Question 1

Do I need a lawyer for a lady bird deed in Florida?

Accepted Answer

No law requires one. Florida lets any competent adult sign a deed. Whether that is wise depends on who else has a claim to the property: a spouse, a minor child, a lender. The deed itself is a single page. The analysis behind it is not. Before drafting, the questions that decide whether the instrument works are: does anyone occupy the property as homestead, is there a surviving spouse, is there a minor child, is there a mortgage, and how is title currently held. Get any of those wrong and the deed either fails at the courthouse or fails years later when the family tries to sell. That is the honest division. The document is cheap. The judgment about whether it fits your title is what you are paying for, and it is the reason people look for a lady bird deed lawyer rather than a template.

Question 2

How much does a lady bird deed cost in Florida?

Accepted Answer

$675 at Lorenzo Law, recording included. The $675 fee includes speaking directly with attorney Jose Lorenzo, online notarization, the county recording charges and the minimum documentary stamp charge; any documentary stamp tax above that minimum is separate from the $675 and is worked out from the facts of the transaction. That flat fee covers the drafting, the execution and the county's recording charges. On an unencumbered homestead, clerks in practice collect the minimum seventy cents on a deed reciting nominal consideration — a collection practice under the documentary stamp rules, not the holding of the advisement discussed below, which concluded the deed before it was not taxable at all. Where the property carries a mortgage the answer is unresolved, and the section below sets out why. COMPONENT AMOUNT AUTHORITY / NOTE Lorenzo Law flat fee $675 drafting, execution, recording Base service charge, page one $5.00 § 28.24, inside the fee Records modernization and court technology $5.00 more on page one same statute, separate subsections Recording, page one, all in $10.00 what the counter actually takes Recording, each later page $8.50 $4.00 base plus $4.50 in add-ons Indexing, each name past the first four $1.00 § 28.24 Documentary stamp tax Minimum charge inside the fee; any tax above the minimum is determined from the transaction's facts and is separate from the $675. See the discussion below A state tax; the minimum is inside the fee and anything above it is not — see the documentary stamp section Those recording figures are broken out because the statute's headline number understates them. Section 28.24 sets a base charge of $5.00 for the first page, and that figure gets quoted as though it were the whole cost. It is not. The modernization and technology add-ons are statutory and identical statewide, so a two-page deed records for $18.50 almost everywhere in Florida. What genuinely differs by county is the stamp rate, and only in one county. What the fee covers. The $675 is one price for the standard matter, regardless of how many beneficiaries you name. It covers the consultation, the homestead and spousal joinder analysis, drafting the retained powers, remote online notarization and the county recording charges. The document itself takes minutes to produce. What the fee buys is the judgment about whether this deed fits your property and your family — and being told plainly if it is the wrong instrument for your situation. The flat figure holds for a standard matter: one property, a clean chain of title, a straightforward set of beneficiaries. A blended family, a reverse mortgage or a parcel last conveyed by a defective quit claim takes more work, and anything outside the standard case is quoted after we have seen the recorded deed rather than guessed at beforehand. Signing can be done by remote online notarization where that suits you, and the deed is e-recorded in the counties that accept electronic filings.

Question 3

Can you do a lady bird deed without an attorney?

Accepted Answer

You can, and thousands of people do. The risk is not rejection at the counter. It is that the clerk accepts the deed and nobody finds the defect until the owner has died. Recording is largely ministerial. Under § 695.26 the instrument needs printed names and post-office addresses beneath the signatures, the preparer's name and address, printed witness names, and a three-inch by three-inch blank square at the top right of the first page. Meet those formatting rules and it goes on record. None of it tests whether the conveyance is legally effective. If you are working from a template, the Florida lady bird deed form guide walks through what the document has to contain.

Question 4

What does a lady bird deed attorney actually do?

Accepted Answer

Four things, in this order: read the current vesting deed, test the homestead and family restrictions, draft the enhanced life estate language, then confirm the exemption survives on the appraiser's roll. A lady bird deed is a deed giving the owner a life estate together with the power to sell, mortgage or convey the whole fee without the remaindermen joining, with the remainder to named beneficiaries. That retained power is the entire mechanism, and it is also the part that a generic template most often gets wrong or waters down. Reading the existing vesting deed matters more than people expect. If the property is held as tenants by the entireties, or as joint tenants with an express survivorship clause under § 689.15, the survivorship already controls and a new deed signed by one owner may accomplish nothing.

Question 5

Is an enhanced life estate deed the same thing, and is it legal in Florida?

Accepted Answer

Yes to the first. Enhanced life estate deed is the formal name; lady bird deed and ladybird deed are the common ones. The three refer to the same instrument, and Florida practitioners use them interchangeably. There is no Florida lady bird deed statute. No provision of the Florida Statutes creates this deed or prescribes its form. What exists instead is a common law power to reserve a life estate with retained powers, traced to Oglesby v. Lee, 73 So. 840 (Fla. 1917), and a body of title practice built on Florida Uniform Title Standards 6.10 through 6.12, which are guidance from a Bar committee rather than law. What changed recently, and what most pages on this subject have not caught up with: Florida appellate courts have now addressed the instrument directly. In Hirschenson v. Compu-Link Corp. of MI, 389 So. 3d 574 (Fla. 3d DCA 2023), the Third District affirmed the reformation of an enhanced life estate deed and, in a footnote, described the instrument as giving the life tenant the exclusive power to mortgage the property without the remainderman joining — a description it quoted from a commentator rather than a holding of its own, and affirmed reforming a deed to carry out that intent. In Varano v. Varano, 415 So. 3d 1100 (Fla. 4th DCA 2025), the Fourth District drew the same distinction, contrasting the lady bird deed with an ordinary life estate under which the life tenant cannot convey alone — though the case itself turned on an ordinary life estate, so that discussion is confirmation rather than holding. Two qualifications keep this honest. Oglesby is narrower than it is usually made to sound: the reserved power there was conditioned on the grantor's judgment that a resale served the grantee's interest, not the unconditional power a modern deed reserves. And neither 2023 nor 2025 decision touches the homestead question in the next section, which remains the real open issue. What the two cases do establish is that the instrument itself is recognized by Florida appellate courts, which was not something anyone could say before 2023. Against a traditional life estate deed, the difference is the retained power. Under an ordinary life estate the remaindermen hold a present vested interest from the day the deed is signed: the life tenant cannot sell, mortgage or change beneficiaries without every one of them agreeing. The enhanced version reserves all of that to the owner. Same probate avoidance, none of the loss of control. Family and ownership. The next two questions are about who else has a claim on the property — a spouse, a minor child.

Question 6

When does Florida homestead law block the deed?

Accepted Answer

When there is a surviving spouse or a minor child — and this is the one part of the subject where an honest answer is a hedged answer. Article X, § 4(c) of the Florida Constitution and § 732.4015 bar devising homestead where the owner is survived by a spouse or a minor child, except a devise to the spouse where no minor child exists. Where a restricted transfer fails, § 732.401 takes over: the surviving spouse takes a life estate with a vested remainder to the descendants, or may elect a one-half tenancy in common within six months. The outcome is a property owned by people who did not choose each other and often cannot agree to sell. The better reading is that the restriction does reach a lady bird deed, though no Florida appellate court has yet decided it. Section 732.4017(1) treats a lifetime transfer of homestead as something other than a devise — and so outside Article X, § 4(c) — only where the owner retains no power to revoke the transfer or revest the interest in herself. A lady bird deed retains exactly that power. That is the point of the instrument, and it is also what puts it outside the statute. Section 732.4017(3)(a) confirms the line: a grantor may keep a life estate, a possibility of reverter or a fractional fee interest and stay inside the safe harbor, but nothing in that list preserves a retained power to extinguish the remainder unilaterally. The Fourth District arrived at the same place from the opposite direction in Stone v. Stone, 157 So. 3d 295 (Fla. 4th DCA 2014), where a homestead transfer into a residence trust fell outside the safe harbor even though that grantor had retained no revocation power at all. What fails is the remainder, not the whole deed. In Clemons v. Thornton, 993 So. 2d 1054 (Fla. 1st DCA 2008), the First District held that a remainder interest in homestead conveyed in violation of Article X, § 4 is void, and that the invalidity of the remainder does not affect the validity of the life estate. Applied here: your retained life estate and your powers to sell, mortgage and revoke survive; the remainder you named is the part that is void. Nothing repairs a remainder that has failed this test: a minor has no capacity to waive a constitutional right, the § 732.7025 waiver reaches only a spouse, and no agreement among the adults involved fixes it. Where a spouse is the one being planned around, that waiver does real work: a spouse may waive the devise restriction by including the language section 732.7025 requires in the deed itself. It stops there, though — it does not remove the requirement that both spouses join a deed conveying homestead, and it does not touch the homestead’s protection from the owner’s creditors. One distinction almost every page online gets wrong, and it decides real cases. Article X, § 4(c) contains two restrictions, and they behave differently. The alienation restriction — a married owner may not convey homestead during life without the spouse joining — is broken at the moment of signing, which is why those deeds are void from the beginning and why no statute revives them: Mendia v. Galvez, 418 So. 3d 838 (Fla. 3d DCA 2025); Nordman v. McCormick, 715 So. 2d 310 (Fla. 5th DCA 1998); Robbins v. Robbins, 360 So. 2d 10 (Fla. 2d DCA 1978); Sigmund v. Elder, 631 So. 2d 329 (Fla. 3d DCA 1994). The devise restriction is the minor-child half, and it is not broken at signing at all. It attaches only at your death, to whoever survives you. Pages that tell you a lady bird deed signed while a child was a minor was void from the day you signed it are borrowing the joinder cases and applying them to a rule that does not work that way. No Florida court has made that move, and the constitutional text runs against it. Who counts as a “minor child” is narrower than most people assume. It means someone under eighteen who is your child under Florida’s Probate Code — a biological child, a child you adopted, or a child born out of wedlock who meets the paternity requirements. It does not mean a stepchild you never adopted, a foster child, a grandchild, or any remoter descendant: section 731.201(3) expressly excludes a grandchild or a more remote descendant from the word “child,” and the Florida Supreme Court held in In re McGinty’s Estate, 258 So. 2d 450 (Fla. 1971), that “minor child” in the Constitution is a substantially different class from “lineal descendants.” Where the child lives is not part of the test either. In Deem’s Estate v. Shinn, 297 So. 2d 611 (Fla. 4th DCA 1974), a father’s minor daughter lived with her mother in another state and he had never actually supported her — the restriction applied anyway, because he still owed her the legal obligation. One question is genuinely open: whether a minor grandchild whose own parent died before you can trigger the restriction. No Florida court has decided it. The test is applied at your death, not when you sign.

Question 7

Does my spouse have to sign the lady bird deed?

Accepted Answer

If the property is homestead, yes — even if your spouse is not on the title. This is a separate rule from the devise restriction above, it is far better settled, and it is the one most often missed. Article X, § 4(c) restricts the alienation of homestead: a married owner cannot convey or mortgage homestead property without the other spouse joining. Section 689.111 preserves that requirement expressly, providing that nothing in it dispenses with the requirement that spouses join in the conveyance or mortgage of homestead realty, though the joinder may be done through a power of attorney. A lady bird deed is a conveyance, and the requirement applies to it. Recent decisions show how little room there is here. In Isaacs v. Federal National Mortgage Ass'n, 373 So. 3d 1172 (Fla. 3d DCA 2022), joinder was still required where the husband had separated, left with no intention of returning, signed a quit claim and established a separate residence — nothing in § 4(c) conditions joinder on the non-owner spouse living there. In Brown v. Towd Point Mortgage Trust 2017-6, 423 So. 3d 887 (Fla. 4th DCA 2025), the Fourth District held the requirement reaches every alienation of homestead. Chapman v. Chapman, 526 So. 2d 131, holds that a homestead conveyance failing the constitutional requirements is void from the start, although no Florida court has yet decided whether a lady bird deed missing a spouse's signature is void or merely voidable. And the 2018 waiver statute does not rescue you. Section 732.7025 lets a spouse waive the devise restriction through specified language in a deed, but § 732.7025(2) says in terms that such language may not be treated as a waiver of the restriction against alienation without joinder. The two restrictions are separate, and only one of them can be waived that way. Practical consequence: a married owner who signs alone has bought a lawsuit rather than a plan. If you are separated, if your spouse lives abroad, or if your spouse is incapacitated, that is a conversation to have before the deed is drafted rather than after. Tax and benefits. The next six cover documentary stamp tax, your homestead exemption and Save Our Homes cap, capital gains, gift tax, and Medicaid — eligibility and estate recovery, which are different questions.

Question 8

Does a lady bird deed trigger documentary stamp tax?

Accepted Answer

On unencumbered property, Florida's Department of Revenue has advised that it does not. Technical Assistance Advisement 20B4-004, issued 16 October 2020, concluded the deed transfers no present beneficial interest, because the remainder stays contingent until the life tenant dies, and that it is therefore not subject to documentary stamp tax "regardless of any consideration." The underlying principle is the one in Crescent Miami Center, LLC v. Department of Revenue, 903 So. 2d 913 (Fla. 2005): no change in beneficial ownership, no consideration, no tax. Two qualifications belong with that answer, and most competing pages omit both. First, under § 213.22 a technical assistance advisement binds only the taxpayer who requested it and only for the transaction described; it is evidence of the Department's current position, not a rule you can rely on. Second, the advisement records expressly that the property before it "was unencumbered by any liens or mortgages" and that "there was no other consideration exchanged." That is exactly why it does not settle the mortgaged case: § 201.02(1)(a) defines consideration to include the amount of any mortgage or other encumbrance, "whether or not the underlying indebtedness is assumed," and those facts were never in front of the Department. Mortgaged property is therefore a genuinely open question, and I am not going to pretend otherwise. Pointing toward no tax: the advisement's "regardless of any consideration" language; Rule 12B-4.013, which exempts a conveyance from an individual to a trust of which that individual is the sole beneficiary whether or not the property is encumbered. Pointing the other way: the plain text of § 201.02(1)(a), and cases such as Chapparal Partners v. Department of Revenue, 662 So. 2d 727, and Florida Department of Revenue v. De Maria, 338 So. 2d 838 (Fla. 1976), which assess tax where property is conveyed subject to a mortgage — and Department of Revenue v. PMR Resorts, Inc., 868 So. 2d 621 (Fla. 2d DCA 2004), holding that after the 1990 amendment the only question is whether the conveyed property is encumbered. No Florida appellate court has decided it. Where the amounts are large enough to matter, the conservative course is to seek a ruling from the Department before recording rather than to assume the answer. The rate, if it ever applies. Documentary stamp tax on deeds is $0.70 per $100 of consideration statewide, rounded up to the nearest $100, under § 201.02(1)(a). Miami-Dade is the exception at $0.60 per $100. The Miami-Dade discretionary surtax of $0.45 per $100 is authorised by § 201.031, which exempts any document conveying an interest involving only a single-family residence — and that exemption expressly covers condominium units and detached dwellings, so most Miami-Dade lady bird deeds fall outside the surtax entirely. The Miami-Dade page works through when it does apply. The Department's documentary stamp rules were last amended on 25 January 2026, and the amendments added nothing on life estate deeds.

Question 9

Will I keep my homestead exemption and Save Our Homes cap?

Accepted Answer

The exemption, yes, and this one is well supported. Article VII, § 6(a) grants the exemption to a person holding legal or equitable title who maintains a permanent residence on the property, and § 196.031(1)(a) implements it. Section 196.041(2) then says expressly that a person whose possessory right rests on an instrument granting a beneficial interest for life has equitable title for this purpose. Attorney General Opinion 2005-52 confirms the exemption is available to a life estate holder, and Rule 12D-7.009(1) states that a life estate will support the claim. Under a lady bird deed the position is stronger still, because the grantor keeps legal title as well. The same reasoning carries your senior, veteran, disability and widow's or widower's exemptions — they attach to the person occupying as a permanent resident, and this deed does not displace you as that person. The Save Our Homes cap is designed to survive too, provided the deed is in the right form, and there is a statute closer to the point than most pages cite. Section 193.155(3)(a)1.c. provides that a transfer is not a change of ownership where the owner is listed as both grantor and grantee and one or more other people are additionally named as grantee, so long as the same person remains entitled to the homestead exemption. A deed in which the owner appears only as grantor and reserves a life estate does not fit that exception on its text, and no Florida appellate court has yet applied the exception to a lady bird deed. Attorney General Opinion 2007-08 confirms the 2006 amendment was meant to let owners add co-owners, including adult children, without losing the benefit. There is a trap inside that exception. If any person additionally named as grantee applies for a homestead exemption on the property, the application itself is treated as a change of ownership and the cap resets. Remaindermen who do not live there have no reason to apply, so it rarely bites — but a child who moves in and files for the exemption can undo the cap without anyone intending it. What happens to the cap when you die is a different question, and the answer is less comfortable. The Save Our Homes cap is yours, not the property's. When the life tenant dies and the remaindermen take legal title, that is a change of ownership, and unless one of the statutory exceptions fits the person taking the property the parcel is reassessed at just value on the following January 1. Portability is a separate matter and is not limited to people who inherit: under section 193.155(8), anyone who establishes a new Florida homestead and received a homestead exemption as of January 1 in any of the three years immediately preceding January 1 of the year the new homestead is established may carry their own accumulated benefit, up to $500,000. That moves the beneficiary's own benefit, not yours. A child who inherits a house their parent had owned since 1998, and who has never had a Florida homestead of their own, has nothing of their own to carry. If that child also does not qualify for a statutory preservation exception, they should expect the tax bill to change substantially. Almost nobody is told this before signing.

Question 10

What if I miss the March 1 homestead deadline?

Accepted Answer

Missing the March 1 deadline is not automatically fatal, but the second chance is a procedure you have to ask for rather than a grace period that runs on its own. File a late application directly with the Property Appraiser for your county before the twenty-fifth day after the county mails its annual assessment notices. The appraiser can still grant the exemption for that year if you show you were unable to file on time or had other extenuating circumstances. If the appraiser says no, you can take it to the Value Adjustment Board by that same deadline, with a $15 nonrefundable filing fee and the same showing to make.

Question 11

Do my children keep my Save Our Homes cap after I die?

Accepted Answer

Two points here are where families lose the benefit. The first is that the protection is yours, not your beneficiary’s: your death is the change of ownership, and the assessment resets to just value on the following January 1 unless that person independently fits one of the statute’s own exceptions — a surviving spouse, a permanent resident who was legally or naturally dependent on you, a surviving joint tenant with rights of survivorship who was entitled to and receiving the homestead exemption on the property and continues to qualify for and receive it, or descent by operation of law to a surviving spouse or minor child under section 732.401. The dependency exception is read narrowly: in Willens v. Garcia, 53 So. 3d 1113 (Fla. 3d DCA 2011), an able-bodied adult son who had been his stroke-bound father’s full-time caretaker for twenty years did not qualify. The second is a trap written into the statute itself. If a person named as an additional grantee applies for a homestead exemption on the property while you are still alive, that application is itself treated as a change of ownership and destroys the cap you have accumulated. Nobody named in your deed should apply until after your death.

Question 12

Do my beneficiaries get a step-up in basis, and will they owe capital gains?

Accepted Answer

Yes to the step-up, and that is the strongest tax argument for the deed. Because the owner retains a life estate together with the power to defeat the remainder, the property stays in the taxable estate under IRC § 2036(a) — both prongs are satisfied, since the owner keeps possession for life and keeps the power to decide who ultimately takes. Property included in the gross estate takes a new basis equal to fair market value at the date of death under IRC § 1014(a), and § 1014(b)(9) covers property included by reason of the form of ownership. Your beneficiaries inherit the house at what it is worth the day you die, not what you paid for it. The practical effect: a house bought for $90,000 and worth $600,000 at death passes with a $600,000 basis. Sold shortly after, the capital gain is close to nothing. The same house given outright during life by quit claim carries the parent's $90,000 basis forward, and the children face gain on roughly $510,000. That single difference is worth more than every other feature of the deed combined, and it is why a quit claim signed "to avoid probate" is so often the most expensive document a family ever signs. Two footnotes. If you sell during your lifetime, nothing about the deed disturbs your § 121 principal residence exclusion — you still own the property, so the $250,000 or $500,000 exclusion applies as it always did. And no IRS ruling, private letter ruling or Tax Court decision addresses this deed specifically; the analysis rests on general § 2036(a) principles, which are themselves well settled. The full treatment is in the lady bird deed tax consequences guide.

Question 13

Does a lady bird deed trigger gift tax?

Accepted Answer

No. Signing one is not a completed gift, so there is no federal gift tax and no Form 709 to file. Treasury Regulation § 25.2511-2(b) makes a gift complete only when the donor has parted with dominion and control so completely as to leave no power to change the disposition, and § 25.2511-2(c) provides that a gift is incomplete in every instance where the donor reserves the power to revest beneficial title in himself. That is precisely what a lady bird deed reserves. The owner keeps the power to sell the property, mortgage it, or convey it to somebody else entirely, and can extinguish the remainder at any time without asking anyone. Nothing has left your hands, and the remaindermen hold no vested interest while you are alive. The gift completes only at death, when the estate tax rather than the gift tax governs. This is also why the deed consumes none of your lifetime exclusion, and why the step-up above works. The two answers are the same answer seen from different sides: the property is still yours, so it is still in your estate.

Question 14

Does a lady bird deed affect Medicaid eligibility or start the five-year look-back?

Accepted Answer

On the better reading, no. Because you keep the power to sell, mortgage or revoke, nothing has been disposed of, so there is no uncompensated transfer to create a penalty or start the 60-month look-back under 42 U.S.C. § 1396p(c). The owner of an enhanced life estate keeps the same rights as complete ownership, including the right to sell without the remainderman's consent, and the property is counted the same as any other real property the applicant owns, and may be excluded if it qualifies as homestead. That is the whole point. You are still the owner, so on the better reading nothing has been given away and there is nothing to penalise. Your home is not a countable resource for Medicaid purposes as long as it is your principal residence — or, if you have moved to a nursing facility, as long as you intend to return or your spouse or a dependent relative is still living there. Separately, if your equity in the home exceeds the annual federal limit, you will not be eligible for nursing facility, institutional hospice, or home-and-community-based waiver services until that equity is reduced below the cap, unless your spouse, a child under 21, or a blind or disabled child of any age is lawfully living in the home. Both rules come from regulations formally adopted under Florida and federal law rather than from any Florida court decision, and buying a life estate in someone else’s property is a different transaction that is not protected this way. Contrast the traditional life estate deed, which the agency treats as a transfer of assets with an uncompensated value equal to fair market value minus the retained life estate. The two instruments look similar and are treated in opposite ways, and the difference is the retained power. Where the line falls is illustrated by Thompson v. Department of Children & Families, 835 So. 2d 357 (Fla. 5th DCA 2003), where a nursing home resident's purchase of a life estate in a sister's condominium was treated as a device to gain eligibility. Buying an interest in someone else's property is a transfer. Creating an enhanced life estate on property you already own is not. Three cautions worth stating plainly. No Florida rule reaches this kind of deed at all — the rules are silent rather than permissive, which is not the same as protection. No published Florida decision — appellate, fair hearing or administrative — squarely addresses the eligibility treatment of this deed, so the conclusion rests on the general principle that retained ownership is not a transfer. And a later transfer of the retained life estate to the remaindermen is a separate act that has not been settled. If a parent is already in a nursing home or an application is pending, the deed is one piece of a larger plan and should not be signed in isolation.

Question 15

Does a lady bird deed stop Medicaid estate recovery?

Accepted Answer

In Florida, currently yes — because recovery runs only through probate. Section 409.9101 directs the agency to recover by filing a claim against the estate "as provided in part VII of chapter 733," and § 731.201(14) defines the estate as the property of a decedent that is subject to administration. Federal law at 42 U.S.C. § 1396p(b)(4)(B) lets a state extend recovery, at its option, to interests passing outside probate by life estate, joint tenancy or trust. Florida did not take that option, and § 409.9101 contains no expanded definition. Property that vests in the remaindermen automatically at death never enters the probate estate — The Florida Bar v. Maurice, 955 So. 2d 535, illustrates the principle, holding that remaindermen under a deed became full owners on the life tenant's death and the property could not pass through the probate estate. Separately, § 409.9101(7) bars enforcement against property exempt from creditors under the state constitution. Note the word "currently," and note what is missing. Declining the expanded definition is a legislative choice a future Legislature can reverse, and no published Florida decision has squarely held that property passing by lady bird deed escapes recovery. The conclusion rests on the statutory text, which is clear, rather than on a case. What the deed reliably does is keep the house out of the probate estate; what the state chooses to reach is not permanently fixed. What you keep. The next two are about retained control — selling, refinancing and renting, and changing your mind.

Question 16

Can I sell, refinance or rent the property after signing?

Accepted Answer

Yes to all three, without asking the beneficiaries. That is the defining feature of the enhanced version, and it is what Hirschenson and Varano confirm. You can list the house and close on it, take a new mortgage or a home equity line, rent it out and keep the rent, or convey it to somebody else entirely. The remaindermen do not sign the listing, the closing documents or the loan. If you sell, the deed simply ceases to matter — there is no property left for the remainder to attach to, and no beneficiary has any claim on the proceeds. An existing mortgage does not have to be paid off first, but be careful how confidently anyone tells you why. The exemption usually cited is the one in the federal Garn-St. Germain Act, 12 U.S.C. § 1701j-3(d)(8), for transfers into an inter vivos trust where the borrower remains a beneficiary — and a lady bird deed is not a trust, so that exemption does not fit by its terms. The better argument is a different one: because the owner keeps full beneficial ownership and every incident of control, and the remaindermen take only a defeasible future interest, there is no transfer to trigger the clause at all. Where the remaindermen are the borrower's spouse or children, § 1701j-3(d)(6) supplies a second route. Read that one carefully: the statute itself imposes no occupancy requirement, but the implementing regulation, 12 C.F.R. § 191.5(b)(1)(v), does, and no court has resolved the conflict — so a lender relying on the regulation could still argue the clause is enforceable where the child does not live there. Reverse mortgages are outside all of this: § 191.5(b)(1) applies “except with regard to a reverse mortgage,” so nothing in it protects a HECM, which runs on its own HUD framework and matures when the borrower stops occupying the home as a principal residence. Both arguments are sound. Neither has been tested — no federal or Florida court has held that recording one of these deeds is protected from due-on-sale enforcement. If there is a loan on the house, read the note and consider telling the lender rather than assuming. Refinancing raises the same point from the other direction: some lenders will ask the remaindermen to sign, or ask that the deed be unwound and re-recorded after closing. Neither is legally necessary where the retained powers are drafted properly — Hirschenson is a reverse mortgage case that says so. That is a drafting problem, and it is one of the four things I check.

Question 17

Can a lady bird deed be revoked or changed?

Accepted Answer

Yes, at any time, by you alone. The beneficiaries do not have to agree and do not have to be told. This is the question people are most reluctant to ask, usually because they are worried about naming a child they may later fall out with. The retained power that lets you sell the property also lets you take the remainder away. A remainderman under a lady bird deed has no vested interest, no veto, and no standing to object while you are alive. Mechanically it is done by recording a new instrument, not by tearing up the old one. The usual routes are a fresh lady bird deed naming different beneficiaries, which supersedes the earlier one, or a deed conveying the fee back to yourself, which extinguishes the remainder and returns the title to where it started. Either way the change is a recorded document — the original deed stays in the county's official records permanently, and the correction has to appear in the chain rather than replace it. Removing one beneficiary from a group works the same way: a new deed naming the beneficiaries you want. There is no amendment form and no partial revocation. This is also the cleanest fix when a beneficiary's circumstances change — a divorce, a bankruptcy, a judgment, a disability that makes an outright inheritance a problem. After you die. The next three are what your family deals with — the transfer itself, the title company, and the people you named.

Question 18

What happens after the owner dies?

Accepted Answer

Title vests in the remaindermen automatically at the moment of death. No probate case is opened for that property, no personal representative is appointed, and no court order is needed to transfer it. What remains is paperwork to make the record show what has already happened. In practice the sequence is: A certified copy of the death certificate is recorded in the official records of the county where the land sits. Order the version without cause of death — that is the one intended for public recording. An affidavit is recorded identifying the decedent as the life tenant named in the deed and confirming the facts the title underwriter needs. Depending on the underwriter and the family situation, that can include continuous marriage, non-homestead status, or the absence of a surviving spouse or minor children. The property appraiser is notified so the homestead exemption in the decedent's name comes off the roll. Failing to do this produces an exemption the county will later claw back with penalties and interest. If the beneficiaries intend to sell, the title company runs its own review of the original deed before it will insure. This is the point at which a defective instrument surfaces. How the beneficiaries take title matters, and the deed decides it. Multiple remaindermen take as tenants in common unless the deed says otherwise, which means each owns a divisible share that passes through their own estate. If two of three children want to keep the house and one wants to sell, the one who wants to sell can force the issue by filing a partition action. A deed that says nothing about this has left the decision to litigation. It is a one-line drafting choice made years earlier. Where the deed turns out to be defective, the property does go through probate after all, and the family is doing it years later with the drafter unavailable. If you are holding a deed and the owner has died, bring it in before you list the house rather than after a buyer is under contract. The step-by-step version is here: what a Florida family does after the owner of a lady bird deed dies. If the owner has already died and you want the recorded deed read first, that is different work and a different fee. A review of the recorded lady bird deed with a 30-minute consultation is $475 — the review and that half hour are the whole of it, not a retainer. A probate, an ancillary administration or a corrective deed is separate work, scoped and quoted before it begins. The procedure itself is on my page about what a family does after the owner dies.

Question 19

Who pays the condominium or HOA assessments after the owner dies?

Accepted Answer

If the property is a condominium, there is a point nobody warns about and it costs more than any approval question. Under section 718.116(1)(a) a unit owner is liable for assessments regardless of how title was acquired, and is jointly and severally liable with the previous owner for everything unpaid up to the transfer of title. In Coastal Creek Condominium Association v. FLA Trust Services LLC, 275 So. 3d 836 (Fla. 1st DCA 2019), the First District held that this reaches unpaid assessments going back beyond the immediate prior owner. Your beneficiary inherits that liability with the unit and has thirty days after the transfer of title to pay it. Section 718.116(1)(c) is where that thirty-day clock sits, and it belongs to condominiums alone. In a homeowners’ association, section 720.3085(2) makes the new owner jointly and severally liable for what the previous owner left unpaid, but it sets no thirty-day deadline. Whoever takes the unit should ask for an estoppel certificate straight away.

Question 20

Will the title company accept a lady bird deed?

Accepted Answer

Florida title underwriters insure these routinely, and the Uniform Title Standards exist precisely so that they can. But acceptance is not automatic, and the friction is worth knowing about in advance. The recurring problem is a closing agent who asks the remaindermen to sign the deed out of caution, even though the retained powers make their signatures unnecessary. Where the retained-powers language is ambiguous, that caution is justified — a clause reserving the power to "sell or convey" but not to "gift" has quietly created a restriction the owner did not intend. Where the drafting is clean, the request is habit, and the standard cure is a two-deed sequence: the owner conveys the fee back to themselves, extinguishing the remainder, then executes the intended transfer with clear title. The other question an examiner will ask comes from Title Standard 6.12, and it is the homestead one: was the grantor survived by a spouse or a minor child, and if so, what evidence is there that the homestead restrictions do not defeat the conveyance. That request is the practical form the devise restriction takes, and it arrives at the worst possible moment — when the family is trying to close. The evidence the examiner wants is proof of the children’s ages at the date of death, which is why the timing rule above matters as much as the rule itself. One issue almost nobody raises: homeowner's insurance. A remainderman who is not a named insured can find a claim denied after the life tenant's death, on the ground that the policy's insurable interest ended when the named insured did — the position taken in Strope-Robinson v. State Farm Fire & Casualty Co. (8th Cir. 2021). Ask your insurance carrier whether the remaindermen can be added to the policy during the owner's lifetime, what that requires and whether it changes the premium, and get the answer in writing. In a state where a hurricane claim can arrive in the same month as a funeral, this is not a theoretical risk.

Question 21

Who can be a beneficiary, and what if one dies before me?

Accepted Answer

You can name as many people as you like, in any shares. You can name a minor, a charity, or your revocable trust. Each of those choices has a consequence worth knowing before it is made. Multiple beneficiaries. Fine, and common. Specify how they take — tenants in common or with survivorship — or the default decides for you. See the partition problem above. A beneficiary who dies before you. What happens depends on how the deed is written, and the answer is not automatic. Florida's antilapse statute, § 732.603, applies only to outright devises and appointments made by will, so it offers no protection here. If the remainder is drafted as contingent on surviving you — the usual approach — the contingency fails and the interest falls back into your estate, which means the probate you signed the deed to avoid happens anyway for part of the house. Compare Perdew v. Townley, 623 So. 2d 798 (Fla. 3d DCA 1993). If instead the remainder is vested subject to defeasance, it may pass through the deceased beneficiary's own estate to people you never chose. Hirschenson, 389 So. 3d at 576 n.1, repeated a commentator’s description of the interest as “at best, vested and subject to defeasance, but arguably contingent” without adopting it, so the deed’s own language is what decides it. Naming alternates costs nothing and removes the question entirely. Most templates leave it out. A minor. A minor can own real property but cannot sell, mortgage or convey it. Vesting a share in a child under 18 means a guardianship of the property has to be opened before anything can be sold — an expensive, court-supervised result that a trust as remainderman avoids entirely. A beneficiary on SSI or Medicaid. An outright remainder can cost them eligibility on the day it vests. A special needs trust named as remainderman preserves both the inheritance and the benefits. Your revocable trust. Perfectly workable, and often the right answer where the beneficiaries are minors, are receiving benefits, or need staged distributions. It also keeps the ultimate dispositive terms out of the public records. Can a beneficiary's creditors reach the house while you are alive? A creditor of your beneficiary may record a judgment lien against the beneficiary’s interest while you are alive, and that lien sits of record against the property, but it is subject to being defeated if you exercise your retained power to convey the property free and clear. No Florida appellate court has decided what becomes of such a lien when the power is exercised, so treat the clouded title as the real risk. If you die without exercising the power, the lien attaches to the fee at death — which is another argument for a trust rather than an individual where a beneficiary has exposure.

Question 22

What if my beneficiary has creditors of their own?

Accepted Answer

Your beneficiary's creditors are a different question from your own. Once the house passes to them it is their asset, and their judgment creditors can look to it. One exception runs the other way. If your beneficiary takes the house and makes it their own Florida homestead, ordinary judgment creditors cannot reach it — the homestead exemption protects against every type of claim and judgment except the three the constitution itself names (Osborne v. Dumoulin, 55 So. 3d 577 (Fla. 2011)) — and a claim for equitable distribution in their divorce does not reach it either, absent fraud (Roth v. Roth, 973 So. 2d 580 (Fla. 2d DCA 2008)). Two things still do. Child support arrears reach it by way of an equitable lien a court imposes. So does a federal tax lien, which Florida homestead does not defeat at all, because the Supremacy Clause lets federal law override a state exemption — Weitzner v. United States, 309 F.2d 45 (5th Cir. 1962); and see United States v. Rodgers, 461 U.S. 677 (1983) and United States v. Craft, 535 U.S. 274 (2002). If your beneficiary does not live there, none of that protection applies.

Question 23

What goes wrong with a free lady bird deed form?

Accepted Answer

Four failures recur, and each one is invisible until the owner has died. FAILURE WHAT HAPPENS Retained power drafted too narrowly Life tenant cannot sell or refinance without the remaindermen signing Married owner signs alone on homestead Conveyance made without the joinder Art. X, § 4(c) requires — the defect most likely to be fatal Spouse or minor child, homestead restrictions ignored The remainder does not take effect as to the homestead; § 732.401 descent governs instead Legal description copied from a tax bill Instrument records but does not convey the parcel Remainderman predeceases, no alternate named Interest may lapse into the estate; probate happens anyway A DIY form cannot check any of these, because a blank template has no way to know what your existing deed says. The template is not the problem. The absence of anyone reading your recorded deed is. If you already signed one years ago, there is one piece of good news. Section 95.231(1) provides that five years after an instrument is recorded, defects in its execution — a missing witness, a missing acknowledgment — are cured and the instrument has its purported effect, absent fraud, adverse possession or pending litigation. That statute does not cure a homestead problem or a bad legal description. It does quietly rescue a great many old deeds that were witnessed by only one person.

Question 24

Is a lady bird deed the same as a transfer on death deed?

Accepted Answer

No — and Florida is why the question comes up. About half the states have a transfer on death deed statute. Florida does not, which is why the enhanced life estate deed became standard here. That absence explains a lot of the confusion online. Forms marketed nationally as "transfer on death deeds" or "beneficiary deeds" have no statutory footing in Florida, and a Florida clerk recording one is not validating it. The Florida instrument that achieves the same result is the deed described on this page. COMPARED WITH THE DIFFERENCE THAT MATTERS Quit claim deed A standard quit claim deed transfers ownership now, and it cannot be undone. Deeding a share to a child without payment makes the child a co-owner who must consent to any sale, is a gift for tax purposes, and carries your tax basis forward, which can cost the family capital gains later Revocable living trust A trust covers every asset and plans for incapacity; the deed covers one parcel and does neither. The trust costs several times more. Many families should have both Traditional life estate deed No retained powers. Every beneficiary must sign before you can sell or refinance Adding a child to the deed Same problems as a quit claim, plus exposure to that child's divorce, creditors and judgments while you are still living there A will A will requires probate to move the property. The deed moves it without one Does a lady bird deed override my will? For that property, effectively yes. The deed operates outside the estate, so the house never becomes an asset the will can dispose of. A will leaving "my home to my daughter" does nothing if a recorded lady bird deed names your son. Where the two conflict, the deed governs — which is exactly why the two documents should be drafted with each other in view, and why a deed signed years after a will is a reason to re-read the will.

Question 25

What are the disadvantages, and when is it the wrong tool?

Accepted Answer

It is not the right answer for everyone, and the pages that present it as a universal solution are selling a form. It covers one parcel. Bank accounts, investments, vehicles and personal property are untouched. A family with assets beyond the house still needs the rest of a plan. It does nothing for incapacity. If you lose capacity, the deed does not help anyone manage the property. A trust or a durable power of attorney does. It rests on convention, not statute. There is no enabling legislation, which makes drafting quality the only safeguard. It is public. The deed and your beneficiaries are in the county records the day it is recorded. A trust keeps that private. Out-of-state property needs its own solution under that state's law. Blended families with competing beneficiaries are where these deeds generate litigation, not avoid it. Where a Medicaid asset protection trust is the real objective, the deed is the wrong instrument and buying time with it can cost the plan. What it works well for: a homestead, a condominium, a mobile home on owned land, vacant land, or a rental or second home held in your individual name, where the beneficiaries are adults, the title is clean, and the goal is to keep one property out of probate without giving up control of it.

Question 26

What if the property is already in a trust or an LLC?

Accepted Answer

If the property is already held by a trust or an LLC, one drafting point decides whether the deed works at all. A trust is not a legal entity in Florida, so the deed names the trustee rather than the trust. An LLC is different: it is a legal entity and holds title in its own name, so what matters there is that the right person signs for it, in the right capacity. If you are considering moving your home into an LLC, know what it costs: the Florida Constitution exempts homestead owned by a natural person, so a residence titled in a company has no protection from forced sale, no homestead exemption and no Save Our Homes cap. And the deed has to identify the trust. Under section 689.07, a deed naming someone as trustee without naming the trust or its date, naming a beneficiary, or stating the trust’s purpose can hand that trustee the property in fee simple, with full power to sell and encumber it. It is not automatic. The presumption gives way where the deed shows in some other way that a trust was intended, or where a declaration of trust by that trustee is already recorded in the county: Raborn v. Menotte, 974 So. 2d 328 (Fla. 2008). Subsection (4) also lets a beneficiary enforce the trust against the trustee whether or not the trust was recorded first. That protection has a limit worth knowing: a buyer or lender who deals with the trustee for value, without notice of the trust, before the declaration of trust is recorded in the county, takes free and clear of the beneficiaries. It is still a trap worth closing in the drafting, because nobody notices until the property is being sold.

Question 27

Does a lady bird deed have to be notarized?

Accepted Answer

A notary is not without responsibility in this. Under section 117.107(5) a Florida notary has a duty to refuse to notarize if it appears the signer is not mentally capable of understanding the nature and effect of the document. But that duty is a floor, not a legal assessment. Nobody at the notary’s desk is weighing whether you have the capacity to make this particular disposition, and nobody there is building the record that defends it if someone challenges it years afterwards.

Question 28

Where does a lady bird deed get recorded in Florida?

Accepted Answer

In the official records of the county where the land sits — not where you live, and not where the beneficiaries live. § 695.01 makes an unrecorded conveyance ineffective against creditors and later purchasers without notice. The office that takes the filing is not uniform across the state. In most counties it is the Clerk of the Circuit Court. In Orange County the Comptroller keeps official records while the Clerk handles probate, so a filer who goes to the courthouse with a deed is in the wrong building. Recording surcharges and e-recording portals also differ county by county. Execution can be done in person or by remote online notarization under Florida's RON statutes, with the two subscribing witnesses appearing by audio-video rather than in the room. Section 689.01 still requires two witnesses for a deed — the 2020 amendment that removed the requirement applied to leases, not conveyances — but where they stand is now flexible.

Question 29

What should I bring to the first consultation?

Accepted Answer

The current deed, the property appraiser's parcel number, and the mortgage statement. With those three documents the title question can usually be answered in the first meeting rather than the second. Also useful: the names and ages of everyone who would inherit, whether any of them receives needs-based benefits, whether you are married and whether your spouse is on the title, and whether anyone besides you lives at the property. If a beneficiary is on SSI or Medicaid, an outright remainder can cost them eligibility, and a different structure may serve better.

Question 30

Which county page do you need?

Accepted Answer

Recording is local even though the law is not. Which office takes the deed, what the counter charges, which circuit hears the estate if the instrument fails — all of that changes at the county line, and in one county so does the tax itself. The county pages below carry the detail this one cannot. COUNTY PAGE WHAT IS DIFFERENT THERE Miami and Miami-Dade The only county in Florida below $0.70 per $100 — and a surtax that turns on how many residences one deed conveys Broward County Deeds recorded by a county department rather than by any court officer Palm Beach County One combined office for deeds and probate, and a homestead rule that flips on a seasonal home Orlando and Orange County Recording and probate split between two elected officers in two buildings Altamonte Springs and Seminole Deeds recorded in Sanford, in a circuit shared with Brevard County on the coast Kissimmee and Osceola Roughly half the homes carry no homestead exemption, and community development district assessments follow the property Lakeland, Winter Haven and Polk County Poinciana and Davenport straddle the county line, so a Kissimmee or Davenport mailing address can still be a Polk parcel Tampa and Hillsborough Deeds on Pierce Street, probate two blocks away on Twiggs — and two different post office boxes Jacksonville and Duval Florida's only consolidated city-county government, and why it changes nothing at the recording counter Pinellas County More than one in four residents past 65, in one of the most densely built counties in the state, with counters in Clearwater and St. Petersburg Fort Myers and Lee County Mandatory probate checklists, where a missing one gets the order deleted Cape Coral 77.2 percent owner-occupied against 49.1 percent inside Fort Myers, and inside a special flood hazard area Naples and Collier County No probate case management at all, in the same circuit as Lee Sarasota The property appraiser states in writing that a life estate keeps the homestead exemption Pensacola and Escambia Central Time, and a recording counter that closes at 3:30 on Fridays St. Augustine and St. Johns The oldest chains of title in the country, under a 50-year architectural review overlay The Villages One community spread across three counties, where the deed records in Sumter, Lake or Marion depending on which county the lot sits in Volusia County Three recording counters in one county, at DeLand, Daytona Beach and New Smyrna Beach, with the annex drop boxes collected at 7:00 a.m. Daytona Beach Oceanfront condominium towers where a milestone inspection assessment follows the unit to the heir, and a 55-plus community where an under-55 beneficiary inherits title but may not be able to move in Melbourne, Palm Bay and Brevard County Deeds go to the Clerk in Titusville electronically, and beachside condominiums, Barefoot Bay manufactured homes and Palm Bay vacant lots each need different intake Last updated: 14 September 2026. Written and reviewed by Jose M. Lorenzo, Jr., attorney, Florida Bar No. 107002. This page is general information about Florida law and does not constitute legal advice for any particular situation. Reading it does not create an attorney-client relationship.

INCLUDED IN THE $675	QUOTED SEPARATELY, AFTER I HAVE READ THE RECORDED DEED
The consultation with Jose, at no charge	A blended family
Homestead and spousal joinder analysis	A reverse mortgage
Drafting the retained powers	A parcel last conveyed by a defective quit claim
Remote online notarization	Documentary stamp tax, where a mortgage makes it due
The county recording charges

QUESTION	SHORT ANSWER
Is there a Florida statute creating this deed?	No. It is common law — but two Florida appellate courts have now recognized it, in 2023 and 2025
Witnesses required?	Two subscribing witnesses, under § 689.01
What it costs at Lorenzo Law	$675 flat — consultation, remote online notarization and recording included
What recording actually costs	$10.00 first page, $8.50 each later page, under § 28.24
Documentary stamp tax on recording	DOR advised none is due in TAA 20B4-004. Mortgaged property is an open question — see below
Homestead exemption kept?	Yes — § 196.041(2), AGO 2005-52, Rule 12D-7.009(1)
Does a married owner’s spouse have to sign?	Yes, if the property is homestead — Art. X, § 4(c) and § 689.111
Does it work if a spouse or minor child survives you?	Not where a minor child survives you — that remainder is void. A devise to a spouse is allowed if no minor child survives. See below
Can it be revoked?	Yes, by the owner alone. The beneficiaries do not have to agree
Does it start a Medicaid five-year look-back?	No, on the better reading — see below
Save Our Homes cap after your death?	Generally reassessed at just value on January 1 of the year after the owner’s death, unless a statutory exception applies. See the Save Our Homes exceptions below.
Probate avoided?	Yes, if the deed is valid and the remainder is correctly drafted
Who to call	Jose M. Lorenzo, Jr. · (305) 224-6811

Lady Bird Deed Attorney in Florida: What It Costs and When You Actually Need One

Work directly with Jose — $675 flat, recording included