.02(1)(b) taxes certain conveyances to a “conduit entity” followed by a sale of the owner’s interest within three years. The better reading is that a land trust is outside it, because the definition requires a legal entity and section 689.071(3) provides that the recorded instrument does not itself create an entity — while section 201.02(1)(c) separately addresses “a trust that is not a legal entity.” No Florida case, rule or advisement decides the point. On a large transaction, requesting your own technical assistance advisement before closing converts a well-grounded position into a binding one. See also lady bird deed tax consequences and Florida deed preparation.

Using a Florida land trust in a 1031 exchange

For an investor this is the most valuable page on the subject, and no other Florida land trust page we could find addresses it at all.

Rev. Rul. 92-105, 1992-2 C.B. 204, addressed a taxpayer who created an Illinois land trust, named a corporate trustee, and transferred legal and equitable title subject to a land trust agreement under which the taxpayer retained exclusive control of the management, operation, renting and selling of the property together with the exclusive right to the earnings and proceeds. Because the trustee’s only responsibility was to hold and transfer title at the taxpayer’s direction, the IRS concluded that no trust as defined in Treas. Reg. § 301.7701-4(a) had been established: the trustee was a mere agent for holding and transferring title, and the taxpayer retained direct ownership of the real property for federal income tax purposes. The beneficial interest therefore constitutes real property that may be exchanged under IRC § 1031.

Note carefully why that works, because it is the opposite of what most people assume. It is not that state law characterises the interest as real property. Illinois characterises a land trust beneficial interest as personal property, and the IRS reached its conclusion anyway, because the arrangement is disregarded federally. A section 689.071(6) personal-property declaration does not defeat section 1031 treatment.

Five conditions have to hold:

1. The trustee must be a bare titleholder whose only responsibility is to hold and transfer title at the beneficiary’s direction. A trustee with independent discretionary powers breaks the analysis — which is another reason the section 689.071(2)(c) four-duty limit matters.
2. The beneficiary must retain exclusive control of management, operation, renting and selling.
3. The beneficiary must retain the exclusive right to earnings and proceeds.
4. The arrangement must not be classified as a partnership. Multi-beneficiary land trusts carry that risk, and partnership interests are excluded from section 1031 by IRC § 1031(a)(2). If you hold with co-investors, this is the condition to get advice on.
5. Every other section 1031 requirement must independently be met — like-kind, held for productive use in a trade or business or for investment, the 45-day and 180-day deadlines, and a qualified intermediary on a deferred exchange.

Since the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, section 1031 is limited to real property for exchanges completed after 31 December 2017, so the disregarded-arrangement analysis is doing all the work. Coordinate this with your CPA and your qualified intermediary before the relinquished property closes, not after.

Land trust privacy: how it works, and exactly where it stops

Privacy is the reason most people call about a Florida land trust, and it is the one benefit the statute delivers cleanly. It is also the benefit most often oversold, so here is the mechanism and then the limits.

The mechanism

Only the recorded instrument — the deed to the trustee — is public. It names the trustee, usually together with a trust name and date. It does not name you. The land trust agreement is never recorded. Section 689.071(8)(g) provides that a land trust does not fail because beneficiaries are not specified by name in the recorded instrument, and that a person dealing with the trustee is not required to inquire any further into the right of the trustee to act or the disposition of any proceeds. Section 689.073(2) says the same thing from the other side. That combination is what makes an anonymous land trust workable in practice rather than merely in theory — a buyer, a lender or a title underwriter can close without ever learning who the beneficial owner is.

Section 689.071(8)(e) adds that a recorded document by which a beneficiary transfers or encumbers a beneficial interest does not transfer or encumber the trustee’s title or diminish the trustee’s authority. A Florida administrative decision, Department of Business and Professional Regulation v. Souza (Fla. DOAH 1999), states the point squarely: preserving the anonymity of the beneficial owners is a primary purpose of the land trust.

Where the privacy stops

• A judgment creditor. Post-judgment discovery and proceedings supplementary under chapter 56 reach both the interest and its transfer history — Rosenberg v. U.S. Bank, 360 So. 3d 795 (Fla. 3d DCA 2023). A land trust is privacy from the public, not from a court.
• Changing trustees. The successor trustee declaration under section 689.071(9) is signed by a beneficiary and acknowledged in the manner provided for deeds. Filing it creates a public record of that beneficiary’s identity.
• Your lender, your title underwriter and your insurer. Each will typically want a memorandum of trust or the agreement itself. They are contractually confidential, not publicly so.
• Notices to the trustee. Section 689.071(11) requires a notice from a non-party to identify the trust property or the name and date of the land trust where that appears on the recorded instrument — a small but real disclosure vector.
• Foreign buyers. Florida’s chapter 692, part III (SB 264, 2023) restricts “foreign principals” from directly or indirectly owning interests in Florida real property near military installations and critical infrastructure (§ 692.203) and, for persons and entities associated with the People’s Republic of China, statewide (§ 692.204). Section 692.201(4)(e) expressly names a trust among the vehicles captured where a foreign principal holds a controlling interest in it. Affidavits are sworn at closing under penalty of perjury and registration is required; penalties run to $1,000 per day and, under section 692.204, a third-degree felony. The Eleventh Circuit largely upheld the registration and affidavit requirements in Shen v. Commissioner, Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services, No. 23-12737 (11th Cir. Nov. 4, 2025). A land trust is not a workaround for chapter 692, and treating it as one is the conduct the statute targets.

FinCEN and the Corporate Transparency Act — current status, August 2026

This area moved twice in 2026 and most published material is out of date. Here is where it actually stands.

• The Residential Real Estate Rule is not in force. FinCEN’s rule at 31 CFR 1031.320 would have required a “Real Estate Report” on non-financed transfers of 1–4 family residential property to a trust or legal entity. It was published in August 2024 with a 1 December 2025 compliance date, postponed by exemptive relief to 1 March 2026, and then vacated on 19 March 2026 by the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Texas in Flowers Title Companies, LLC v. Bessent, No. 6:25-cv-127-JDK. FinCEN and the Department of Justice appealed to the Fifth Circuit on 11 May 2026. FinCEN’s own guidance states that while the order remains in effect, reporting persons are not required to file Real Estate Reports and are not subject to liability if they do not. The regulation text remains codified, so it can return if the Fifth Circuit reverses.
• Even when it was in force, funding your own trust was excepted. 31 CFR 1031.320(b)(2)(vi) excepted a transfer for no consideration made by an individual, either alone or with the individual’s spouse, to a trust of which that individual, that individual’s spouse, or both of them, are the settlor(s) or grantor(s). That is the ordinary estate-planning funding deed. A separate exception, (b)(2)(ii), covered transfers resulting from death. What would have been reportable is an all-cash purchase of residential property in the name of a land trust — the investor fact pattern, not the homeowner one.
• Your land trust is not a reporting company under the Corporate Transparency Act. A section 689.071 land trust is created by a recorded deed and a private agreement, not by a filing with the Division of Corporations, so it never met the definition. And FinCEN’s beneficial ownership information final rule, effective 14 August 2026, exempts domestic reporting companies altogether — so your Florida LLC beneficiary files nothing either. A foreign entity registered to do business in Florida remains a reporting company and must still report its foreign beneficial owners.

Status stated as at 27 August 2026. This is a moving area and we review this section quarterly.

Who can be the trustee of a Florida land trust?

Choosing a Florida land trust trustee is the decision that determines whether the structure delivers any privacy at all, and it is the one most people spend the least time on.

Almost anyone, and that latitude is both the appeal and the risk. Florida imposes no licensing requirement to serve as a land trust trustee. A competent adult, an attorney, a Florida trust company, a bank, a corporation or an LLC can all hold title. What the law does control is the trustee’s duties, and getting that wrong destroys the structure.

Who serves	Privacy	Cost	Watch out for
You, personally	None — your name is on the deed, which defeats the point	Free	Merger is disapplied by § 689.071(5), so it is legally fine. It just delivers no privacy
A family member or friend	Good, until someone connects the names	Free	Death, incapacity, divorce, their creditors, and their willingness to sign on demand
Your attorney	Good	Modest	Availability at closings; conflicts if a dispute arises among beneficiaries
An LLC you own — a Florida land trust LLC trustee	Strong — no human name on the recorded instrument	Formation plus annual report	The LLC’s registered agent and managers are public, so choose the filing detail deliberately
A Florida land trust corporate trustee or trust company	Strong	Roughly $165–$300 a year in the visible market, sometimes billed monthly	Many trust companies handle investment and living trusts and will decline a title-holding land trust. Ask first

Land trust trustee responsibilities — and the limit that matters

The role of land trust trustee is deliberately narrow. Section 689.071(2)(c) allows the trustee no duties other than the four listed under the four duties above — act on direction, dispose at termination, perform ministerial and administrative functions, and the chapter 721 duties for timeshare trusts. For any trust created on or after 28 June 2013, giving your trustee more to do than that takes you out of the Act altogether. This is the opposite of every other trustee conversation in Florida law, and it catches people who assume “more oversight” is safer.

Because chapter 736 does not apply, there are no Florida trustee duties to account, to inform, or to invest prudently. But the trustee is not unaccountable: Freeman v. Berrin, 352 So. 3d 452 (Fla. 2d DCA 2022), recognised that common law fiduciary duties survive to the extent the statute does not override them. And under section 689.071(7), sections 736.08125 and 736.1013 still apply — the trustee’s right to fees and costs, and personal liability for contracts and torts in administering the trust.

What happens if your trustee dies, resigns or will not act

Section 689.071(9) supplies a default. If both the recorded instrument and the unrecorded agreement are silent on succession — on death, incapacity, resignation, or dissolution of an entity trustee — the statute provides a mechanism, and a successor trustee declaration is signed by a beneficiary and the successor, acknowledged as a deed and recorded. In practice you should never rely on the default: name a successor trustee in the agreement, and name a backup after that. Our page on selecting trustees under Florida trust law covers the wider question.

Section 689.071(10) is worth knowing too: it addresses the situation where the trustee is also a creditor — where a debt is secured by a security interest or mortgage against a beneficial interest or against the trust property — and preserves the validity and enforceability of that arrangement.

Mortgages, due-on-sale, foreclosure and bank accounts

Will a land trust accelerate my mortgage?

Usually not, on an owner-occupied home — and the qualification is doing a great deal of work, because most published material quotes the statute and stops before the regulation.

12 U.S.C. § 1701j-3(d), the Garn-St Germain Act, bars a lender from exercising a due-on-sale clause on nine listed transfers — but only “with respect to a real property loan secured by a lien on residential real property containing less than five dwelling units.” Paragraph (d)(8) covers “a transfer into an inter vivos trust in which the borrower is and remains a beneficiary and which does not relate to a transfer of rights of occupancy in the property.”

The implementing regulation is narrower than the statute. 12 CFR § 191.5(b) applies “with respect to any loan on the security of a home occupied or to be occupied by the borrower,” and § 191.5(b)(1)(vi) requires that the borrower be and remain “a beneficiary and occupant of the property,” and give the lender reasonable notice of any later change of occupancy or transfer of beneficial interest. Three consequences:

• Rental and investment property is not covered. That is the most common Florida land trust use case, and it sits outside the safe harbour entirely.
• A transfer to an LLC is not covered. None of the nine paragraphs mentions a business entity. Deeding a mortgaged residence to an LLC is a due-on-sale trigger with no protection at all.
• No case, OCC interpretive letter or agency guidance applies (d)(8) to a land trust. The textual argument is strong — a section 689.071 land trust is an inter vivos trust, and the borrower is a “beneficiary” whether or not the interest is declared personal property. It is an argument, not authority, and anyone telling you land trusts are settled under Garn-St Germain is citing nothing.

In practice: review the note and mortgage before you transfer, notify or obtain consent where the loan calls for it, and do not assume a five-unit building, a rental or an LLC gets you the homeowner’s answer.

Can a land trust get a mortgage?

Yes. The trustee has express power to encumber under section 689.073(1), and lenders finance property held in a Florida land trust routinely. What varies is process rather than possibility: many lenders will want the memorandum of trust or the full agreement, will require the beneficiary’s personal guarantee, and may want the beneficiary to sign the note while the trustee signs the mortgage. On homestead, remember the spousal joinder point above — the trustee’s statutory power to mortgage does not displace Article X, section 4(c).

Florida land trusts and foreclosure

A land trust does not stop a foreclosure. A lender’s rights survive the transfer of title into the trust, and a mortgage recorded before the conveyance is unaffected by it. Two procedural points are specific to land trusts and are worth knowing:

• Section 689.071(8)(i): in a foreclosure against trust property, or other litigation affecting title to trust property, the appointment of a guardian ad litem is not necessary to represent a beneficiary’s interest. Beneficiaries do not have to be dragged into the caption to make the judgment good.
• Service and parties. The trustee holds title and is the necessary defendant. Notices from non-parties must comply with section 689.071(11).

Can a land trust have a bank account?

Yes, and for a rental property it usually should. The trustee opens the account in the name of the trust. Whether it needs its own taxpayer identification number is covered under taxes, EIN and reporting below — and the short answer is that it often does not, notwithstanding what you may have read.

Florida land trust taxes, EIN and reporting

A Florida land trust is tax-neutral. It creates no new taxpayer and saves no tax by existing. The point of the structure is title and privacy, and any page selling it as a tax strategy is selling something else.

• Income tax. Where you are both the person who funded it and the beneficiary, and the trustee acts only at your direction, the arrangement is generally disregarded for federal income tax purposes on the reasoning of Rev. Rul. 92-105 — rents, deductions, depreciation and gain are reported on your own return as though you held the property directly.
• Do land trusts pay property taxes? Yes. Ad valorem tax is assessed on the real property regardless of who holds title, and the bill goes to the trustee. Nothing about the structure reduces it. The one variable is the homestead exemption.
• EIN. A single-beneficiary grantor arrangement generally does not need its own employer identification number and generally files no separate return — the widely repeated claim that a land trustee must obtain an EIN and file Form 1041 every year is wrong for the ordinary case. An EIN is sensible or necessary where a bank insists on one for the trust account, where there are multiple unrelated beneficiaries, or where the arrangement is not a grantor trust. Ask your CPA before you apply for one; an unnecessary EIN creates a filing expectation you then have to satisfy.
• Multiple beneficiaries. If unrelated beneficiaries share income and expenses, the arrangement can be treated as a partnership for federal tax purposes. That has real consequences — a Form 1065, and the loss of section 1031 treatment under IRC § 1031(a)(2). See 1031 exchanges.
• Accounting for a land trust. There is no statutory duty to account — chapter 736 is excluded — so recordkeeping is on the beneficiary. Keep the trust agreement, the recorded deed, every assignment of beneficial interest, and for a rental, a clean set of books tied to the trust bank account. When a title underwriter or a lender asks years later, this file is the whole of your proof.
• Documentary stamp tax is dealt with above, and it is the one tax people actually get caught by.

When a land trust is not a land trust

This is the failure mode nobody writes about, and it is the reason we are cautious about Florida land trust forms downloaded from a template site.

In Brigham v. Brigham, 11 So. 3d 374 (Fla. 3d DCA 2009), a trust deed failed to contain language conferring on the trustee the power and authority to protect, conserve, sell, lease, encumber or otherwise manage and dispose of the real property. The Third District held that no Florida land trust had been created. The arrangement was instead a conventional trust, regulated by the trust code — with all of the fiduciary duties and restrictions that entails.

Read that consequence carefully, because it is not a technicality. A failed land trust is not a land trust with a gap in it. It is a different instrument, and everything you were buying reverses:

• The Florida Trust Code applies in full — mandatory accountings, the duty to inform beneficiaries, the duty of loyalty, the prohibition on self-dealing, the statutory removal procedure.
• The power of direction arrangement you drafted may be inconsistent with the trustee’s fiduciary obligations.
• The personal property characterisation under section 689.071(6) is unavailable, because you are not under section 689.071 at all.
• The anti-merger and statute of uses protections in subsections (4) and (5) are unavailable.
• Your privacy assumptions may not hold, because sections 689.071(8)(g) and 689.073(2) are what let third parties close without inquiring.

And the defect surfaces at the worst possible moment. Nobody discovers a failed land trust when it is created. They discover it when a title underwriter reads the recorded instrument at a closing years later, or when a beneficiary sues and the court has to decide which chapter governs. Two sentences of statutory language in the recorded deed decide it.

What assets can go into a Florida land trust, and what type of asset is held in a land trust?

The Act is built around real property, and section 689.071(2)(g) defines trust property as any interest in real property, including, but not limited to, a leasehold or mortgagee interest, conveyed by a recorded instrument to a trustee. So the answer is broader than “a house”:

• Residential real estate — a single-family home, a condominium unit, a townhouse. Yes, you can put land in a trust and you can put your house in a land trust the same way. Yes, you can transfer a Florida condo into a land trust; check the declaration and any association approval requirement first.
• Rental and investment property, single or multi-family.
• Commercial real estate, including property leased back to your own operating business.
• Vacant land and agricultural acreage anywhere in Florida’s 67 counties.
• A leasehold interest — expressly within the statutory definition.
• A mortgagee interest — if you are the lender holding a note and mortgage, that interest can be held in trust too. This is how private lenders keep their names off the public record.

What it is not built for is out-of-state real estate. Section 689.071 governs Florida real property, and the Act’s protections do not travel. Property in another state is governed by that state’s law on title, recording and homestead, and normally needs its own structure recognised where the land sits. If you own in several states, expect several structures.

What about everything that is not real estate? The Florida personal property trust

A Florida personal property trust is the companion instrument, and it is the one most people are actually looking for when a land trust turns out not to fit. It works on the same principle — a trustee holds title, a private agreement names the beneficiary — applied to assets that are not land:

• LLC membership interests — commonly the most valuable use, because it keeps your name out of the Sunbiz record while preserving the LLC’s charging order protection.
• Vehicles, boats, aircraft and other titled personal property.
• Bank and brokerage accounts, promissory notes, mortgages receivable.
• Business equipment, collections and other untitled valuables.

Note the difference in legal footing: a personal property trust is a common law trust, not a creature of section 689.071, so the Florida Trust Code analysis is different and the drafting is different. The two are frequently used together — land trusts holding the real estate, a personal property trust holding the LLC interests that are the beneficiaries of those land trusts.

Family land trusts and multiple beneficiaries

What is a family land trust? It is not a distinct legal instrument — it is a Florida land trust used for a family asset: a vacation home, an inherited house, a legacy property several siblings will share. Done well it prevents the most common outcome for jointly held family real estate, which is a dispute ending in a forced sale. Done from a template it accelerates it.

Section 689.071(8)(b)1. lets you do things a deed cannot. If provided in the recorded instrument, the trust agreement or a beneficiary agreement: a particular beneficiary may own the beneficial interest in a particular portion or parcel; a particular person may hold the power of direction as to a particular parcel; and beneficiaries may own specified proportions or percentages. So one sibling can control the lake house while three share the income, and the arrangement is private.

Four things to settle in a family land trust example of any complexity:

1. Survivorship, expressly. Section 689.15 makes tenancy in common the default. Without express language, a deceased sibling’s share goes to their own heirs — often a spouse you have never met — not to the surviving siblings. Section 689.071(8)(b)2. permits joint tenancy with right of survivorship and tenancy by the entireties if you draft it.
2. Use, expenses and deadlock. Who uses it when, who pays taxes, insurance and the roof, and what happens when the vote is two-all. The Act gives you no default worth having.
3. Exit. A buy-sell mechanism inside the trust agreement, with a valuation method. Otherwise a beneficiary who wants out has an assignable interest and no orderly way to use it.
4. Homestead, first. If the property is anyone’s homestead, read the homestead section before anything else. Parents naming children as successor beneficiaries of a homestead beneficial interest is the single most common defective plan in this area.

One structural protection is already built in: under section 689.071(8)(f) a beneficial interest is indefeasible, so a majority holding the power of direction cannot use it to strip a minority beneficiary’s interest. See also the Florida right of survivorship and Florida probate law on distributions to family members.

Who should use a Florida land trust — and who should not

When a Florida land trust works well

• Real estate investors with multiple properties. Setting up land trust structures one property at a time, isolating the public record and removing the portfolio-sized target. Common in wholesaling, subject-to purchases and distressed acquisitions, where transferring beneficial interests without a new recorded deed keeps a deal private — subject to the documentary stamp position on a sale.
• Privacy-conscious homeowners. Public figures, business owners, physicians, and people with genuine safety concerns including survivors of domestic violence. Only the trustee’s name appears in the public property records.
• Commercial owners separating property from operations. Hold the building in a land trust, lease it to the operating company, and sell the business later without touching the real estate.
• Families sharing a legacy property. See family land trusts.
• Estate plans where real estate is the main asset. The land trust manages the property; a revocable living trust in Florida handles accounts and investments — and, properly structured, holds the beneficial interest so that probate is genuinely avoided.
• Private lenders holding notes and mortgages who prefer not to appear of record.

Florida land trust benefits and disadvantages, side by side

If you want the benefits of a land trust in one place — and the land trust benefits and disadvantages weighed honestly against each other — this is the summary. Why put land in a trust at all comes down to the first two rows; when to use a land trust comes down to whether the bottom three matter more to you.

Real estate land trust benefits	Disadvantages and limits
Title privacy. Only the trustee is named of record, § 689.071(8)(g)	No creditor protection. No charging order, and the interest is directly reachable
Transfers without a new deed. Assign the beneficial interest instead of recording	Documentary stamp still applies on a sale of the interest, § 201.02(4)
Compartmentalisation. One land trust for rental property per property removes the portfolio-sized target	No probate avoidance on its own. That takes separate drafting
No state filing, no annual report, no annual state fee	Professional trustee fees if you use one, roughly $165–$300 a year
Trust Code duties switched off, § 736.0102(3) — no accountings, no duty to inform	Those same protections are gone if you are a minority beneficiary
Homestead tax exemption preserved where the beneficiary qualifies, § 689.071(8)(h)	Homestead eligibility is conditional and often turns on a life interest
1031-eligible where the trustee is a bare titleholder	Lender and title friction — expect to produce the agreement or a memorandum
Tax-neutral — no new taxpayer, usually no EIN, usually no separate return	Nothing is saved in tax either. It is not a tax strategy

On types of land trusts: Florida has one statutory form, the section 689.071 land trust, and it is used for residential, rental, commercial, agricultural and vacant land alike. What varies is not the trust type but who holds the beneficial interest — you personally, an LLC, or a revocable trust — and that choice is what actually changes the outcome.

Snowbirds, new residents and asset protection when moving to Florida

People thinking about asset protection moving to Florida often arrive asking about a land trust and need something else first. Florida’s genuine advantages for a new resident are constitutional homestead protection, tenancy by the entireties, and no state income or estate tax — none of which a land trust creates. Where a land trust helps is after those are in place: privacy on the recorded deed, and organisation across several properties.

Two things matter more than the trust if you split the year between states. First, a Florida land trust holds Florida property only, so out-of-state real estate still needs its own structure or your family faces ancillary probate in that state. Second, establishing Florida domicile is a separate exercise from titling — and if you claim the homestead exemption here you cannot hold a residency-based exemption elsewhere. See our Florida estate planning attorney page for how the pieces fit together.

When not to use a land trust

• You want creditor protection. Go to an LLC, an asset protection trust in Florida, an irrevocable trust in Florida, or a combined structure. A land trust is the wrong tool and there is no charging order behind it.
• You already have a claim, a judgment or a lawsuit. Chapter 726 is waiting. Transferring now can make things materially worse.
• You are doing Medicaid planning. A revocable land trust does nothing for the five-year look-back. You need a Medicaid asset protection trust in Florida or another irrevocable structure, planned well in advance.
• The property is homestead, you are married, and your spouse will not join. The deed is void. Nothing else on this page matters.
• Your only goal is avoiding probate. A revocable living trust or, for a single parcel, a lady bird deed does that more directly and with less that can go wrong.
• The property is outside Florida. See what assets can go into a land trust.
• You are a foreign principal within chapter 692. See where the privacy stops.
• You will not maintain it. A land trust that nobody can find the agreement for is a title problem for your family.

That is the honest set of land trust risks and drawbacks, and the honest pros and cons of a Florida land trust: excellent at privacy, decent at organisation, neutral on tax, weak on creditors, and silent on probate unless somebody drafts the succession properly.

How to create a land trust in Florida, step by step

How to move real estate into a land trust, how to move property into a land trust you are buying, how to set up a land trust in Florida and how to form a land trust are all the same question, and setting up a land trust in Florida follows the same eight steps either way. Whether you are putting land in a trust you already own or taking title in trust at a purchase closing, the sequence is identical. Doing it at acquisition is simpler, because the deed goes straight to the trustee and there is no later conveyance to worry about.

1. Scope the goal, and pressure-test it. Privacy, organisation, succession or creditor protection — they point at different instruments. This is also where the homestead, marital and mortgage questions get asked, before anything is drafted.
2. Gather the property file. The current recorded deed, the legal description, mortgage documents and balances, the title policy, survey, association documents, property tax records and any liens. A great many problems are visible in the recorded deed alone.
3. Choose the trustee. See who can be the trustee. Name a successor and a backup in the agreement rather than relying on the section 689.071(9) default.
4. Decide the beneficial structure. Who holds the beneficial interest — you, an LLC, a revocable trust — in what percentages, whether it is declared personal property, and how it passes at death. This is the step that decides whether the whole plan works.
5. Draft the land trust agreement. The powers of direction, the personal-property declaration, succession drafted against Zuckerman, distributions and termination.
6. Execute the deed to the trustee with the section 689.073(1) powers language. A warranty or quitclaim deed naming the trustee as grantee, signed before two witnesses and notarised, with spousal joinder if the property is homestead. This is where you either have a land trust or you do not.
7. Record it in the county where the property sits, and coordinate the title endorsement. Recording is what gives public notice and protects against later purchasers and lienors. Prepare the memorandum of trust at the same time.
8. Update everything downstream. Notify your property insurer — the trustee should be a named insured with the beneficial owner noted, and failing to do this is how claims get denied. Notify or obtain consent from the lender. Confirm the homestead exemption position with the county property appraiser. Give the successor beneficiaries a copy of the agreement, or tell them where it lives.

Skip any of steps 5 through 8 and you can create title defects, uninsurable property, insurance denials or a trust that fails the Brigham test. See our page on Florida deed preparation for the execution and recording requirements in detail, and types of deeds in Florida for the choice between a warranty and quitclaim deed into the trust.

Florida land trust forms, templates and documents

People searching for a Florida land trust form, Florida land trust agreement forms, a Florida land trust agreement PDF or a land trust template are usually trying to answer one of two questions: what do these documents actually say, and can I do this myself. Both deserve a straight answer.

The four documents in a complete file

Document	Recorded?	What it must contain
Deed to trustee	Yes	Trustee named “as trustee”; legal description; the § 689.073(1) powers — protect, conserve, sell, lease, encumber, otherwise manage and dispose; two witnesses; notary; spousal joinder on homestead
Land trust agreement	No — private	Beneficiaries and percentages; power of direction; the § 689.071(6) personal property declaration; trustee duties kept inside § 689.071(2)(c); succession drafted against Zuckerman; survivorship if wanted; termination
Memorandum of trust	Optional	Trust name and date, trustee’s authority — without naming beneficiaries. What you hand a lender or title underwriter
Assignment of beneficial interest	No	Used to transfer the interest later. Watch § 201.02(4) on a sale

Can you use a generic land trust template?

You can. Templates cost roughly $100 to $500 and most of them are competently written for somewhere that is not Florida. The four failure points we see are specific and they are not stylistic:

• Missing section 689.073(1) powers language in the recorded deed — you do not have a land trust. Brigham v. Brigham.
• Missing the personal property declaration — section 689.071(6) makes the interest real property, and a recorded judgment attaches.
• Trustee duties drafted too broadly — for a post-2013 trust, exceeding the four duties in section 689.071(2)(c) takes you out of the Act.
• A bare death-time succession clause — potentially void as a testamentary disposition under section 732.502.

None of those is visible on the face of the document to a non-lawyer, and none of them surfaces until a closing, a lawsuit or a death. That is the honest case for written land trust agreements attorney-drafted rather than assembled from a form — and for written land trust agreements lawyer-reviewed after the fact, if you already have one in place. Not better prose: four specific statutory tests that a template was never written to pass. If you already have a land trust set up from a form, we will read the recorded deed and the agreement and tell you which of the four it passes.

Is a land trust revocable or irrevocable?

Are land trusts revocable? Almost always — but by drafting, not by statute. Nothing in section 689.071 requires a land trust to be revocable or prevents it from being irrevocable; the Act is about title and trustee powers, not about revocability.

In practice a revocable land trust is the norm because the whole design assumes a beneficiary directing a passive trustee, which is inconsistent with the surrender of control that makes a trust irrevocable in any meaningful sense. On termination the property is conveyed back out to the beneficiary or on to whoever the beneficiary directs. That flexibility is the difference from an irrevocable trust in Florida, which is difficult to unwind once created.

The consequence follows directly: a revocable land trust gives you no creditor protection, for the same reason a revocable living trust does not — you can take the property back, so your creditors can reach it. Can a land trust be irrevocable? Yes, and it is occasionally done, but if irrevocability is what you need then the question you are really asking is whether a land trust is the right instrument at all. See asset protection.

How to terminate a Florida land trust — and can one be broken?

Because most land trusts are revocable, unwinding one is usually straightforward — which is the opposite of an irrevocable trust in Florida, and one of the reasons the instrument is worth using in the first place.

1. Direct the trustee in writing to convey the trust property out, under the power of direction in the agreement. No court order and no filing with the State are involved.
2. The trustee executes a deed out of the trust — back to you, on to a buyer, or into whatever structure comes next.
3. Check the documentary stamp position first. A trustee’s deed back to the beneficiary is not taxable to the extent of that beneficiary’s ownership immediately before the conveyance — Fla. Admin. Code R. 12B-4.013(28)(e). A deed out to somebody else, for consideration, is a different question. See documentary stamp tax.
4. Record the deed in the county where the property sits, and re-confirm the homestead exemption and insurance in the new name.
5. Notify the lender if there is a mortgage, and close the trust bank account if one was opened.

Can a land trust be broken by somebody else? Rarely on its own terms, but there are three real exposures, and none of them is a defect in the trust: a fraudulent transfer claim under chapter 726 if the trust was funded to defeat a creditor; a void conveyance if homestead was deeded without spousal joinder under Article X, section 4(c); and the Brigham problem — a trust that never satisfied the land trust requirements in the first place, which is not broken so much as never built. The land trust rules that matter are short: the recorded deed must carry the section 689.073(1) powers, the trustee’s duties must stay inside section 689.071(2)(c), and the personal property declaration must actually be in the document. Everything else in Florida land trust law follows from those three.

What states allow land trusts?

The instrument originated in Illinois in the nineteenth century, which is why practitioners still call the core statutory language the Illinois land trust formula, and why section 689.073(1) reads the way it does. A handful of states have their own land trust statutes — Florida’s is among the most developed — and in many others the arrangement can be assembled at common law with materially different results.

For your purposes the practical rule is simpler than a survey: land is governed by the law of the state where it sits. A Florida land trust under section 689.071 is available for Florida real property. If you own in Georgia, New York or Colorado, whether a land trust is available there, and what it does, is a question for a lawyer in that state — and the answers vary widely on the two points that matter most, the personal-property characterisation and creditor access to the beneficial interest.

What a Florida land trust costs and how long it takes

The visible market for Florida land trust cost runs from roughly $500 for a trustee company’s standard package to $5,000 for a complex multi-property structure, with most attorney-prepared single-property trusts falling between $1,500 and $3,500. Trustee companies also charge an annual maintenance fee, typically $165 to $300, sometimes billed monthly.

What	Cost	Paid to
Land trust prepared, deed drafted and recorded	Flat fee, quoted in writing before any work starts	Lorenzo Law
Recording charges	$10.00 first page, $8.50 each later page, $1.00 per name past the fourth	The county, under § 28.24
Documentary stamp tax on funding	Generally none where you keep 100% of the beneficial interest. See above	The state, by the parties
Title insurance endorsement	Roughly $200–$500 depending on the underwriter	The title company
Lender consent or modification fees	Varies	The lender
Professional trustee, if you use one	Roughly $165–$300 a year	The trust company
Online form or template instead	$100–$500, recording usually extra	A form vendor

What the fee covers — and why the cheap option is cheap

The comparison with a $500 package is a fair question and the answer is scope, not prose. A flat fee here includes:

• reading the current recorded deed to see how title is actually held;
• the homestead and marital analysis — Article X, section 4(c) joinder and devise, section 689.071(8)(h), Save Our Homes under section 193.155(3)(a)1.b.;
• the section 689.071(6) personal property declaration, drafted deliberately rather than copied;
• the section 689.073(1) powers language in the recorded deed — the two sentences that decide whether you have a land trust at all;
• trustee duties kept inside section 689.071(2)(c), so a post-2013 trust stays inside the Act;
• succession drafted against Zuckerman v. Alter, so the plan is not a will that was never witnessed;
• the documentary stamp analysis on the way in, and on any planned assignment;
• deed preparation, execution and recording, and the memorandum of trust; and
• coordination with your lender, title underwriter and insurer.

That list is exactly what the lower figure does not include. Most of the calls we take about a land trust that failed are not about bad drafting — they are about a document that was fine on its own terms and was the wrong instrument, or that was missing one of the four statutory tests above.

How long it takes

• Straightforward single property: about two to four weeks. Week one, consultation and drafting; week two, review and finalise; week three, execution and title coordination; week four, recording, insurance and lender updates.
• Multiple properties or lender negotiation: six to eight weeks. Title problems or a complicated ownership history add time.
• Closing deadline: often seven to ten days. Where a purchase is scheduled we can usually work to it. Say so at the first call.

Against that, the Florida probate process typically runs six months to two years for real estate — which is the comparison that matters, provided the succession is drafted so that probate is actually avoided.

Fees are flat fees for standard matters — one Florida property, a clean chain of title, straightforward parties — and are confirmed in writing after we review the current recorded deed. Figures quoted for third-party costs are market ranges as at August 2026 and are not a quote for your matter.

Frequently asked questions about Florida land trusts

What is the difference between a Florida land trust and a living trust in Florida?

A Florida land trust holds real property only and its purpose is title privacy and simplified transfers. A living trust in Florida can hold bank accounts, investments and personal property as well, and is governed by the Florida Trust Code. The decisive difference is probate: a funded revocable living trust avoids it across every asset in it, while a land trust avoids it only if the beneficial interest is separately structured to pass outside probate. Many Florida plans use both. See the comparison table.

Does a Florida land trust avoid probate?

Not by itself. Section 689.071 contains no successor-beneficiary provision, so the beneficial interest passes through your estate unless it is held with an express right of survivorship under section 689.15, as tenancy by the entireties, or inside a revocable trust or other nonprobate vehicle. A bare “on my death it goes to X” clause in the trust agreement may be void as a testamentary disposition that does not meet section 732.502. This is the single most misreported point about land trusts in Florida. See the full answer.

What happens to my Florida land trust when I die?

It depends entirely on how the trust agreement was drafted. If survivorship or a present contingent remainder was drafted in, or the beneficial interest sits in a revocable trust, the interest moves without probate and the trustee continues to hold title uninterrupted. If not, the beneficial interest is an asset of your estate and goes through probate like any other. There is no such thing as a “succession certificate” in Florida — what exists is an affidavit of successor beneficiary or an assignment of beneficial interest under your agreement.

Will my Florida land trust protect assets from creditors?

No. A revocable land trust offers no meaningful creditor protection: the beneficial interest is directly reachable, there is no charging order protection of the kind section 605.0503(3) gives an LLC member, and you must disclose the interest in post-judgment discovery. What it does give you is privacy from the public record, and the ability to make an LLC the beneficiary so that the interest a creditor has to chase carries charging-order protection. See land trust asset protection.

Does a Florida land trust affect my homestead exemption?

It can. Section 689.071(8)(h) preserves the ad valorem homestead tax exemption for a beneficiary’s principal residence — but only where the beneficiary independently qualifies under chapter 196, which under section 196.041(2) and Fla. AGO 2008-44 generally means a beneficial interest for life. Several county property appraisers treat a beneficiary holding a personal-property interest as ineligible. Confirm with your county appraiser before transferring a homestead, and read the homestead section first.

I am married and the house is only in my name. Can I put it in a land trust?

Not without your spouse’s joinder, if it is homestead. Article X, section 4(c) of the Florida Constitution requires the owner to be joined by the spouse to alienate homestead by mortgage, sale or gift. The trigger is being married, not whose name is on the title — Isaacs v. FNMA (Fla. 3d DCA 2023) required joinder even where the spouse had left and signed a quitclaim deed. A deed to a land trustee without joinder is void.

Will my Save Our Homes cap reset?

Generally no. Section 193.155(3)(a)1.b. excepts a transfer “between legal and equitable title” from the change-of-ownership reassessment, provided no additional person applies for homestead on the property. But the exception assumes you keep qualifying for the exemption — so if the structure costs you homestead, you lose the cap with it.

Do I pay documentary stamp tax to put my property into a land trust?

Generally not. Fla. Admin. Code R. 12B-4.013(28)(a) exempts a conveyance to a trustee of a trust of which you are the sole beneficiary, whether the property is encumbered or not. Tax arises where the deed shifts beneficial ownership to someone else — and if the property is mortgaged, adding new beneficiaries is taxable on the balance attributable to the shifted share.

Do I pay documentary stamp tax when I sell the beneficial interest?

Yes, on a sale. Section 201.02(4) taxes a document transferring a beneficial interest under section 689.071 even though the interest may be designated as personal property, notwithstanding section 689.071(6). Assigning the beneficial interest keeps the transaction off the public record; it does not take it out of chapter 201. The rate is 70 cents per $100 statewide, 60 cents in Miami-Dade plus a 45-cent surtax that does not apply to a single-family residence.

Can I do a 1031 exchange out of a Florida land trust?

Yes, where the trustee is a bare titleholder acting only at your direction and you retain exclusive control and the exclusive right to earnings and proceeds. On Rev. Rul. 92-105 the arrangement is disregarded federally and you are treated as owning the real property directly, so the beneficial interest is exchangeable under IRC § 1031. Watch the partnership risk with multiple beneficiaries — partnership interests are excluded by IRC § 1031(a)(2). See 1031 exchanges.

Can I still get a mortgage on property in a Florida land trust?

Yes. The trustee has express power to encumber under section 689.073(1) and lenders finance land trust property routinely. Expect to provide a memorandum of trust or the agreement, and expect a personal guarantee. On homestead, your spouse joins the mortgage.

Will transferring my house into a land trust accelerate my mortgage?

Usually not on an owner-occupied home with fewer than five dwelling units, where you remain a beneficiary and an occupant and give the lender notice — 12 U.S.C. § 1701j-3(d)(8) and 12 CFR § 191.5(b)(1)(vi). The safe harbour does not cover rental or investment property, and it does not cover transfers to an LLC at all. No court or agency has squarely applied it to a land trust, so read the note and mortgage before you transfer.

Who can be the trustee of a Florida land trust? Can I be my own trustee?

Almost anyone — an individual, an attorney, a Florida trust company, a bank, a corporation or an LLC you own. You can be your own trustee: section 689.071(5) disapplies merger even where the trustee is the sole beneficiary. It just puts your name back on the recorded deed, which defeats the privacy you came for. Many trust companies will not take on a title-holding land trust, so ask before you name one.

Does a land trust need an EIN or file a tax return?

Usually neither. A single-beneficiary grantor arrangement is generally disregarded and reported on your own return. An EIN is sensible where a bank requires one for the trust account, or where there are multiple unrelated beneficiaries. The claim that every land trustee must obtain an EIN and file Form 1041 annually is wrong for the ordinary case — ask your CPA before applying for one.

Can I have multiple properties in one Florida land trust?

Technically yes, and section 689.071(8)(b)1. even lets different beneficiaries hold interests in particular parcels. In practice we recommend a separate land trust for each property: it isolates liability, keeps the public record clean, makes a single-property sale simple and avoids a title question on one parcel contaminating the others. The incremental cost is small.

Is a land trust revocable or irrevocable?

By drafting, not by statute — and almost always revocable, because the design assumes a beneficiary directing a passive trustee. That is why it gives no creditor protection. See revocable or irrevocable.

What assets can go into a Florida land trust?

Any interest in Florida real property — a home, a condominium, rental or commercial property, vacant land, agricultural acreage, a leasehold interest, even a mortgagee interest if you are the lender. Not out-of-state land, and not personal property: for LLC interests, vehicles, boats and accounts you want a Florida personal property trust instead.

Is a lady bird deed the same as a Florida land trust?

No. A Florida lady bird deed, or enhanced life estate deed, reserves a life estate with full powers and passes the property to a named remainder beneficiary at death, without probate for that parcel. It is public from the day it records. A land trust keeps ownership private but does not, on its own, move anything at death. Different jobs; sometimes used together.

Do I have to report my Florida land trust to FinCEN?

Not today. FinCEN’s Residential Real Estate Rule, 31 CFR 1031.320, was vacated on 19 March 2026 in Flowers Title Companies, LLC v. Bessent and is on appeal to the Fifth Circuit; FinCEN states that reporting persons are not required to file. Even when it was in force, funding your own trust for no consideration was expressly excepted. Separately, a land trust is not a reporting company under the Corporate Transparency Act, and as of the 14 August 2026 final rule neither is a domestic LLC. Status as at 27 August 2026 — see the current status section.

Can a foreign buyer use a Florida land trust?

Not to get around chapter 692. Sections 692.203 and 692.204 restrict “foreign principals” from owning Florida real property directly or indirectly, and section 692.201(4)(e) expressly names a trust among the captured vehicles. Affidavits are sworn at closing under penalty of perjury, with registration requirements and, for the People’s Republic of China provisions, felony exposure. The Eleventh Circuit largely upheld the affidavit and registration requirements in November 2025.

What is a land trust, and how is the Florida version different?

Nationally the phrase usually means a conservation organisation that holds land to protect it from development — which is what you find searching for a North Florida Land Trust. A Florida land trust under section 689.071 is something else entirely: a private title-holding arrangement descended from the Illinois land trust, in which a trustee holds legal and equitable title and the beneficiaries hold a private interest that is personal property only if the document says so.

How does a Florida land trust work with the Florida probate process?

Title never has to be probated, because title is already in the trustee and stays there — that part is real, and it is why a land trust can keep a property out of a probate file. What has to be dealt with is the beneficial interest, which is an asset of your estate unless it was drafted to pass outside it. Handled properly the property never enters the Florida probate process. Handled from a form, the family ends up probating an interest in a trust they cannot easily explain to a judge.

Talk to a Florida land trust attorney

If you are looking for a land trust lawyer or Florida land trust attorney to prepare a Florida land trust, or you already have one and want to know whether it does what you were told it does, call 305-224-6811 or send us the current recorded deed. We will tell you whether this is the right instrument, what the homestead and documentary stamp position is on your property, and what it costs, before any work starts. There is no charge for that conversation.

Four questions decide most of it, and you can answer them before you call: are you married, is the property your homestead, is there a mortgage, and what do you want to happen when you die.

If you already have a land trust agreement in place — from another firm, a Florida land trust company offering land trust services, or a template — the review we run is short and specific. Does the recorded deed carry the section 689.073(1) powers language? Does the agreement contain the section 689.071(6) personal property declaration? Do the trustee’s duties stay inside section 689.071(2)(c)? And does the succession provision create a present interest, or is it a will that nobody witnessed? Four questions, four statutes, and they are the difference between a plan and a piece of paper.

Lorenzo Law works from offices in Coral Gables and Fort Lauderdale and prepares land trusts for property anywhere in Florida — Miami-Dade, Broward, Palm Beach and Monroe counties — including Miami, Coral Gables, Aventura, Doral, Hialeah, Kendall, Homestead, Hollywood, Pembroke Pines, Boca Raton, Delray Beach and West Palm Beach — and statewide including Orlando, Tampa, Naples, Fort Myers, Sarasota, Jacksonville and the Keys. Signing can be handled remotely wherever you are. Hablamos español.

More on Florida trusts, deeds and probate

• Florida estate planning attorney — how a land trust fits into a complete plan
• Florida irrevocable trust — when you actually need creditor protection
• Lady bird deed in Florida — the simpler answer for a single parcel
• Lady bird deed vs. living trust
• Florida deed preparation — witnesses, recording and what the clerk requires
• Types of deeds in Florida — warranty or quitclaim into the trust
• Selecting trustees under Florida trust law
• The Florida right of survivorship — why section 689.15 matters here
• Surviving spouse rights in Florida — the homestead joinder and devise rules
• Florida homestead and probate
• When probate is not necessary in Florida
• The Florida probate process — what a land trust is measured against
• Special needs trust in Florida — and distributions to special needs family members
• What is a dynasty trust?
• Florida power of attorney — who acts if you lose capacity
• Florida deed contest — fraudulent transfers and challenges to title
• Lady bird deed tax consequences — more on documentary stamp tax
• Coral Gables estate planning lawyer

Important legal notice

This article provides general information about Florida land trusts, Fla. Stat. § 689.071 and related Florida trust law for educational purposes only. It is not legal advice for your situation, and reading it does not create an attorney-client relationship. Florida trust, homestead and tax law involve interacting constitutional, statutory and administrative rules that require individual review, and the federal reporting position described above is subject to pending appellate litigation. Statutory and regulatory positions are stated as at 27 August 2026. Always consult a qualified Florida estate planning attorney before creating a trust or transferring real property.