Broward County Lady Bird Deed Attorney Serving Fort Lauderdale

A lady bird deed in Broward County lets you keep full control of your home for life — including the right to sell, lease, or mortgage it without anyone’s permission — and pass it directly to the beneficiaries you name at death, without probate. I prepare and record these for owners in Fort Lauderdale and across Broward County. The fee is $675 flat — it covers the initial consultation, which is free, the drafting, remote online notarization where that suits your situation, and the county recording charges. Any documentary stamp tax is separate from the $675 and is worked out from the facts of the transaction. Call (305) 224-6811, or send the details through the contact page, and you will speak with the attorney who prepares your deed.

One instrument, three names. A lady bird deed, a ladybird deed, and an enhanced life estate deed are the same document. Florida attorneys, title underwriters and courts say enhanced life estate deed; everyone else says lady bird deed. If you have been searching for a Florida life estate deed with retained powers, or for a life estate attorney in Fort Lauderdale or Broward County, this page is about the instrument you are looking for.

This guide covers where to record a Broward County lady bird deed, what it costs, documentary stamp tax, the homestead rules that void it outright, what it does and does not do about Medicaid, what happens to the property once it reaches your children, and the kinds of property it does not work on at all.

Last reviewed: September 2026.

Broward County lady bird deed — the short answers
What this firm charges	$675 flat — free consultation, drafting, remote online notarization and recording charges included
Who prepares it	Jose M. Lorenzo, Jr., Esq. — 12 SE 7th St., Suite 701, Fort Lauderdale · (305) 224-6811
Documentary stamp tax	Separate from the $675 and worked out from the facts of the transaction. Minimum tax on unencumbered property; unsettled where there is a mortgage — see below
Witnesses and notary	Two subscribing witnesses and notarial acknowledgment
Homestead exemption	Preserved. A deed naming you as both grantor and grantee is designed to keep your Save Our Homes cap
Does not work if	You are married and your spouse does not join, or you are survived by a minor child

---

---

Working With Me on a Broward Lady Bird Deed

Five stages, first call to recorded deed. Most Broward files run start to finish without anyone traveling.

1. The consultation. Free, and it is the intake rather than a sales call. That call establishes how title is held now, who should receive the property, and whether a lady bird deed is the right instrument for your situation at all.
2. Documents and suitability. I read the deed you provide alongside the family and property facts, and say plainly where something argues against this instrument — a spouse who has to join, a minor child, a beneficiary on needs-based assistance, a mortgage, or an association whose declaration has to be read first.
3. Agreed scope, then drafting. Scope and fee are settled before any work starts. A draft is with you within 48 hours, measured from the point I have the current deed and the scope is agreed.
4. Signing. Two subscribing witnesses and notarial acknowledgment. Remote online notarization is inside the fee and is how most of these are signed; suitable arrangements are confirmed for your circumstances first, and where remote execution is not appropriate the alternative is discussed before anything is scheduled.
5. Recording, and the copy back. The deed is recorded with Broward County Records, Taxes and Treasury, which returns it bearing the Official Records book and page. I email you that recorded copy once it comes back. The matter finishes at the recorded copy, not at signing.

You provide	I handle
The current recorded deed, or where to find it	Confirming the legal description and folio number against it
The property address, and the folio number if you have it	The homestead, marital and minor-child analysis
Who should receive the property, and a fallback if one of them dies before you	Drafting the enhanced life estate reservation and the remainder designation
Your marital status, and any existing will, trust or power of attorney	Supervising execution before two witnesses and a notary
The mortgage statement, if the property carries a mortgage	Recording with the county and emailing the recorded copy back

The four sections that follow cover what this deed is, what it must contain, and where it is recorded.

What Is a Lady Bird Deed in Broward County, Florida?

A lady bird deed in Broward County is a legal instrument granting the owner a life estate coupled with retained powers to sell, convey, mortgage, or revoke the property without beneficiary consent. Upon the owner’s death, full title transfers automatically to named remainder beneficiaries outside the Florida probate court system.

An enhanced life estate deed allows a property owner to avoid formal probate administration while retaining complete lifetime ownership. If you own property in Broward County, executing a lady bird deed in Florida (also spelled ladybird deed) ensures that your real estate passes to your chosen heirs immediately upon your death without court intervention, statutory delays, or probate administration expenses.

What powers do you keep with a Broward County lady bird deed?

With a Broward County lady bird deed, you retain four absolute powers: the power to sell, mortgage, lease, and revoke or change beneficiaries at any time without the consent or joinder of the remainder beneficiaries. You maintain complete fee simple management authority throughout your lifetime.

You can sell your home next year and nobody has to sign the deed but you. You can refinance your mortgage, lease the property to tenants, or record a new deed naming different beneficiaries whenever you choose. The Florida Bar’s Real Property, Probate and Trust Law Section publishes Uniform Title Standards recognizing exactly this arrangement, for homestead and non-homestead property alike: the holder of a life estate coupled with the power to sell, convey, and mortgage can encumber or convey the fee simple title during life without joinder of the remaindermen.

Is a lady bird deed the same as an enhanced life estate deed?

Yes. An enhanced life estate deed is the formal legal title used by Florida attorneys, courts, and title underwriters, while lady bird deed and ladybird deed are informal common terms. Both phrases describe the exact same legal instrument under Florida practice.

This matters more than a naming quibble, because the two names sit in different places. A Broward homeowner searches for a lady bird deed. The title underwriter reviewing that same document at a closing five years later calls it an enhanced life estate deed, and the Florida Bar’s Uniform Title Standards call it a life estate coupled with a power. So if you have been handed something labeled a life estate deed Florida form, or an enhanced life estate deed Florida form, or a Florida life estate deed with powers, you have been handed a draft of the document this page describes.

Am I looking for a life estate attorney or a lady bird deed?

Usually both, and they are the same call. People arrive at this instrument through three different doors: they search for a lady bird deed because a friend mentioned one, they search for a life estate attorney in Fort Lauderdale or Broward County because that is the formal term they were given, or they search for a way to leave the house to their children without probate and find the deed at the end of it.

Whether you searched for a life estate attorney Broward County wide, or for a life estate lawyer Fort Lauderdale specifically, the work behind the search is the same. A life estate attorney is not a separate specialty; it is a real property and estate planning lawyer doing deed work. And a life estate deed in the plain sense — the old-fashioned kind, without retained powers — is the version you almost certainly do not want. The next section explains why.

What is the difference between a lady bird deed and a life estate deed in Florida?

A standard life estate deed transfers a vested remainder interest today, preventing the life tenant from selling or mortgaging the property without the remainderman’s consent. In contrast, a lady bird deed retains full lifetime revocation powers, transfers no present vested or possessory interest, avoids immediate gift taxes, and permits unilateral sale or refinancing.

Feature	Lady Bird Deed	Plain Life Estate Deed	Florida Quit Claim Deed to Child
Can you sell without consent?	Yes	No	No (you no longer own it)
Can you revoke or change it?	Yes	No	No
Completed gift for federal gift tax?	No	Yes (remainder interest)	Yes (entire property)
Stepped-up basis for beneficiary?	Yes (full FMV step-up)	Partial / life estate portion	No (carryover basis)
Exposed to child’s creditors today?	No	Yes (as to remainder)	Yes
Avoids Florida probate on the home?	Yes	Yes	N/A (already transferred)
Homestead exemption preserved during life?	Yes	Yes	Depends on residency

Is a warranty deed different from a lady bird deed?

The difference between warranty deed and lady bird deed is not a difference between two options you pick from. A warranty deed describes what the seller promises about the title — that it is good, and that the seller will defend it. A lady bird deed describes when the interest passes and what the owner keeps in the meantime. The two are not alternatives, and a Florida lady bird deed is commonly drafted as an enhanced life estate warranty deed or an enhanced life estate quit claim deed depending on what the drafter wants to warrant.

A warranty deed Broward County owners sign at a closing and a lady bird deed they sign for their children are doing different jobs. If you are comparing the two because someone offered you a choice between them, the real question underneath is whether you want to give the property away now or keep it until you die. A plain warranty deed to your daughter gives it away now.

Does Florida have a transfer-on-death deed?

No, Florida does not have a statutory transfer-on-death (TOD) or beneficiary deed for real property. Florida Statutes Chapter 689 does not authorize TOD deeds for real estate, making the common-law enhanced life estate deed Florida’s primary tool for non-probate real estate transfers.

There is also no specific Florida statute establishing the lady bird deed. The instrument derives its legal validity from common-law real property principles, title insurance underwriting guidelines, and the Florida Bar RPPTL Uniform Title Standards rather than an explicit legislative enactment.

What is the difference between a lady bird deed and a transfer on death deed?

In the roughly thirty states that have adopted one, a transfer-on-death deed is a creature of statute: the legislature wrote the form, said what it does, and said how to revoke it. Florida has not. The lady bird deed reaches a similar result — the property passes at death, outside probate, and the owner keeps everything in the meantime — by assembling ordinary common-law property interests rather than by statute.

The practical difference for a Broward owner is where the certainty comes from. A TOD-deed state gives you a statute to point to. Florida gives you title standards, underwriting practice, and drafting. That is why the reservation language in the deed does so much work here, and why a template drafted for a TOD state does nothing at all for a Florida property.

Where Do You Record a Lady Bird Deed in Broward County?

The Broward County lady bird deed recording location is 115 S. Andrews Avenue, Room 114 — the Records, Taxes and Treasury Division, inside the Governmental Center in Fort Lauderdale. The office is open 8:30 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. and can be reached at 954-831-4000, or at 3-1-1 from within Broward County. Deeds are also accepted by mail and through approved e-recording vendors.

Broward is one of a small number of Florida counties where deeds are not taken in at the Clerk of the Circuit Court. That is the answer today, and it is the answer to plan around. There is a statutory transition in the background, addressed further down this page, but it has not changed where a deed goes.

Is the Broward County Clerk of Courts the recorder of deeds?

No. The Broward County Clerk of Courts manages court cases, traffic matters, and probate files at 201 S.E. 6th Street, and describes itself as the record-keeper for the court system. Real property deeds are taken in and maintained by the Broward County Records, Taxes and Treasury Division at 115 S. Andrews Avenue, which publishes itself as “the statutory repository for the Official Records of the County.”

Deeds are filed with the county administrative division on Andrews Avenue, not at the judicial complex. If you arrive at 201 S.E. 6th Street with a deed in your hand, you are at the wrong building.

Who is the Broward County recorder of deeds?

Broward County has no officer titled recorder of deeds or register of deeds. Those titles come from other states, and people bring them with them. A search for a Broward County register of deeds, or for a Fort Lauderdale registry of deeds, is looking for a counter that exists — under a different name, because no office of either title exists anywhere in Florida. In Broward County the recording function is performed by the Records, Taxes and Treasury Division, a division of county government, at 115 S. Andrews Avenue, Room 114, Fort Lauderdale.

Deed records for the entire county — including Fort Lauderdale, Hollywood, Pembroke Pines and every other municipality — are maintained in a single Official Records series searchable through the county’s Official Records portal. There is no separate Fort Lauderdale registry of deeds and no municipal deed registry anywhere in Broward County.

Broward County Records, Taxes and Treasury: where to send your deed

Office Entity	Official Details
Recording Division	Broward County Records, Taxes and Treasury Division (RTT)
Physical Address	115 S. Andrews Ave., Room 114, Broward County Governmental Center, Fort Lauderdale, FL 33301
Hours	8:30 a.m. – 5:00 p.m.
Telephone	954-831-4000, or 3-1-1 from within Broward County
Official Records Portal	officialrecords.broward.org/AcclaimWeb
Not available at this location	Vehicle, vessel and mobile home registration services
Clerk of Courts (probate contrast)	201 S.E. 6th St., West Building, 3rd Floor, Room 03150, Fort Lauderdale, FL 33301

Address, hours and telephone above are as the Division publishes them in its Records, Taxes and Treasury directory, checked 17 September 2026.

A deed on Broward County property must be recorded before it gives constructive notice to third parties. Under Fla. Stat. § 695.01, an unrecorded conveyance is not good against creditors or subsequent purchasers for value without notice. A lady bird deed sitting in a drawer does nothing.

A note on Broward’s recorder transition

Broward’s arrangement has a history, and clients occasionally arrive having read about it. Broward became a charter county in 1975 and moved the comptroller’s functions, including the county recorder function, into county government; the Fourth District acknowledged the arrangement in Baron v. Rhett, 847 So. 2d 1032 (Fla. 4th DCA 2003), and the Legislature acknowledged it in Fla. Stat. § 28.24(13). Amendment 10, approved statewide in November 2018, required these functions to return to the elected clerk of the circuit court, and Chapter 2020-194, Laws of Florida — a special act approved by Broward voters at the November 2020 referendum — provides at Section 2(2) that “the duties of recorder shall be transferred by Broward County to the clerk of the circuit court effective January 7, 2025, or an earlier date agreed to by Broward County and the clerk.”

In practice the Records, Taxes and Treasury Division continues to take deeds in and continues to publish itself as the repository for the county’s Official Records, and the Clerk of Courts lists no recording division. So the operational answer is the one at the top of this section. What I do on a Broward file is unchanged either way: confirm the office accepting deeds, keep the filing confirmation with the official records book and page, and hold that with the client’s file. If you recorded a Broward deed yourself and want to know whether the recording is clean, bring me the confirmation and I will look at it.

Is there a Records, Taxes and Treasury location in Plantation?

Broward County operates service locations outside the Governmental Center, and a search for the Division in Plantation usually lands on one of them. Deed recording, however, is centralized: every deed on Broward County property lands in the same Official Records series regardless of where the property or the person filing it happens to be. Before making a trip to any satellite location with a deed, call 954-831-4000 and confirm that the location takes recordings, because most county service centers handle taxes, tags and titles rather than official records.

Which Broward County office handles deeds, probate and homestead?

What You Need to Accomplish	Broward County Office	Office Address
Record a deed or transfer title	Records, Taxes & Treasury Division	115 S. Andrews Ave., Rm. 114 · 954-831-4000
Open a formal probate case	Clerk of Courts (Probate Division)	201 S.E. 6th St., Rm. 03150
Homestead exemption & folio info	Broward County Property Appraiser	115 S. Andrews Ave., Rm. 111 · 954-357-6830

The recording office and the Broward County Property Appraiser operate inside the same governmental building, two rooms apart. You can confirm your folio details and record your deed in a single visit.

Fort Lauderdale

A Fort Lauderdale ladybird deed has the shortest journey of any in the county, because this is where the recording happens for all of it: the Records, Taxes and Treasury Division and the Property Appraiser sit two rooms apart in the same building on South Andrews Avenue, and the probate division that a failed deed would send your family to is about a mile and a half east.

The city’s housing stock is the county’s most mixed — Victoria Park and Rio Vista single-family homes, Las Olas and beachfront condominium towers, and a large number of properties held through the waterway system where the legal description includes riparian and dock rights that a template will not carry forward. If the legal description on your current deed mentions a canal, a dock, or a submerged-land lease, it has to be reproduced exactly, and that is the single most common reason a Fort Lauderdale deed needs to be redrawn rather than copied.

---

How much does it cost to record a lady bird deed in Broward County?

Recording a lady bird deed in Broward County costs $10.00 for the first page, $8.50 for each additional page, and $1.00 for each name indexed beyond four. A standard two-page deed costs $18.50 in total statutory recording fees payable under Florida Statute § 28.24(13).

Statutory Fee Component	Total Payable (Fla. Stat. § 28.24(13))
First page recording	$10.00
Each additional page	$8.50
Indexing fee (per name over four)	$1.00
Typical two-page deed filing	$18.50

The $18.50 figure is the government’s own charge for entering the instrument into the official records. When I prepare the deed, that charge is included in the flat fee rather than billed separately. Note that the four-name threshold applies to all grantors and grantees combined: two grantors and three beneficiaries is five names, which adds a $1.00 indexing fee.

How much does a lady bird deed cost in Broward County?

A Broward County lady bird deed is $675, flat. That figure covers the free initial consultation, the drafting, remote online notarization where that suits your situation, and the county recording charges. Documentary stamp tax is the one item quoted separately, because it depends on whether there is a mortgage on the property. The flat fee covers the straightforward case: one Broward property, a legal description that matches the deed you already have, and adult beneficiaries who are named and living. The same flat fee and the same inclusions apply anywhere in the state — see the Florida lady bird deed service page.

The $675 covers the work that makes the deed hold up — confirming the legal description and folio number against the deed you provide, analyzing homestead and marital status, drafting the enhanced life estate and the remainder designation, supervising execution before two subscribing witnesses and a notary, and recording the deed with Broward County Records, Taxes and Treasury — together with the county’s recording charges, which are $18.50 for a typical two-page deed under Fla. Stat. § 28.24(13).

Some files are not the straightforward case, and those are quoted before any work begins: a mortgage on the property, a spouse whose joinder has to be documented, multiple properties, beneficiaries across more than one family branch, a defective or missing legal description that has to be reconstructed, or a title problem that surfaces on review.

What drives the cost of a lady bird deed in Florida is not page count — it is whether the property is homestead, whether the owner is married, how many remainder beneficiaries there are, whether contingent beneficiaries are needed, and whether the existing legal description will survive title examination.

How much should a lady bird deed cost — am I being overcharged?

Two different questions hide inside how much does a lady bird deed cost in Florida. How much does it cost to record a lady bird deed in Florida? That is fixed by statute and identical in all sixty-seven counties. How much does it cost to get a lady bird deed in Florida? That is the attorney’s fee, and it is the number that actually varies.

A single-property Florida lady bird deed is deed work, not estate planning, and it should be priced like deed work. If you are quoted several thousand dollars for one Broward property with one clean legal description and two adult children as beneficiaries, ask what the number covers and compare it line by line against the inclusions set out above. Scope is the only honest way to compare two quotes; the figure on its own tells you nothing.

Scope is what makes two quotes comparable, so ask any provider — including me — which of these the fee covers:

• A consultation with a Florida attorney before anything is drafted
• Review of the deed you already have, against its legal description and folio number
• Drafting the instrument itself
• Supervising the signing, with two subscribing witnesses and a notary
• Recording with Broward County, and the recorded copy returned to you afterwards

Four things are worth checking on any completed lady bird deed, whoever prepared it: that a spousal joinder block is present where one is needed, that no nominal consideration is recited on the face, that the legal description was taken from the recorded deed rather than the tax bill, and that a contingent beneficiary is named. Each is cheap to address in advance and expensive to fix after a death.

Is there a Broward County recording fee calculator?

There is no Broward County recording fees calculator you need for a deed. Broward County deed recording fees are $10.00 plus $8.50 for every page after the first, plus $1.00 for every indexed name after the fourth, plus documentary stamp tax if any is due. The calculators people find online are built for mortgages and multi-instrument closings, where intangible tax and mortgage stamps enter the picture. A two-page lady bird deed with four or fewer names on it is $18.50.

Does Broward County charge a real estate transfer tax?

No. There is no Broward County real estate transfer tax, because Florida has none and the county levies none of its own. A deed transfer here is taxed, if at all, by documentary stamps rather than by a percentage of the home’s value. One related warning: searching Broward County title transfer mostly returns vehicle titles, and the Governmental Center location handles no vehicle, vessel or mobile home registration at all. What Florida has instead is documentary stamp tax on the deed, at $0.70 per $100 of consideration under Fla. Stat. § 201.02(1)(a), plus the recording charges above. People arriving from states with a transfer tax often assume a percentage of the home’s value is due at recording. On a properly drafted Broward lady bird deed reciting no consideration on an unencumbered property, it is not.

What Must a Broward County Lady Bird Deed Contain to Be Recorded?

A recordable Florida lady bird deed must contain the preparer’s name and post-office address, printed names beneath all signatures, a correct legal description with the property folio number, and blank recording space reserved at the top right of the first page pursuant to Florida Statute § 695.26.

To satisfy statutory recording requirements under Fla. Stat. § 695.26:

• The name and post-office address of the natural person who prepared the instrument must be legibly stated on the face of the deed.
• The full name of each signer, witness, and notary must be legibly printed, typed, or stamped directly beneath their signature.
• A blank space of 3″ × 3″ must be left at the top right corner of the first page, and a 1″ × 3″ space on subsequent pages, reserved for the county recording stamp.
• The Broward County parcel identification number (folio number) should be identified. You can verify this number through the Broward County Property Appraiser at bcpa.net.

What gets a deed rejected in Broward County?

The recording desk is not reviewing your deed for legal effect. It is checking whether the instrument meets the formal requirements for entry into the official records, and it will decline a document that does not. The recurring reasons are formatting rather than substance: no reserved recording space at the top right of the first page, no preparer name and address, signatures without printed names beneath them, a notary block missing a required element, or fees that do not match the page and name count.

A rejected deed is returned rather than recorded, which means that on the day you thought your deed was in the public records, it was in an envelope. If a Broward County recording transmittal form is required with a mailed deed, the Division will say so when you call. Confirm the current formatting requirements with the Division at 954-831-4000 before mailing a self-prepared deed, and when the recorded copy comes back, read the book and page stamp rather than filing it unopened.

I recorded a deed with a mistake — how do I fix it?

You do not edit a recorded instrument. A recorded deed is a permanent entry in the Official Records, and the correction is a new document recorded on top of it — ordinarily a corrective deed that recites the book and page of the original, identifies the error, and restates the conveyance correctly. It is recorded like any other deed and carries the same $10.00 first-page charge.

The line matters, and it is narrower than people expect. Florida’s statutory scrivener’s-error cure at Fla. Stat. § 689.041 covers only a single error in the legal description, in one of three categories — a lot or block identification in a platted lot, a unit or building or phase identification in a condominium or cooperative, or a directional or fractional error in a section-township-range description. It does not reach names, the type of interest conveyed, or the identity of the remainderman. A re-executed corrective deed can fix a genuinely non-material slip, such as a misspelled name, and the correction relates back to the original recording date. A material error — one that changes who takes the remainder, the nature of the interest, or your retained powers — requires reformation in the circuit court. That is exactly what happened in Hirschenson v. Compu-Link Corp. of Michigan, 389 So. 3d 574 (Fla. 3d DCA 2023), where the court affirmed reformation of a lady bird deed to correct a single word in the retained-powers clause. Bring the recorded copy before signing anything.

The Broward County Property Transfer Information Sheet

Broward County publishes a Property Transfer Information Sheet (PDF) that sets out how the recording office treats different transfer types for documentary stamp tax purposes. It is the document that puts a life estate deed with retained powers in the county’s minimum-tax category, and it is the document that warns that a recited dollar figure will be taxed even where the transfer would not otherwise be taxable. Both of those positions are quoted in the documentary stamp section below.

It is worth knowing the sheet exists, because it is the county’s own statement of what it will do at the counter, and it does not always track the Department of Revenue’s position. Where the two diverge, the office collecting the money is the one you have to satisfy that day. The sheet linked above is the version the Records, Taxes and Treasury Division publishes online, reviewed 17 September 2026; it carries no revision date of its own, so check the current version before relying on it.

Does Broward County accept e-recording for deeds?

Yes. Broward County e recording is available: the Records, Taxes and Treasury Division accepts electronic recording through approved third-party vendors, which is generally the fastest route and the one I use. Submission is made by the vendor, fees and documentary stamps are drawn electronically, and the recorded instrument comes back with its book and page usually within the same business day or the next.

The vendor list changes, and a vendor account is a business relationship rather than something an individual owner sets up for a single deed. If you are recording one deed yourself, walk-in or mail is the realistic route; if you want the current approved vendor list, ask the Division directly at 954-831-4000.

How long does it take to record a deed in Broward County?

Processing times vary with the Division’s queue. E-recording is generally the fastest route, walk-in recording at 115 S. Andrews Avenue is next, and mailed deeds take longest. What comes back to you is the instrument bearing the Official Records book and page numbers and the recording date — that stamp, not your signature date, is what establishes notice to the world under Fla. Stat. § 695.11. Confirm the current turnaround with the Division before relying on a particular date for a closing.

How do I get a copy of my deed in Broward County?

A Broward County deed search ends at the county’s Official Records portal, officialrecords.broward.org/AcclaimWeb — searchable by name, by document type, and by book and page, covering the whole county in one series. There is no separate deeds office and no municipal registry: the recorded documents for every municipality sit in that single series, which is also what people are looking for when they search Broward County property records. Copies can be requested in person at 115 S. Andrews Avenue, Room 114.

Two practical notes. A Broward County deed search by name will find instruments indexed under that name, which is why the four-name indexing threshold matters — every grantor and grantee on the deed becomes a searchable index entry. A Broward County deed search by address, by contrast, is done through the Property Appraiser at bcpa.net rather than through the Official Records, because the Official Records are indexed by name and instrument, not by street address. Start at bcpa.net with the address, get the folio and the owner name, then search the Official Records with that name.

Does Broward County offer a recorded-document fraud alert?

Broward County deed protection is the shorthand for this, and it is worth having. Deed fraud — a forged instrument recorded against a property whose owner knows nothing about it — is a real problem in South Florida, and counties increasingly offer a free notification service that emails a property owner when a document is recorded against their name. If Broward offers one, enrolling costs nothing and is worth doing the same week you record a lady bird deed, because an elderly owner living alone with a paid-off house is exactly the profile these schemes target. Ask the Division at 954-831-4000 whether a notification service is available and how to enroll.

This matters more than usual with an enhanced life estate deed, for one specific reason: the deed is designed to sit in the public records for years doing nothing visible until the owner dies. Nobody is looking at that chain of title in the meantime.

Pompano Beach

Pompano Beach has among the oldest coastal housing stock in Broward, and a high proportion of it is non-homestead: seasonal condominiums, duplexes, and small rental buildings held by owners who live somewhere else for part of the year. That distinction runs through this entire page, and it means two Pompano Beach ladybird deeds drawn on the same street can behave nothing alike: the one on the homestead carries the constitutional creditor protection, and the one on the rental duplex two streets over does not.

If you own both — the house you live in and a rental unit nearby — they are two different analyses, and they should not be handled by one form with two legal descriptions stapled together.

---

Is There a Broward County Lady Bird Deed Form?

There is no official Broward County lady bird deed form, and no state form either. Neither publishes a template, because each of these deeds is drafted for the specific property — the granting language that reserves the power to sell, mortgage, lease and revoke is what makes the instrument work.

The same is true of the professional terminology: there is no standard enhanced life estate deed form either, nothing Florida attorneys pull off a shelf. A free template, a printable PDF, a sample lady bird deed found online — they all lead to the same place, which is a generic document drafted for no particular state and no particular property.

If what you want is the document itself — the clause-by-clause anatomy of a Florida lady bird deed, what each paragraph does, and what a completed one looks like — that is covered in full on a separate page: the Florida lady bird deed form guide. This page is about the Broward half: where the document goes, what the Division will and will not accept, what it costs, and the county-specific consequences after it is recorded.

What a Florida lady bird deed form must contain

A workable Florida lady bird deed form contains a legally sufficient property description, the enhanced life estate language, a clear remainder designation with contingent beneficiaries, and the execution and recording elements required by Fla. Stat. § 689.01 and § 695.26.

• A complete legal description matching the current vesting deed, plus the Broward County folio number.
• The enhanced life estate powers — the express power to sell, convey, mortgage, lease, gift and revoke without the remaindermen’s joinder. This is the clause that separates a lady bird deed from a plain life estate deed, and it is the clause most templates omit or water down.
• A remainder designation naming the beneficiaries, with contingent remainder beneficiaries in case one predeceases the owner.
• Spousal joinder, if the owner is married and the property is homestead.
• The preparer’s name and post-office address, printed names beneath every signature, and the reserved recording space.

Why free lady bird deed forms and online templates fail in Florida

A form that was not drafted for this property, in this state, runs into four problems: it may recite nominal consideration that creates a documentary stamp tax liability, omit spousal joinder on homestead property, carry a defective or copied legal description, or name no contingent remainder beneficiary.

• The “$10.00 and other good and valuable consideration” recital. It is standard conveyancing language carried over from sale deeds, where consideration really is paid. In Broward County that single line converts a tax-free transfer into a taxable one.
• No spousal joinder block. A married owner who records a lady bird deed on homestead property without the spouse joining has recorded a deed that is void ab initio — void from the moment of execution, not merely voidable. The Third District said exactly that in Mendia v. Galvez, 418 So. 3d 838 (Fla. 3d DCA 2025), affirming summary judgment that a wife’s quitclaim of the marital home to a third party, without her husband joining, violated Article X, Section 4 and was void from the start. Worth knowing that the consequence differs by instrument: an unjoined deed of homestead is void, while an unjoined mortgage is not void but is ineffectual as a lien until the spouse joins or the property loses homestead status. The defect usually surfaces years later, at a closing.
• A legal description copied from a tax bill rather than the vesting deed. Tax-roll descriptions are abbreviated and frequently will not pass title examination.
• No contingent remainder beneficiary. If a named beneficiary dies first, that interest can require probate of the beneficiary’s estate — the exact outcome the deed was meant to avoid.

Those four checks apply the same way wherever a form came from. A form sold as a “Broward County lady bird deed” is not county-specific in any way that matters; the county does not prescribe deed content.

How many witnesses does a Florida lady bird deed require?

A Florida lady bird deed requires two subscribing witnesses under Florida Statute § 689.01. The grantor must sign the instrument in the presence of two witnesses, who must also sign the deed. Remote witnessing via approved audio-video technology is permitted under Fla. Stat. § 689.01(2).

Section 689.01 also provides expressly that no seal is necessary to give validity to a deed executed in conformity with the statute. Two subscribing witnesses and the owner’s signature are what the statute requires.

Does a lady bird deed have to be notarized in Florida?

Yes. To be recorded in official records, a lady bird deed must be acknowledged before an authorized officer or notary public under Florida Statute § 695.03. While § 689.01 requires two witnesses to make a deed legally valid between the parties, § 695.03 generally requires notarial acknowledgment before a deed can be recorded.

Section 695.03 is written more broadly than that in practice. It permits the execution of an instrument to be acknowledged by the party executing it, proved by a subscribing witness, or legalized or authenticated by a civil-law notary or commissioner. Acknowledgment before a Florida notary is the ordinary route and the one every title company expects, but it is not the only method the statute recognizes.

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.

Can you do a lady bird deed yourself in Florida?

Yes. Florida law does not require an attorney to prepare a deed, and any owner may record one. Whether you should is a different question — a do-it-yourself lady bird deed that contains a defect is usually not discovered until the owner has died, when it can no longer be fixed by the person who signed it.

That is what separates this from most do-it-yourself legal documents. A defective will is contested while there is still an estate and a court to fix it. A defective deed sits in the public records looking valid, and surfaces at the closing table when the buyer’s title underwriter reads it.

What goes wrong with a do-it-yourself lady bird deed

• Missing spousal joinder. The most common fatal defect. Article X, Section 4(c) of the Florida Constitution requires a married owner’s spouse to join in any conveyance of homestead — including this one — even when the property is titled in one spouse’s name alone, and the constitutional restriction controls over any statute that says otherwise. In Brown v. Towd Point Mortgage Trust 2017-6, 423 So. 3d 887 (Fla. 4th DCA 2025), the Fourth District held that Fla. Stat. § 708.08(1) — which says a married woman’s conveyance or mortgage without her husband’s joinder is as valid as if he had joined — cannot constitutionally be applied to homestead property.
• Weak reservation language. If the deed does not clearly reserve the power to sell and mortgage without the remaindermen, you have created a plain life estate, and you can no longer sell your own home without your beneficiaries’ signatures.
• A recited consideration figure that creates tax. Writing “$10.00” triggers documentary stamp tax on a transfer that would otherwise be untaxed.
• A minor child in the picture. No drafting can override the constitutional restriction, and a self-prepared deed will not tell you that.
• No contingent beneficiary. A beneficiary who predeceases you can force a probate of that beneficiary’s estate before your home can be sold.

How to file a lady bird deed in Florida

A completed Florida lady bird deed is signed by the owner in the presence of two subscribing witnesses, acknowledged before a notary, and then recorded in the county where the property sits. In Broward County that is the Records, Taxes and Treasury Division at 115 S. Andrews Avenue, Room 114 — in person, by mail, or through an approved e-recording vendor.

Recording is the easy part. It is what the deed says that determines whether it works.

---

The four sections that follow cover money and tax — documentary stamps, an existing mortgage, your homestead exemption, and your beneficiary’s basis.

Do You Pay Documentary Stamp Tax on a Lady Bird Deed in Broward County?

Unencumbered property transferred via an enhanced life estate deed generally incurs no documentary stamp tax or only the minimum tax. The Florida Department of Revenue determined in Technical Assistance Advisement 20B4-004 that an unencumbered lady bird deed transfers no present beneficial interest and is therefore not taxable, while Broward County’s own recording office treats a life estate deed with retained powers as a minimum-tax transfer.

What is the documentary stamp tax rate in Broward County?

Broward County assesses documentary stamp tax on deeds at the standard Florida rate of $0.70 per $100 of consideration (or fractional part thereof) under Florida Statute § 201.02(1)(a). Consideration includes money paid, property exchanged, and the balance of any unpaid mortgage encumbering the real estate.

Miami-Dade is the only Florida county that does not use the standard 70-cent rate — see the Miami lady bird deed guide for how their $0.60 base rate and $0.45 surtax operate.

What does Broward County’s recording office say about life estate deeds?

The Broward County Records, Taxes and Treasury Division publishes guidelines stating that a life estate deed is subject to minimum documentary stamp tax where the grantor retains full property rights, including the power to sell, and the grantees hold remainderman status.

Broward County’s Property Transfer Information Sheet specifies:

“LIFE ESTATE – If grantor retains full property rights, including power to sell, AND grantees have ‘Remainderman’ status.”

While the Florida Department of Revenue’s Technical Assistance Advisement (TAA 20B4-004) concluded that a lady bird deed transfers no present beneficial interest and is not subject to documentary stamps, TAA rulings strictly bind the Department only with respect to the specific taxpayer who requested the advisement, and only for the transaction presented, under Fla. Stat. § 213.22.

The Department of Revenue and the Broward County recording office do not say quite the same thing, and it is worth understanding why. The Department’s advisement reasons that an enhanced life estate deed transfers no present beneficial interest, so there is nothing for the tax to attach to. Broward’s Property Transfer Information Sheet takes the more conservative route and places a life estate deed with retained powers in its minimum tax category.

Because a Technical Assistance Advisement binds the Department only as to the taxpayer who requested it, and because the recording office is the one collecting at the counter, I prepare Broward County lady bird deeds on the assumption that the minimum tax applies — and recite no consideration at all, so there is nothing for either position to attach to.

Why you should never write “$10.00 and other good and valuable consideration”

You should never recite nominal consideration such as “$10.00” on a deed because Broward County taxes any stated consideration. Reciting “$10.00” manufactures a documentary stamp tax liability that would not otherwise exist on a gratuitous estate transfer.

Broward County’s official property transfer sheet states:

“If a deed states an amount, such as ‘in consideration of $10.00 ……’, that amount is taxed, even when the transfer is not otherwise taxable.”

Standard online deed forms frequently insert this nominal boilerplate, unnecessarily triggering state tax assessments on family transfers.

---

Can You Do a Lady Bird Deed if You Have a Mortgage?

Yes. A mortgage does not prevent you from recording an enhanced life estate deed on your Broward County home, and you do not need the lender’s permission to keep living there, to keep paying the loan, or to name beneficiaries who take the property at your death. What the mortgage changes is the tax analysis, the paperwork at death, and one question worth asking before you sign.

Do you owe doc stamps on a lady bird deed if the house has a mortgage?

This issue remains legally unsettled for a lady bird deed on mortgaged property. Florida Statute § 201.02 treats an outstanding mortgage balance as consideration on real property conveyances, but the Department of Revenue’s advisement (TAA 20B4-004) evaluated only unencumbered real estate without an active mortgage.

The open question is narrower than it is usually described, and it is worth stating precisely. It is not whether the deed conveys a taxable present interest — the general rule applies by its terms, and an outstanding mortgage counts as consideration even where the grantee does not assume it (Kendall House Apartments, Inc. v. Department of Revenue, 245 So. 2d 221 (Fla. 1971)). The unresolved question is apportionment: a lady bird deed conveys only a remainder while you keep a life estate, and whether the full mortgage balance is consideration for that remainder alone, or the base should be divided between the life estate and the remainder, has never been decided by a Florida court or in a published advisement. The Department’s position, if challenged, would likely be the full balance. I do not publish a figure for this, and a lady bird deed on mortgaged property should be reviewed before recording. It is the single most common reason a Broward file is not a flat-fee file.

Will recording a lady bird deed trigger the due-on-sale clause in my mortgage?

This is the question most owners with a mortgage actually want answered, and it deserves a direct one rather than a reassurance. Nearly every residential mortgage contains a due-on-sale clause allowing the lender to accelerate the loan if the borrower transfers an interest in the property. The honest answer is worse than most pages on this subject will tell you. The Garn-St. Germain Act, 12 U.S.C. § 1701j-3, lists the transfers on which a lender on residential property of fewer than five units may not accelerate — and recording a lady bird deed during your lifetime falls within none of them. Subsection (d)(8) covers transfers into a living trust; a lady bird deed is not a trust. Subsection (d)(6) covers a transfer where the borrower’s spouse or children become owners — so if your remainder beneficiaries are your spouse or your children, that exemption does reach you, and if they are a sibling, a niece or a friend, it does not. There is no exemption at all for a transfer that reserves a life estate in the borrower.

Two further points belong here because nobody else says them. Florida enforces due-on-sale clauses without requiring the lender to show its security was impaired — Weiman v. McHaffie, 470 So. 2d 682 (Fla. 1985). And the at-death exemptions carry an occupancy condition under 12 C.F.R. § 191.5(b)(1)(v): the relative who takes the property must occupy it or intend to. An adult child who inherits your Broward house and keeps it as a rental, or who lives in another state, is outside that protection, and the lender may exercise the clause even after your death.

In practice most institutional lenders do not monitor for life estate deeds and do not call loans over them. But the contractual right exists, no Florida appellate court has ruled on whether a lady bird deed triggers it, and that is a different thing from being safe. What I do on a file with a mortgage is read the mortgage, identify the clause, check whether your beneficiaries fall inside the spouse-or-children exemption, and decide with you before anything is recorded. The single practical instruction: do not record a self-prepared deed on a mortgaged Broward property without that review.

Can I refinance or take a home equity line after I record one?

That is exactly what the retained powers are for. The reservation in a properly drafted lady bird deed includes the power to mortgage the property without the remaindermen joining, which is the whole reason the instrument exists in its enhanced form rather than as a plain life estate. A plain life estate deed would leave you unable to refinance your own home without your children’s signatures.

In practice, expect the lender’s title agent to read the deed carefully. The underwriter is confirming that the reservation language really does reserve the power to mortgage, and that the remainder beneficiaries do not need to sign. A deed drafted from a weak template is where that conversation goes wrong, and it goes wrong at the closing table rather than in advance.

What about a reverse mortgage?

Lady bird deed reverse mortgage questions come up constantly here. Reverse mortgages are common in Broward’s older coastal communities, and the answer here is better than you might expect — but for a reason worth understanding. Garn-St. Germain does not reach reverse mortgages at all; they are expressly excepted, and a HECM is governed by 24 C.F.R. § 206.27 instead. That regulation makes the balance due when the borrower conveys all of their title and no borrower retains any — and a lady bird deed grantor retains a life estate, which is retained title. So recording one does not automatically mature a HECM.

The real exposure is different and it is a covenant, not a maturity event. HECM security instruments typically require the lender’s consent before any conveyance, and recording without it may breach that covenant, which lets the lender call the loan with HUD approval under § 206.27(c)(2)(iv). Get the lender’s written consent before recording. The reason is the covenant, not the deed.

What does my lender have to be told?

Nothing about the deed changes who owes the loan. You remain the borrower, the mortgage stays on the property, and the lien survives your death and passes with the property to whoever receives it. Your beneficiaries do not inherit the house free of the mortgage — they inherit the house and the mortgage, and they will need to deal with the servicer to assume it, refinance it, or sell and pay it off.

Weston

Weston is newer than most of Broward: master-planned, overwhelmingly single-family, and almost entirely inside homeowners’ associations with active covenant enforcement. Two things follow for a deed. First, these are the files where the ordinary analysis applies cleanly — homestead, a married couple, adult children — and where the deed is genuinely the right and inexpensive answer.

Second, the association question comes up more here than elsewhere. So what does a Weston ladybird deed actually have to account for? Mostly that, and the answer is reassuring: a homeowners’ association does not approve a transfer that happens by operation of a recorded deed at death the way a condominium association screens a purchaser. What does pass to your children is the covenant obligation and any unpaid assessment, which is a reason to keep the account current rather than a reason to avoid the instrument.

---

Does a Lady Bird Deed Affect Your Broward County Homestead Exemption?

No. The lady bird deed Florida homestead exemption answer is short: recording one does not affect or jeopardize your Broward County homestead exemption. Under Florida Statute § 196.041(2), a retained beneficial interest for life is legally recognized as equitable title to real estate, fully satisfying the permanent residency and ownership requirements of Florida Statute § 196.031.

This is the practical answer to a question homeowners ask in several forms — the life estate deed Florida homestead exemption question, what type of deed preserves the homestead exemption, whether a homestead ladybird deed is treated differently, and whether the lady bird deed homestead exemption survives recording. It does, because the life tenant remains the person entitled to claim it.

Does recording a lady bird deed reset the Save Our Homes cap?

No. Recording a lady bird deed that lists you as both grantor and grantee is designed not to trigger a reassessment or reset your Save Our Homes assessment cap. The exception that fits is Fla. Stat. § 193.155(3)(a)1.c: where the same person remains entitled to the homestead exemption, it is not a change of ownership when the transfer is “by means of an instrument in which the owner is listed as both grantor and grantee of the real property and one or more other individuals are additionally named as grantee.” That is the exact structure of a lady bird deed — you convey to yourself for life, with the remainder to your beneficiaries.

The same subparagraph carries the trap. It continues: “if any individual who is additionally named as a grantee applies for a homestead exemption on the property, the application is considered a change of ownership.” So remainder beneficiaries must not apply for or claim a homestead exemption on the property while the life tenant is alive. One application by a named remainderman resets the cap.

Will the Property Appraiser reassess my house because I recorded this?

Not because of the deed itself, for the reason set out immediately above. But understand what happens mechanically: a recorded deed is a transfer document, and transfer documents are what the Property Appraiser’s office reads to maintain the tax roll. The instrument will be seen, and it will be classified.

What that means for you is to check rather than assume. Your assessed value, exemption and capped value appear on the TRIM notice that arrives in August, and that notice is the place where a misclassification would first show up. If the assessed value jumps after you record a lady bird deed, do not wait for the tax bill in November — the TRIM notice carries the deadline for petitioning the Value Adjustment Board, and that window is short.

Does a lady bird deed affect portability if I move?

Portability lets you carry an accumulated Save Our Homes benefit from a home you are leaving to a new Florida homestead, and it belongs to you as the person entitled to the exemption. Since a lady bird deed leaves you holding equitable title and the exemption, selling the property and buying another Florida home is the same transaction it would have been without the deed — you sell under your retained power, the remainder interests are extinguished by the sale, and the benefit travels with you.

The mechanics still have to be followed: portability requires a separate application filed alongside the homestead application on the new property. It is not automatic and it is not part of the homestead form.

Do your children keep your Save Our Homes cap after you die?

Not in the ordinary case. When the life tenant dies and the remainder vests in an adult, non-dependent child to whom no exception applies, it is a change of ownership under Florida Statute § 193.155(3)(a). The property is reassessed at just value on January 1 following the owner’s death, terminating the accumulated Save Our Homes cap.

Section 193.155(3)(a) lists five categories of transfer that are not a change of ownership:

• Transfers where the same person remains entitled to the homestead exemption — correcting an error; between legal and equitable title with no new homestead applicant; the grantor-and-grantee instrument described above; removing a joint tenant with rights of survivorship; or a lessee entitled to homestead under § 196.041(1).
• Transfers between husband and wife, including to a surviving spouse or on dissolution of marriage.
• Transfers by operation of law to a surviving spouse or minor child under Fla. Stat. § 732.401.
• On the owner’s death, a transfer to a permanent resident who is legally or naturally dependent on the owner.
• The death of a joint tenant with rights of survivorship, where the surviving owner was entitled to and receiving the homestead exemption on the property and continues to qualify for and receive it.

An adult, independent child who was not already a qualifying joint owner ordinarily fits none of these exceptions. On a Broward home owned for decades, the reassessment to just value can cause a substantial property tax increase. This is the single most under-explained consequence of the instrument: a lady bird deed avoids probate, and it does not by itself transfer your Save Our Homes assessment cap. A family that inherits a Lauderhill house assessed far below market will ordinarily meet the real number the following January, and they should know that in advance rather than discover it.

How do you file for homestead exemption with the Broward County Property Appraiser?

You file for homestead exemption with the Broward County Property Appraiser online at bcpa.net or in person at 115 S. Andrews Avenue, Room 111, Fort Lauderdale, 954-357-6830. You must hold title and permanently occupy the property as of January 1 of the tax year.

Two separate $25,000 exemptions apply: one to the first $25,000 of assessed value, and one to the value between $50,000 and $75,000. The second does not apply to school district taxes, which is why the annual saving is a range rather than a single figure, and why the figure differs between municipalities according to the millage rate where the property sits. The Property Appraiser publishes the current range each year.

The timely filing period for any year’s exemption opens the preceding March and closes on March 1 of the exemption year, with a later absolute deadline in September for late applications. Confirm the current year’s dates with the Property Appraiser rather than relying on a date printed on any website. Only the life tenant is eligible to claim homestead during their lifetime; remainder beneficiaries cannot claim homestead on the property even if they live there. Annual assessed value increases under Save Our Homes are capped at 3% or the change in the Consumer Price Index, whichever is lower.

Parkland

Parkland is the county’s northwest corner and its newest large-lot single-family market, which produces a particular profile: high assessed values, relatively recent purchases, and owners who have not held the property long enough to accumulate the decades of Save Our Homes benefit that makes the reassessment question so painful further south. That makes Parkland one of the cleaner markets for this instrument.

It also produces the opposite problem. Expect a Parkland ladybird deed to land in the mortgage analysis above rather than the flat-fee case: a newer, higher-value home is more likely to carry a substantial mortgage, and a mortgage is what complicates a Broward deed on both fronts — documentary stamp tax, and the loan review described above.

---

Do Beneficiaries Get a Stepped-Up Basis From a Lady Bird Deed?

Yes. Because the grantor retains a life estate and full revocation powers over the property, the real estate is included in the grantor’s gross estate under IRC § 2036(a). Consequently, remainder beneficiaries receive a stepped-up basis to fair market value at the date of death under IRC § 1014(b)(9).

The lady bird deed step-up in basis is the single largest financial difference between this instrument and a lifetime gift, and it is the tax implication of a lady bird deed that most often decides which instrument a family should use.

Is a Florida lady bird deed a taxable gift?

No. Under Treasury Regulation § 25.2511-2(c), a transfer is not a completed gift if the donor reserves the power to revest beneficial title in themselves. Because a lady bird deed remains fully revocable, execution is not a taxable gift and does not require filing IRS Form 709.

Broward County capital gains example

Consider a Broward County residence purchased in 1985 for $85,000 that has a market value of $625,000 at the owner’s death:

Tax Basis Component	Quit Claim Deed to Child (Lifetime)	Broward County Lady Bird Deed
Beneficiary tax basis	$85,000 (carryover basis)	$625,000 (stepped-up basis)
Taxable gain if sold at $625,000	$540,000 capital gain	~$0 capital gain

For further analysis of capital gains, documentary stamp tax and estate taxation, see the detailed guide to lady bird deed Florida tax consequences.

Davie

Davie ladybird deed files carry two wrinkles most of the county does not. Davie is unusual in Broward for how much of it remains large-lot and agricultural in character, with equestrian properties and parcels that carry agricultural classifications on the tax roll. Two consequences. The legal descriptions are more often metes and bounds than lot and block, with the accuracy demands that go with them. And where an agricultural classification is in place, the classification and the assessment behind it are their own analysis at a change of ownership — separate from the homestead question, and worth raising specifically rather than assuming the homestead discussion above covers it.

---

The five sections that follow cover whether this deed suits your situation and your property.

When Does a Broward County Lady Bird Deed Fail?

A Broward County lady bird deed fails if a married owner attempts to execute the deed without spousal joinder, or if the owner is survived by a spouse or minor child and designates an outside beneficiary under Article X, Section 4(c) of the Florida Constitution. In both cases, the constitutional restriction voids the remainder transfer, and title descends under Florida Statute § 732.401.

Can you sign a lady bird deed in Florida if you are married?

You cannot sign an effective lady bird deed on Florida homestead property without your spouse’s joinder. Article X, Section 4(c) of the Florida Constitution requires that homestead property may only be alienated by the owner “joined by the spouse if married,” even if the real estate is titled exclusively in one spouse’s name.

The Florida Bar’s Uniform Title Standards say the same thing from the title examiner’s side: any conveyance of homestead property by a married individual requires the spouse’s express joinder on the deed to pass marketable title.

Is a lady bird deed an “alienation” of homestead at all, and what exactly does my spouse’s signature reach?

Yes, and the answer to the second half is more useful than most people expect. Article X, Section 4(c) permits a married owner to alienate homestead “by mortgage, sale or gift” only when joined by the spouse. Recording this deed is a lifetime gift of a remainder interest — the remainder leaves your hands the day the instrument is recorded, years before anyone dies — so the deed sits squarely inside that clause. The life estate is the part you keep, and nothing you keep needs anyone’s signature. Your spouse’s joinder therefore does its work on the remainder: it is the transfer of that future interest the Constitution conditions on the signature.

The First District said so directly in Clemons v. Thornton, 993 So. 2d 1054 (Fla. 1st DCA 2008), holding a deed that conveyed a remainder interest in homestead without the non-titled spouse joining ineffective to convey that remainder. The Florida Supreme Court had stated the rule more broadly in Jameson v. Jameson, 387 So. 2d 351, 353 (Fla. 1980): where homestead is owned by one spouse, both must join in a conveyance of it to a third party. And the defect is permanent. A void homestead deed cannot be ratified later, and it is not cured by the passage of time under the Marketable Record Title Act — Sigmund v. Elder, 631 So. 2d 329 (Fla. 1st DCA 1994).

One distinction is worth holding onto, because it keeps two different homestead problems from being confused. The joinder requirement and the devise restriction are separate halves of the same constitutional sentence. Joinder governs what you do during your life and is settled. The devise restriction governs what happens at your death when a spouse or minor child survives, and it is the half discussed below. A deed can satisfy the first and still run into the second.

Does a Florida § 732.7025 waiver replace spousal joinder?

No. A waiver executed under Florida Statute § 732.7025 waives only testamentary devise restrictions at death; it does not replace lifetime spousal joinder on a deed. Section 732.7025(2) explicitly provides that such language cannot be construed as a waiver of constitutional restrictions against alienation by deed or mortgage without spousal joinder.

Two related traps are worth naming, because Mendia v. Galvez turned on both and second marriages in Broward run into them constantly. A post-nuptial agreement did not waive the surviving husband’s homestead rights. Nor did an earlier quitclaim deed in which he had conveyed to his wife “all right, title, interest, claim and demand” in the marital home. Neither document said what the couple evidently thought it said, and the deed signed twenty-three years later was void because of it. If you are relying on a marital agreement or an old deed between spouses to clear the joinder requirement, have it read before you record anything — and bear in mind that this constitutional provision exists to protect surviving spouses and is construed liberally in their favor.

Is a lady bird deed valid in Florida if you have minor children?

No — not safely, and not by drafting around it. Article X, Section 4(c) of the Florida Constitution states that “the homestead shall not be subject to devise if the owner is survived by spouse or minor child,” and because the statutory safe harbor discussed below is unavailable to an instrument that reserves the power to extinguish the remainder, the restriction reaches a lady bird deed. Florida law does answer what follows, and the answer has three parts. What fails is the remainder interest, not the whole deed: in Clemons v. Thornton, 993 So. 2d 1054 (Fla. 1st DCA 2008), the First District held that a remainder in homestead conveyed against Article X, Section 4 is void while the grantor’s retained life estate stands. Your life estate and your powers to sell, mortgage or revoke survive untouched — only the remainder fails. The restriction is then measured at your death, not at signing. Article X, Section 4(c) asks whether the owner “is survived by” a minor child, and Florida courts have read that word literally for more than fifty years: In re McGinty’s Estate, 258 So. 2d 450 (Fla. 1971), Deem’s Estate v. Shinn, 297 So. 2d 611 (Fla. 4th DCA 1974), and Jones v. Jones, 412 So. 2d 387 (Fla. 2d DCA 1982), which holds that the provision in force at death controls rather than the one in force at execution. So a deed you sign while your child is fifteen becomes fully effective if you outlive that child’s eighteenth birthday, and a child born after you sign re-triggers the restriction. No Florida appellate court has applied that timing to an enhanced life estate deed, so it follows from the constitutional text rather than from a decided case. What nothing does is cure 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 repairs 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. What is worth keeping separate is the void-from-the-start language you will find in the Florida homestead cases: Mendia v. Galvez, 418 So. 3d 838 (Fla. 3d DCA 2025), Robbins v. Robbins, 360 So. 2d 10 (Fla. 2d DCA 1978) and the rest of that line are joinder cases — a married owner conveying homestead during life without the spouse signing, where the defect exists the moment the pen leaves the paper. The minor-child rule is the other half of the same constitutional sentence and works differently: the instrument is not defective when signed, it is contingent on who survives you. If you have a minor child and want a lady bird deed on your homestead, the remainder will not hold if you die before that child turns eighteen. So the practical position splits in two. If you live past your youngest child’s eighteenth birthday, no minor child survives you and the restriction does not reach the deed at your death, and no fresh deed is needed to make that so. Two conditions ride with that. If the deed names anyone other than your spouse, you must also not be survived by a spouse who has not waived homestead rights — a deed to your spouse is a permitted devise where no minor child survives, Art. X, § 4(c). And you should know that no Florida appellate court has decided this exact point on a lady bird deed, so a cautious title underwriter may still ask for paperwork. If you do not, the remainder fails and § 732.401 decides where the house goes instead. Nobody can guarantee which of those happens, which is why, where there is a minor child, I would not build the plan on this deed alone: the structure that actually holds is an irrevocable transfer fitting § 732.4017(1) — which means surrendering the power to revoke, and with it the reason most people want this deed at all. Re-executing the deed once your youngest reaches majority is worth doing to take the question off a title examiner’s desk, and I will tell you when that date arrives.

What happens to Florida homestead when a lady bird deed fails?

When a lady bird deed fails due to constitutional homestead restrictions, the property descends according to Florida Statute § 732.401. The surviving spouse takes a life estate with a vested remainder to the decedent’s lineal descendants, per stirpes, or the spouse may elect an undivided one-half interest as a tenant in common.

Under Florida Statute § 732.401(2):

• The surviving spouse may elect a 50% tenant-in-common interest instead of a life estate.
• The election must be made within six months after the decedent’s death and during the surviving spouse’s lifetime. It is made by filing a notice of election, containing the legal description of the homestead, for recording in the official records of the county where the property is located.
• Once recorded in the public records, the election is legally irrevocable.
• In Broward County, the formal notice of election must be recorded with the Records, Taxes and Treasury Division at 115 S. Andrews Avenue.

Has any Florida court ruled on lady bird deeds?

No Florida appellate court has squarely construed and validated the enhanced life estate deed mechanism. The device rests on common-law property rules, title insurance underwriting standards, and Florida Bar Uniform Title Standards, while earlier Florida decisions (Johns v. Bowden and In re Estate of Johnson) scrutinized retained-power homestead transfers as attempted testamentary dispositions.

Neither Johns nor Johnson involved modern enhanced life estate deeds. Two recent decisions describe lady bird deeds without passing on their validity: Hirschenson v. Compu-Link Corp. of Michigan, 389 So. 3d 574 (Fla. 3d DCA 2023), and Varano v. Varano, 415 So. 3d 1100 (Fla. 4th DCA 2025). Both treat the instrument as a familiar part of Florida practice; neither is a holding you can lean on. Furthermore, Florida Statute § 732.4017 provides a statutory safe harbor for lifetime transfers of homestead, but only where the transferor fails to retain a power to revoke or revest the interest. Because lady bird deeds specifically retain revocation powers, § 732.4017 does not protect them. The detail that decides it sits in § 732.4017(3)(a): the statute expressly permits a grantor to retain a life estate, a possibility of reverter, or a fractional fee interest without losing the safe harbor — but it does not save a retained power to extinguish the remainder unilaterally, which is precisely what the enhanced power is. Proper execution requires strict adherence to spousal joinder, clear remainder designations, and careful title compliance.

Sunrise

Sunrise is central-western Broward, and much of its owner-occupied housing was built for families who have now been in the same home for thirty or forty years. That is the profile this instrument was designed for, and it is also the profile where the marital question is most likely to have moved since the last deed was signed — a spouse who has died, a second marriage, a divorce that was never reflected in the title.

What most often delays a Sunrise ladybird deed is not the new deed at all — it is the old one. The deed is drafted against the current vesting deed and the current marital status, not the situation as it was when the house was bought. If your recorded deed still names a spouse who died in 2009, that has to be dealt with before a new instrument goes on top of it.

---

Can a Creditor of Yours Reach the House While You Are Alive?

This deed is transparent to your own creditors, and that is by design rather than by accident. Because you keep the power to sell, mortgage, lease or revoke without asking the people you named, Florida treats the property as still effectively yours, and a creditor of yours stands in the same position the day after recording as the day before. Nothing has been put beyond reach, because nothing has genuinely left.

A lien that has already attached certainly does not wash off. In United States v. Voshelle, No. 8:23-cv-1293 (M.D. Fla. Apr. 4, 2024), a federal tax lien that attached while title stood in the owner’s name survived the deed, and the remainder beneficiaries could not take free of it as purchasers, because they had given nothing for the interest they received. That is the general shape of the answer: recording changes the plan for what happens at death; it does not change who can reach the property now.

What actually protects a Broward homestead from a judgment creditor during your life is the constitutional exemption from forced sale in Article X, Section 4(a) — not this instrument. So the deed neither adds protection nor removes any. If part of the reason you are considering one is to move a house out of a creditor’s way, this is the wrong tool, and I would rather say that at the first call than after a deed is recorded.

Does the homestead protection pass to my beneficiary with the house?

Not automatically, and this is the exposure almost nobody is told about. Constitutional homestead protection attaches to a person who lives there, not to the land. It inures to a surviving spouse and to heirs within the statutory class — Snyder v. Davis, 699 So. 2d 999 (Fla. 1997) — but a remainder beneficiary outside that class does not inherit the shield along with the title: Webb v. Blue, 243 So. 3d 1054 (Fla. 1st DCA 2018).

The practical consequence is abrupt. A daughter in Atlanta who takes a Hollywood condominium and never moves in receives property that was fully protected the day before and fully exposed the day after, and a judgment already recorded against her attaches the instant title vests, with no grace period in which to sell or refinance — Fla. Stat. § 55.10. If she does move in and qualifies for homestead in her own right, the exemption and the lien arrive at the same moment and Florida resolves that tie in favor of the homestead, as a bankruptcy court held in In re Cole, 559 B.R. 919 (Bankr. M.D. Fla. 2016). A lien recorded against her before she acquires the property is a different matter and remains enforceable. This is why I ask about a beneficiary’s finances at the first conversation, and why the question sounds more intrusive than it is.

---

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.

What Happens to the House Once It Reaches Your Beneficiary?

This is the part of the conversation that almost never happens, and it is the part that decides whether the plan works. A lady bird deed largely keeps your beneficiary’s problems off the property while you are alive, because your beneficiary holds nothing you cannot take away — though a lien recorded against that interest can still cloud the title in the meantime. The moment you die, that reverses. The house becomes their asset, and it arrives carrying whatever is going on in their life that day.

None of what follows is an argument against the instrument. It is an argument for knowing which of these applies to your family before you name someone, because every one of them is easier to plan around in advance than to fix afterward.

Does a lady bird deed protect the house from my child’s creditors?

Largely, during your lifetime — and the precision matters. Whether a lady bird deed protects against creditors is a question about timing and about what kind of interest your beneficiary actually holds. It is not quite true that they hold nothing. What they hold is a defeasible interest: one you can wipe out at any moment by selling, mortgaging or revoking, without asking them. A judgment creditor who levies on that takes exactly what your child has — an interest you can defeat — which as a practical matter is worth very little and is why this instrument behaves so differently from the alternatives.

A lien can be recorded against a lady bird remainder as well, and it sits on the title until you exercise the power; what it cannot do is survive your conveyance of the fee. The contrast is a plain life estate deed, where the remainder is genuinely vested, so a lien attaches to something you cannot take away: Aetna Insurance Co. v. LaGasse, 223 So. 2d 727 (Fla. 1969). A quit claim deed to that same child is worse again — it hands a creditor an outright present interest on the day it is recorded.

After your death, the position changes, because the property is now theirs. A judgment creditor of your child, a taxing authority with a lien against your child, or a support enforcement claim against your child can look to property your child owns — and by then the house is property your child owns. Whether and how any particular lien reaches the property depends on the lien, its recording, and whether the property is or becomes your child’s own homestead. If a beneficiary you are considering naming has a judgment against them, tell me before the deed is drafted rather than after.

What if my beneficiary is going through a divorce?

The lady bird deed divorce question runs in two directions — yours and your beneficiary’s — and this is the second. Inherited property is ordinarily treated differently from property a couple builds together, but the protection is not automatic and it is routinely lost by what happens after the inheritance arrives — a spouse added to the title, marital funds used for the mortgage or a renovation, or the property treated as a joint asset for years. The deed you sign cannot control any of that.

What it can do is arrive cleanly, in the child’s name alone, with a clear record that it came from you. Whether more than that is warranted — a trust rather than a deed, for a child whose marriage is in difficulty — is a conversation to have when the deed is drafted, not after the petition is filed.

What if my beneficiary files bankruptcy?

The lady bird deed bankruptcy question has a timing answer. There are two routes in, which is more than most discussions of this allow. If you die within 180 days after your beneficiary files, the remainder vesting at your death is an acquisition by inheritance and enters the bankruptcy estate under 11 U.S.C. § 541(a)(5)(A). But the defeasible interest created the day the deed was recorded is itself an interest in property on the petition date, so it can enter the estate under § 541(a)(1) as well — meaning a trustee may be able to reach it even while you are alive, though its value is limited by your power to defeat it. No Florida bankruptcy court has settled how such an interest is valued. The timing relative to the filing does real work here, and none of it can be controlled by drafting.

The practical point is narrower than it sounds. If a child you intend to name is in or heading for bankruptcy, that is a reason to talk about the structure before recording — not a reason to abandon the deed for the rest of your beneficiaries.

My son receives SSI or Medicaid — will this disqualify him?

This is the most consequential question on the page, and it is the one most likely to be missed by a form. Needs-based benefits — Supplemental Security Income, and the Medicaid eligibility that often rides on it — are subject to strict asset limits. A beneficiary who suddenly receives a fractional interest in a Broward house can exceed those limits, and losing benefits is not a paperwork inconvenience: for an adult child with a disability it can mean losing the services their life is built around.

Naming that child directly on a lady bird deed is very often the wrong instrument. Planning for a beneficiary who receives needs-based assistance is done with a properly drafted trust designed for that purpose, and the deed is then written to work with it. If anyone in your family receives disability benefits, needs-based assistance, or long-term care through Medicaid, say so at the first conversation. This is the one fact that most often changes the recommendation entirely.

Can I put conditions on it — only at thirty, only if they finish school?

A deed is a blunt instrument compared with a trust. It conveys a remainder interest to the people named in it, and at your death that interest vests in them as they are on that day — at whatever age, in whatever circumstances, with whatever judgment they happen to have. Conditions, staged distributions, a trustee holding the property until a beneficiary is older, protection for a beneficiary who cannot manage money: those are trust functions. The problem with putting them in a deed is not that Florida property law forbids them — a condition subsequent is technically valid — it is what they do to the title. A condition subsequent creates a defeasible fee rather than a clean remainder, and title insurers routinely decline to insure over one; a condition precedent, such as surviving to a given age, creates a contingent remainder that can fail and leave title uncertain. The instrument ends up doing the opposite of what it was bought for.

If what you actually want is control over when and how your children receive the house rather than simply that they receive it, a revocable living trust is the right tool and the deed is the wrong one. That is a real trade-off, not a sales pitch: the trust costs more and does more.

Plantation

Plantation runs from the older neighborhoods near Broward Boulevard and the Plantation Acres large-lot properties in the west to the newer development around the Midtown district. The city is almost entirely single-family and, like Sunrise, full of long-tenured owners — which makes the reassessment point above and the beneficiary questions in this section the two conversations that matter most here.

West of University Drive, a Plantation ladybird deed can turn on a single paragraph. Plantation Acres properties carry one additional wrinkle worth naming: larger parcels, agricultural or equestrian classifications on some of them, and legal descriptions written by metes and bounds rather than by lot and block. A metes-and-bounds description cannot be abbreviated, retyped from memory, or copied from a tax bill. It has to be carried forward exactly from the vesting deed.

---

Property a Lady Bird Deed Does Not Work On

A deed conveys real property. That sentence contains the entire problem, because several of the things Broward residents live in and own are not real property, and a deed cannot move them. Getting this wrong produces a document that looks valid, records without objection, and conveys nothing.

Property type	Does a lady bird deed work?	What decides it
Your Broward homestead	Yes	The core case. Spousal joinder if married; no minor children
Condominium unit	Yes	Real property. Assessments and inspection obligations pass with it
Rental or investment property	Yes, with a different analysis	Probate is avoided; constitutional homestead creditor protection is not available
Cooperative apartment	Generally no	A co-op interest is ordinarily shares plus a proprietary lease, not real property
Mobile or manufactured home	Depends entirely on titling	Whether the home has been converted to real property with the land, or remains titled through the state
Timeshare interest	Usually the wrong tool	Governed by the timeshare instrument and its transfer restrictions
Property in another state	No	A Florida deed reaches Florida land only
Bank and investment accounts	No	Beneficiary designations, not deeds

Can I use one on my rental property?

It works to avoid probate, and that alone is often reason enough. What it does not do is carry over the protections that attach to homestead. Florida’s constitutional creditor protection and the homestead devise restrictions apply to homestead; a rental duplex in Pompano Beach or an investment condominium in Hollywood has neither. That cuts both ways — there is no spousal joinder requirement rooted in the homestead clause on non-homestead property, and no minor-child restriction, but there is also no constitutional shield after death.

There is also a tax consequence people miss. Rental property carries depreciation, and the stepped-up basis at death interacts with that history differently than it does for a home you have lived in. Bring the property’s tax treatment into the conversation, not just its address.

Can a lady bird deed convey a co-op?

Generally not, and the lady bird deed co op question matters in Broward more than almost anywhere else in Florida. In a cooperative, you do not own a unit as real property. You own shares in the corporation that owns the building, together with a proprietary lease that entitles you to occupy a particular apartment — the structure Fla. Stat. § 719.103 describes. Those are personal property interests, and a deed, an instrument for conveying real property, is the wrong vehicle for them. The Florida Supreme Court held in In re Wartels’ Estate, 357 So. 2d 708 (Fla. 1978) that a cooperative purchaser holds no proprietary interest in the apartment, the building or the land, and the Third District reaffirmed it in Walters v. Agency for Health Care Administration, 288 So. 3d 1215 (Fla. 3d DCA 2019).

What passes your co-op to your family is an assignment of the shares and the proprietary lease, handled through the corporation’s own documents and its bylaws, with the board’s approval rights intact. If you live in a co-op and have been told a lady bird deed will keep it out of probate, get the instrument reviewed before you pay for one. Whether any particular Broward cooperative is structured in a way that changes this analysis is a question to answer from that building’s documents.

What about a mobile or manufactured home?

A lady bird deed for mobile home owners turns on something specific and checkable. Under Fla. Stat. § 320.015 a mobile home is real property only where the owner of the home also owns the land and the home is permanently affixed; § 193.075 taxes it as real property on the same conditions and directs the issuance of an RP-series sticker under § 320.0815; and § 319.261 sets out the title-retirement process — recording the original title, a legal description and a sworn statement of ownership in the county official records, then applying to the state. Until the title is retired, the home remains separately titled and is not real property. If it is the former, it is real property and a deed reaches it. If it is the latter, the home is not real property at all, and a deed describing the land does not carry the structure sitting on it.

The unhappy version of this is a family that records a deed on the lot, believes the home is handled, and finds out after a death that the home itself passed nowhere. If you own a manufactured home in one of Broward’s mobile home communities, the first question is whether you own the land underneath it, and the second is how the home itself is titled. Bring both documents.

What about a timeshare?

A lady bird deed timeshare is rarely the right answer, though not because the deed cannot reach it. A Florida timeshare estate is an interest in real property — Fla. Stat. § 721.20(5) says so expressly, and § 721.05(5)(a) defines closing on a real property timeshare plan as conveyance of title by delivery of a deed. The obstacle is the timeshare instrument itself: Chapter 721 and the declaration typically impose transfer restrictions, approval requirements, rights of first refusal and fees on a change of ownership, and the annual assessment obligation follows whoever ends up holding the interest. Review the instrument before doing anything, and bear in mind that the thing most families want from a timeshare at death is not to receive it.

Does my out-of-state beneficiary deed cover my Florida condo?

No. A transfer-on-death deed or beneficiary deed executed under another state’s statute has no effect on Florida real property. Land is governed by the law of the state where it sits, and Florida has not adopted a transfer-on-death deed statute. If you moved here from a TOD state and brought the paperwork with you, the Florida property needs a Florida instrument.

Lauderdale Lakes and Lauderhill

These two central-Broward cities carry a concentration of condominium and cooperative housing, much of it built in the 1960s and 1970s, and a large population of long-term owners. Lauderdale Lakes is where the co-op distinction above stops being academic, and it is the reason a Lauderdale Lakes ladybird deed should never be ordered before the ownership structure is confirmed. Before assuming a lady bird deed is the answer for an apartment in one of these buildings, establish what you actually own: a recorded deed to a condominium unit, or shares and a proprietary lease in a cooperative. The association or management company can tell you in a phone call, and your own closing documents will show it.

The second Lauderhill point is the Save Our Homes reassessment discussed above. A home bought for a modest figure decades ago and assessed far below market today produces the largest post-death tax jump in the county, and the children who inherit it are the ones who meet that number.

---

Does a Lady Bird Deed Work on a Broward County Condominium?

Yes — the lady bird deed condo case is the common one here, and Broward makes it its own problem. A lady bird deed on a unit passes the unit at death — and it passes the unit’s obligations with it.

What happens to a Broward condominium after the owner dies?

The remainder beneficiary takes the unit and the unpaid assessments with it. Fla. Stat. § 718.116 makes a unit owner liable for assessments coming due during that owner’s period of ownership, and jointly and severally liable with the previous owner for the amounts owed by that previous owner. A lady bird deed avoids probate on the unit. It does not clear an assessment ledger.

Before anyone signs anything on a unit, get the estoppel certificate under Fla. Stat. § 718.116(8) and read what it says about special assessments. The association is bound by the figure it certifies. A family that never asked is bound by whatever the truth turns out to be.

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.

Does my condominium association have to approve the transfer to my children?

A transfer that happens by operation of a recorded deed at death is not the same event as a sale, and most association screening and approval machinery is written around a voluntary sale or lease. Florida courts require an approval right to be stated expressly in the declaration: in Cool Spaze, LLC v. Boca View Condominium Association, 292 So. 3d 769 (Fla. 4th DCA 2020), a declaration authorizing the association to approve leases and occupancy did not authorize it to approve transfers of title. Many Broward declarations go further and expressly exempt transfers by operation of law, devise or descent, which would cover the remainder vesting at your death.

But there is a second exposure most people miss, and it is not the one at death. Recording the lady bird deed is itself a lifetime conveyance of a remainder interest, and a declaration drawn broadly enough to cover any transfer of any interest may require approval on the day you record it, years before anyone dies.

So the answer is declaration-specific and cannot be given from a web page. Read the transfer article of your declaration before you name beneficiaries on a unit — and read it for both events, the recording and the death. If the language is broad, have it reviewed. It is a great deal cheaper to learn that now than for your children to learn it during a dispute with a board.

Read the declaration. That is the answer, and there is no reliable general one — approval clauses and rights of first refusal are creatures of the recorded documents and they vary. What does not vary is the money. Under section 718.116(1)(a) for a condominium and section 720.3085(2) for a homeowners’ association, whoever takes title is liable for assessments coming due while they own it and jointly and severally liable with the previous owner for what went unpaid before. Ask the association for an estoppel certificate before anything else.

Will the association charge a fee when my children take title?

Expect costs, whatever the approval position turns out to be. Florida law permits associations to charge for an estoppel certificate, and associations commonly charge application or transfer fees where their documents and the statute allow it. Your beneficiaries will also inherit the assessment obligation from the moment they take title, alongside joint and several liability for what was owed before.

Does a Broward condominium face two building inspection regimes?

It can, and that is unusual. The statewide milestone inspection and Broward County’s own Building Safety Inspection Program are separate schemes with separate triggers.

Fla. Stat. § 553.899 reaches buildings three habitable stories or more in height held in condominium or cooperative form, requiring a milestone inspection by December 31 of the year the building reaches 30 years of age and every 10 years after. The local enforcement agency may move that to 25 years where local circumstances such as proximity to salt water justify it, and may extend the initial date for good cause. Fla. Stat. § 718.112(2)(g) adds the structural integrity reserve study and limits an owner-controlled association’s ability to vote to underfund the items it covers.

Alongside that, Broward County runs its own Building Safety Inspection Program through the Board of Rules and Appeals, under section 110.15 of the county’s administrative provisions to the Florida Building Code. Its coverage is drawn differently: it is not confined to condominiums, and it is not confined to buildings of three stories or more. This page does not state the county’s age trigger, because the county’s published material and the municipalities applying it do not agree on the figure. Ask the Board of Rules and Appeals what applies to your building rather than taking a number off any website, including this one.

The point for a deed is simple: a Broward building can sit inside the state scheme, the county scheme, or both, and none of those obligations pauses because the property changed hands at a death. Whoever receives the unit receives the inspection cycle and the reserve funding that goes with it.

Hallandale Beach and Deerfield Beach

These are the county’s two ends of the same story: dense oceanfront and near-ocean condominium stock, much of it aging, much of it owned by people who are exactly the demographic this instrument serves. Everything in this section applies with particular force here. What a Hallandale Beach ladybird deed cannot do is clear an assessment ledger. A tower reaching thirty years old, a reserve study in progress and a special assessment under discussion is a building where the estoppel certificate is not a formality.

More Deerfield Beach ladybird deeds are drawn on non-homestead property than most people would guess. Deerfield Beach adds the variation described earlier — a substantial share of units there are second homes and seasonal rentals rather than homesteads, which changes both the creditor analysis and the homestead exemption discussion above.

Pembroke Pines and Miramar

South Broward’s large 55-and-over communities sit here, and they raise a question no general lady bird deed page addresses: an age-restricted community is entitled to enforce its age restrictions, and a fifty-year-old child who inherits a unit in one may not be permitted to live in it. Inheriting is not the same as being allowed to move in.

Ask, before a Pembroke Pines ladybird deed is drafted, whether the community is age-restricted and what the declaration says about occupancy. That does not make the deed wrong — the unit still passes without probate, and your children can still sell or, where the documents permit, lease it. But it does mean the conversation with your family should be about what they are actually receiving. If the plan in everyone’s head is that your son will move into the condominium, check the age restriction in the declaration before the deed is drafted.

Miramar adds a scale point worth naming, and it skews the files: Miramar ladybird deed matters tend to be newer, larger and mortgaged. It is one of the fastest-growing municipalities in the county, with a large share of relatively recent single-family purchases carrying active mortgages — which sends most Miramar files into the mortgage analysis above rather than the flat-fee simple case.

---

Hollywood

What complicates a Hollywood ladybird deed is almost never the deed. It is the building. Hollywood sits on the county’s southern coast, and a large share of its owner-occupied stock is condominium — beachfront towers along the Broadwalk and Hollywood Beach, and mid-century low-rise buildings inland. That makes Hollywood a place where the deed is the easy part and the building is the complicated part: an aging coastal condominium may be inside the statewide milestone inspection scheme, Broward County’s own Building Safety Inspection Program, or both, and the structural integrity reserve obligations pass with the unit to whoever receives it.

If you own a unit in Hollywood and intend to leave it to your children by deed, get the estoppel certificate and the association’s most recent reserve and inspection correspondence before you sign anything. A unit that passes cleanly at death but carries a six-figure special assessment has not solved the problem the deed was meant to solve.

---

The four sections that follow cover who receives the property, and how this instrument compares with the alternatives.

Can I Name More Than One Beneficiary?

Yes, and most Broward lady bird deeds do. A lady bird deed with two beneficiaries is ordinary drafting, and so is one with three. Every page on the subject will tell you a lady bird deed multiple beneficiaries arrangement is permitted, and then stop there. What deserves thought is what happens the day after they receive it, because a deed that names three people creates three co-owners of one house, and co-ownership is where families come apart.

What happens when my children disagree about selling?

One of them wants to sell, one wants to keep it, one wants to move in. Nobody can force the others to buy them out, and nobody can sell the whole property alone. The remedy Florida law provides, once the interests have vested at your death, is a partition action under Chapter 64 — a lawsuit in which the court may order the property sold and the proceeds divided. While you are alive it is not available to them at all, because what they hold is defeasible and you can defeat it. Where the property qualifies as heirs property, meaning a tenancy in common with at least twenty per cent of the interests acquired from a relative, the Uniform Partition of Heirs Property Act at §§ 64.201–64.212 gives the co-owners buyout rights before any sale. It works, and it is a slow, public, expensive way to do what a conversation could have done, with the legal fees coming out of the same sale proceeds the family is fighting over.

I handle partition cases, which is exactly why I raise it at the drafting stage. If you know your children will not agree, the answer may be to leave the house to the one who will keep it and balance the others with something else, or to use a trust that directs a sale and a division of the money instead of handing three people a house.

Can I give unequal shares?

Yes. A remainder can be designated in unequal fractions — sixty and forty, or a half and two quarters — and that is sometimes the right answer where one child has already been helped substantially during your lifetime, or where one has been the caregiver. The fractions have to be stated in the deed itself with precision, because after your death there is no one available to explain what you meant.

What if one of my beneficiaries dies before I do?

If a remainder beneficiary predeceases the property owner and the deed lacks contingent remainder provisions, the deceased beneficiary’s interest may lapse or require probate administration of that beneficiary’s estate. Properly drafted lady bird deeds include contingent remainder clauses to avoid secondary probate proceedings.

This is the most common serious defect in template deeds, and the most avoidable. The contingent designation has to say what happens to that share: does it go to that child’s own children, or is it divided among the surviving beneficiaries? Both are legitimate choices and they produce completely different outcomes. A form that names three children and stops has made no choice at all.

Coral Springs

If there is such a thing as a routine Coral Springs ladybird deed, this is it. Coral Springs is northwest Broward’s large planned single-family market — the ordinary case, and worth saying plainly because most of this page is about the exceptions. A married couple in Coral Springs who own their home as homestead, have adult children, and want the house to pass without probate are describing the exact situation this instrument was built for. Both spouses sign, the children are named with contingent designations behind them, the deed is recorded, and nothing else changes: the same exemption, the same cap, the same right to sell next year if you decide to.

---

What Are the Downsides of a Lady Bird Deed?

What is the downside of a lady bird deed in Florida? It is not one thing, it is nine, and every one of the disadvantages below is covered somewhere above. Collected in one place, so you can weigh them before you decide:

• It covers one property. A deed moves the parcel described in it and nothing else — not the bank accounts, not the car, not the property in another state.
• Your children generally lose the Save Our Homes cap. The instrument avoids probate. It does not carry your assessment cap, and on a long-held Broward home, unless a statutory exception applies to the person taking the house, the reassessment to just value is a serious tax increase the following January.
• The protection ends when it vests. While you are alive your beneficiary owns nothing he or she can occupy, sell or borrow against. The moment you die, the house is theirs — and so is their divorce, their bankruptcy, and every judgment against them.
• It cannot stage, condition or protect. No “at thirty,” no trustee, no protection for a beneficiary on needs-based assistance. Those are trust functions, and a deed is not a trust.
• It is void on homestead if you get the marital or minor-child question wrong. Not voidable — void. And the defect usually surfaces years later, at a closing, when nobody can fix it.
• Co-owners fall out. Name three children and you have created three co-owners of one house. The remedy when they disagree is a partition suit, paid for out of the sale proceeds.
• The documentary stamp position on mortgaged property is unsettled. Strong arguments exist that nothing is owed. There is no authority that settles it.
• No Florida appellate court has squarely validated the mechanism. It rests on common law, the Uniform Title Standards and underwriting practice, not on a statute or a holding.
• It does nothing about incapacity. If you cannot manage your affairs, the deed does not help; a power of attorney or a trust does.

Weigh those against what it does: one instrument, one recording fee, complete control for life, probate avoided on the home, the stepped-up basis preserved, and the ability to change your mind on any Tuesday. For an owner whose main asset is a Broward house and whose beneficiaries are adults in stable circumstances, that is a strong set of pros and cons and an easy call.

So is a lady bird deed a good idea? For most of the people who ask me, yes — and the drawbacks that matter are the two most easily missed: the reassessment your children will meet, and what happens to the house once it belongs to them. It is also worth saying plainly that most lady bird deed problems are not problems with the instrument. They are drafting problems — missing joinder, weak reservation language, recited consideration, no contingent beneficiary — and every one of them is avoidable in advance and expensive to discover afterward.

---

Lady Bird Deed vs. Quit Claim Deed vs. Living Trust in Broward County

A lady bird deed avoids probate on a single property while preserving full owner control and tax bases. A Florida quit claim deed to a child gives the property away immediately, exposing it to creditor claims and destroying tax advantages. A revocable living trust governs multiple properties, investment accounts, and incapacity management at a higher initial drafting cost.

Comparison Feature	Lady Bird Deed	Quit Claim Deed to a Child	Revocable Living Trust
Can you still sell without permission?	Yes	No — you no longer own it	Yes
Can you change your mind?	Yes, revocable at any time	No	Yes
Avoids Florida probate on the home?	Yes	Not applicable	Yes
Beneficiary’s tax basis	Stepped up to date-of-death value	Your original basis carries over	Stepped up
Exposed to the child’s creditors or divorce today?	No	Yes	No
Broward documentary stamp tax on signing?	Minimum or none	Due on any mortgage balance	Generally none
Overrides the homestead devise restriction?	No	Not applicable	No
Covers assets other than the house?	No	No	Yes
Handles your incapacity?	No	No	Yes
Can it stage or condition what a child receives?	No	No	Yes
Typical cost	Lowest	Low, but expensive later	Highest

Should you add your child to the deed in Broward County instead?

No. Adding an adult child to your deed via quit claim creates a completed gift of a present interest, exposing your real estate to your child’s future creditors, tax liens, and divorce claims. It also destroys the stepped-up tax basis and cannot be undone without your child’s written cooperation. If you are the adult child asking this for a parent, see my page on helping a parent get a lady bird deed.

Is a lady bird deed better than a revocable living trust in Florida?

A lady bird deed is often more cost-effective for an individual whose primary asset is a single Florida residence. However, as detailed in the analysis of a lady bird deed vs living trust, a living trust is superior for managing multiple properties, out-of-state assets, complex multi-generational distribution schedules, beneficiaries who need protection, and incapacity.

Is a ladybird deed the same as a quit claim deed?

No. Asked the other way round — is a quit claim deed the same as a lady bird deed? — the answer is still no. The confusion is understandable, because in Florida a lady bird deed is frequently drafted in the form of a quit claim deed. The form is the same; the operative language is not. A plain quit claim deed transfers whatever interest you have, now, to the person named. A lady bird deed uses the same shell but gives you a life estate and the express powers to sell, mortgage, lease and revoke — so nothing passes until you die.

---

Does a Lady Bird Deed Protect Your Broward County Home From Medicaid?

Lady bird deed Medicaid eligibility and Medicaid estate recovery are two different questions, and they have two different answers. The lady bird deed and Medicaid recovery answer is yes, it helps: Florida limits recovery to the probate estate under Florida Statute § 409.9101, and a lady bird deed keeps the home out of probate entirely. It does not pay for care, does not qualify anyone for Medicaid, and does not add creditor protection that the Florida Constitution does not already provide to homestead.

Does a lady bird deed trigger the Medicaid 5-year look-back in Florida?

On the better reading, no. Executing a Florida lady bird deed should not trigger the Medicaid 60-month look-back transfer penalty under 42 U.S.C. § 1396p(c)(1)(B)(i). Because the grantor retains full power to revoke, sell, or mortgage the home, the property remains entirely owned by the applicant.

The owner of an enhanced life estate has the same rights as complete ownership, including the right to sell without the remainderman consenting, and counts the property the same as any other real property the applicant owns, so it can be excluded when it qualifies as homestead, including under intent to return while the owner is away from the home. 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.

In contrast, a traditional life estate created within 60 months must be evaluated under uncompensated transfer rules — a penalty the lady bird deed successfully avoids.

Can Florida Medicaid recover against a lady bird deed after death?

No. Florida Statute § 409.9101(2) limits Medicaid estate recovery exclusively to probate assets administered under Chapter 733. Because Florida elected not to adopt the expanded federal definition under 42 U.S.C. § 1396p(b)(4)(B), real property transferring automatically via lady bird deed remains outside the recoverable estate.

Furthermore, under Florida Statute § 409.9101(7), Medicaid cannot enforce recovery against property constitutionally exempt from creditors under Article X, Section 4 of the Florida Constitution.

Does a lady bird deed protect my house from a nursing home?

The lady bird deed nursing home question is behind most searches about Medicaid and deeds, and it deserves a plain answer: the deed does not pay for care and does not stop a nursing home from being expensive. What it does is keep the home out of the probate estate, which is the only estate Florida’s Medicaid recovery program can reach.

The rest of the picture matters just as much. Qualifying for Medicaid long-term care is an income and asset analysis that the deed does not change, and a home you still own remains a countable-or-excluded asset under DCF’s rules while you are alive, exactly as the manual quoted above describes. Anyone telling you that recording one deed solves nursing home costs is selling something.

What a lady bird deed does not do about Medicaid

A lady bird deed is not the only thing standing between Florida Medicaid and your home, and it is worth being precise about what it adds. Florida homestead that passes to heirs is already protected from creditor claims, including claims by the Agency for Health Care Administration, under Article X, Section 4(b) of the Florida Constitution. That protection exists whether or not you ever sign a deed.

What the lady bird deed adds is certainty and simplicity. It keeps the home out of the probate estate entirely, so there is no proceeding in which a claim could be filed. It removes the need to litigate whether the property qualified as protected homestead or whether the people inheriting it qualify as heirs — both of which are contestable, and both of which are where families actually lose homes.

It also does nothing about the cost of care itself. A lady bird deed does not pay for a nursing home, does not qualify anyone for Medicaid, and does not shelter any asset other than the property described in it. Medicaid planning for a Broward County family usually involves more than one instrument, and the deed is one part of it.

---

The four sections that follow cover what happens after a death, and how a recorded deed is changed or revoked.

What Happens After the Owner Dies? Steps for Broward County Beneficiaries

When the property owner dies, title automatically vests in the named remainder beneficiaries. Beneficiaries must record a certified death certificate, file an affidavit of title, update property insurance policies, and adjust tax profiles with the Broward County Property Appraiser.

1. Obtain certified copies of the death certificate: secure certified Florida death certificates without the confidential cause-of-death redaction.
2. Record the documents in Broward County: record the certified death certificate and the affidavit with the Broward County Records, Taxes and Treasury Division at 115 S. Andrews Ave., Rm. 114 — the same counter where the deed itself was recorded, at the same $10.00 first-page charge.
3. Notify the Broward County Property Appraiser: submit updated title records to Room 111, or online at bcpa.net, and ask the appraiser to determine whether the property is reassessed on January 1 or whether a statutory exception applies to the person taking it.
4. Update casualty and hazard insurance: contact the property insurance carrier to update named insured records on the active policy. An unreported change of ownership is a coverage problem waiting for a storm.
5. Satisfy title insurance requirements: if selling the real estate, provide required documentation to title underwriters to confirm an unbroken chain of title.
6. Deal with the mortgage, if there is one: the lien passed with the property. Contact the servicer about assumption, refinancing, or payoff.
7. Review potential constitutional claims: if the owner was survived by a spouse or minor child, seek legal counsel immediately to evaluate Florida homestead devise restrictions under Fla. Stat. § 732.401.

For the complete post-death procedure, see the guide on what happens after the owner dies with a lady bird deed.

If a deed already exists and you want it read before you act on it, that is a separate engagement. 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.

Can my children sell the house after I die without probate?

Yes. Title vests in the remainder beneficiaries at the moment of death. Once they record a certified death certificate in the Broward Official Records and satisfy the title underwriter’s requirements, they can list, market and sell the property without opening a probate case. In a clean file that is a matter of weeks rather than the months a formal administration takes.

Will a title company insure a Broward County lady bird deed?

Usually, with conditions, provided the statutory and constitutional requirements were satisfied. In my experience Florida underwriters treat the remainder as a vested remainder subject to divestment and will insure title out of a lady bird deed when the record is clean. There is one situation where they generally will not: where the property was homestead and the owner was survived by a spouse or a minor child. In that case the constitutional devise restriction may have defeated the remainder designation, and no underwriter will insure past it without a court determination or a release.

Underwriters will verify that spousal joinder was obtained on homestead property, confirm no minor children survived, and check for judgments or tax liens against the remainder beneficiaries — which is the practical reason the beneficiary-creditor section above matters. Underwriting requirements vary between companies, and any specific requirement should be confirmed with the underwriter handling the file.

There is also an elective share question, and it is unsettled. Florida Statute § 732.2035(5) reaches property the decedent could revoke alone — which a lady bird deed is — subject to express carve-outs, and no Florida court has applied it to a lady bird remainder. If it does apply, the remainder sits in Class 3 under § 732.2075(2), the last class to contribute. The practical consequence is unchanged: where a surviving spouse exists, title underwriters frequently require a spousal waiver or confirmation that elective share rights have been satisfied before issuing clean title, and the plan should be built as though the statute reaches the remainder.

---

Is It Too Late?

Some people arrive at this page after something has already happened. These answers are short because the situations are urgent.

Can you file a lady bird deed after death?

No. A deed is signed by a living owner. Nobody — not a child, not an agent under a power of attorney, not a personal representative — can sign a lady bird deed on behalf of someone who has already died, and a deed signed before death but discovered afterward has its own set of problems. If the owner has died and no deed was recorded, the property passes under their will or by intestacy, and the route is probate rather than a deed.

That is not the end of the conversation. Florida homestead that passes to heirs carries its own protections, summary administration is available for some estates, and a determination of homestead status is a far smaller proceeding than a full administration. Those are the questions to ask now, and a Florida probate lawyer is the person to ask. Do not record anything in the meantime.

My mother is in a nursing home now. Is it too late to do this?

Not necessarily, and two separate questions are hiding inside that one. The first is capacity: can she understand and sign the deed? That is a present-day assessment, not a diagnosis, and being in a facility does not answer it either way. The second is whether a deed is still the right move given whatever Medicaid or long-term care planning is underway, because that analysis changes once care has started.

Both questions are answerable quickly. Neither is answerable from a website.

My father has dementia. Can someone sign for him?

Only if the authority exists, and a general power of attorney usually does not carry it. Florida requires specific enumerated authority for an agent to create or change a right of survivorship or a beneficiary designation, and a lady bird deed does exactly that kind of work. If a power of attorney is going to be used, the instrument itself has to be read first, and where it is inadequate the alternative is a guardianship proceeding rather than a deed.

A deed signed by an agent without the authority to sign it is the kind of defect that surfaces years later, after the person who could have fixed it is gone.

Which court hears the probate if the deed fails?

The Seventeenth Judicial Circuit, which covers Broward and nothing else — Fla. Stat. § 26.021 composes the Seventeenth of this county alone. The probate division sits at 201 S.E. 6th Street, Room 03150 in the West Building, roughly a mile and a half from where the deed was recorded and under entirely different management.

A single-county circuit is the easier kind to practice in: one set of administrative orders, one bench, no cross-county variation. But an easy probate is still a probate, with an inventory, a creditor period, and a file anyone can read. A deed that works avoids all of it.

¿Habla español?

Sí. Broward County is a heavily Spanish-speaking county and I practice in Spanish. If you are searching for qué es un lady bird deed — or que es un lady bird deed, as most people type it, without the accent — or for an abogado de bienes raíces en Broward, you and I can have the entire conversation in Spanish, and the documents are explained in Spanish before anything is signed.

---

Revoking or Changing a Lady Bird Deed

Yes. The power to revoke is the whole point of the instrument, and it belongs to you alone. You do not need your beneficiaries’ consent, their signatures, or their knowledge. You can revoke the deed, sell the property, mortgage it, or record a new deed naming different people, at any time while you are alive and competent.

People ask this in half a dozen ways — how to cancel a lady bird deed, how to change a ladybird deed, whether one can be reversed, whether a beneficiary has to agree — and the answer to every version is the same. Yes, and the mechanism never changes: you record a new instrument.

What you cannot do is change it informally. A lady bird deed is a recorded instrument, and it is changed by recording another one — not by a letter, not by a note in your papers, and not by a later will.

How do I revoke a lady bird deed?

In practice, by recording a new instrument in the Broward Official Records that does the job you want done. Depending on the situation that is either an express revocation, a new lady bird deed naming different beneficiaries that supersedes the earlier remainder designation, or a deed conveying the property outright to yourself. Which of those is correct depends on what the original deed says, on the marital and homestead position, and on what you are trying to achieve.

Two things are the same in every version: the new instrument has to satisfy the same execution requirements as the first — two subscribing witnesses, notarial acknowledgment, spousal joinder where the property is homestead and you are married — and it has to be recorded at 115 S. Andrews Avenue, Room 114, at the same $10.00 first-page charge. An unrecorded revocation sitting in a drawer is the same problem as an unrecorded deed.

How do I remove someone from a lady bird deed?

This is the version of the question most people actually have, and the answer is reassuring: you remove a remainder beneficiary the same way you named one. Because that person holds no present vested or possessory interest in the property, nothing has to be taken from them, they do not have to agree, and they have no legal right to object. A new deed naming the beneficiaries you now want, properly executed and recorded, replaces the designation.

Compare that with what would have happened had you added that person to your deed by quit claim instead. Then they would own a present interest, and removing them would require their signature — which is precisely the trap this instrument avoids.

I am getting divorced — how do I take my ex-spouse off?

Treat it as urgent rather than routine, and take advice before recording anything. A divorce raises two separate questions that a deed change alone does not answer: whether your former spouse was a remainder beneficiary who can simply be replaced, and whether they were a co-owner or a joining spouse whose interest in the property is part of the dissolution itself. The second is not fixed by recording a new deed, and recording one while a dissolution is pending can create problems of its own.

The one certainty is that nothing updates automatically. A recorded deed naming a former spouse continues to say what it says after a final judgment unless something is done about it.

Does a lady bird deed override my will?

Yes, as to the property it covers. The remainder passes by operation of the deed at the moment of death, before the will operates on anything. A will devising the same Broward house to someone else does not change that — which is why the two documents have to be read together, and why updating a will without looking at the deeds is one of the more common ways an estate plan quietly stops matching what the client wanted.

---

Snowbirds and Out-of-State Owners: The Second Probate

If you live somewhere else and own a condominium or a house in Broward County, your Florida property has a problem your home-state estate plan does not solve. Florida real property is governed by Florida law, and a will probated in Ohio, New York, Quebec or anywhere else does not, by itself, transfer a Florida deed.

Does my home state’s will cover my Florida condo?

Not without a Florida proceeding. The usual route is an ancillary administration — a second, separate probate opened in the Florida county where the property sits, running alongside or after the main probate in your home state. It is a real case with a real file: a petition, a personal representative, the creditor process, attorney’s fees, and months of elapsed time, all to move one piece of Florida real estate.

For a Broward property, that ancillary case goes to the probate division of the Seventeenth Judicial Circuit at 201 S.E. 6th Street, about a mile and a half from where a deed would have been recorded.

What is ancillary probate, and does a lady bird deed avoid it?

Ancillary probate Florida law governs the proceeding used to administer Florida assets of someone who died domiciled in another state. A properly drafted and recorded lady bird deed on the Florida property avoids it entirely as to that property, for the same reason it avoids a domestic probate: title passes by operation of the deed at death, so there is nothing for a Florida court to administer.

For a non-resident owner this is the strongest version of the argument for the instrument. A Florida resident with a lady bird deed avoids one probate. A New Jersey resident who owns a Hallandale Beach condominium avoids a second one — the one their family would otherwise have to open in a state where they know nobody.

Can I use a lady bird deed if I am not a Florida resident?

Yes. The instrument attaches to Florida land, not to the owner’s residency. What changes for a non-resident is the homestead layer: Florida’s homestead exemption and the constitutional protections that go with it require permanent residency, so a Broward vacation condominium owned by a Massachusetts resident is non-homestead property. That removes the spousal joinder requirement that flows from the homestead clause and the minor-child restriction, and it also removes the constitutional creditor protection. The probate-avoidance benefit — the reason you are here — is unaffected.

Execution can be handled remotely. Florida permits remote witnessing by audio-video technology under Fla. Stat. § 689.01(2), and under § 117.265(1) an online notary physically located in Florida may notarize regardless of where the signer and the witnesses are. A deed can therefore be signed from another state or another country and recorded in Broward County without anyone traveling.

---

Lady Bird Deed Broward County: Frequently Asked Questions

Where do I take my deed to be recorded in Broward County?

At the Broward County Records, Taxes and Treasury Division, 115 S. Andrews Avenue, Room 114, Fort Lauderdale, FL 33301, open 8:30 a.m. to 5:00 p.m., 954-831-4000 or 3-1-1. Filings can be made in person, by mail, or through an approved electronic recording vendor. Not at the Clerk of Courts.

How much does it cost to file a lady bird deed in Florida, all in?

In Broward County, $675 flat — the free consultation, drafting, remote online notarization where it suits your situation, and all recording costs. The county’s recording charge for a typical two-page deed is $18.50 under Fla. Stat. § 28.24(13) — fixed by statute and identical in every Florida county — and it is absorbed in the fee rather than billed on top. Any documentary stamp tax is separate from the $675 and is worked out from the facts of the transaction. Files involving a mortgage, spousal joinder, multiple properties or a title defect are quoted before work begins.

Do I need a lawyer to do a lady bird deed in Broward County?

No law requires it, and plenty of people do this themselves. The risk is specific rather than theoretical: a defective deed records without objection, looks valid for years, and is discovered after the owner has died, when the person who could have corrected it is gone. The four defects that recur in self-prepared deeds are missing spousal joinder, weak reservation language, recited consideration, and no contingent beneficiary.

Can I file a lady bird deed myself in Broward County?

Yes. Any individual may submit a deed for recording at 115 S. Andrews Avenue, Room 114. Bring the original executed deed signed before two subscribing witnesses and notarized, the correct legal description and folio number, and payment for recording fees and any documentary stamps.

Is there a free Broward County lady bird deed form?

There is no official state or county form, and a form sold as a “Broward County” deed is not county-specific in any way that matters, because the county does not prescribe deed content. Generic templates fail in four predictable ways described above. The clause-by-clause anatomy of the document is covered in the Florida lady bird deed form guide.

Does a lady bird deed avoid probate in Broward County?

Yes. A properly executed and recorded lady bird deed transfers real property automatically to the remainder beneficiaries at the owner’s death, bypassing the Broward County probate court entirely as to that property.

Can a lady bird deed be revoked?

Yes, at any time while you are alive and competent, without the consent or knowledge of any remainder beneficiary. Revocation is done by recording a new instrument in the Broward Official Records — not by a letter, a note, or a later will — and the new instrument must satisfy the same execution requirements as the original.

How do I change or cancel a lady bird deed?

You record a replacement deed naming the beneficiaries you now want, or an outright revocation. Because a remainder beneficiary holds no present vested interest, that person does not have to consent, sign, or be notified, and has no legal right to object.

Broward County register of deeds — which office is that?

Broward County has no officer with either title, and the Clerk of Courts is not the recorder — a search for a Broward County FL register of deeds is looking for the Records, Taxes and Treasury Division. The Clerk manages court and probate proceedings at 201 S.E. 6th Street. Deeds are recorded with the Broward County Records, Taxes and Treasury Division at 115 S. Andrews Avenue. A 2020 special act directs the recorder function to the Clerk; in practice the Division continues to take deeds in.

Can I e-record a deed in Broward County?

Yes, through approved third-party e-recording vendors. It is the fastest route and the one used for deeds prepared by this firm. Individual owners recording a single deed generally use walk-in or mail instead, because a vendor account is a business relationship.

What are the Broward County recording fees for a deed?

$10.00 for the first page, $8.50 for each additional page, and $1.00 for each indexed name beyond four, under Fla. Stat. § 28.24(13). A typical two-page deed is $18.50. Documentary stamp tax, if any, is separate.

How do I search Broward County deed records by name or address?

By name, at officialrecords.broward.org/AcclaimWeb, or in person at 115 S. Andrews Avenue, Room 114. By address is a two-step: bcpa.net first for the folio and the owner’s name, then the Official Records under that name. The portal does not index by street address.

Where do I find my Broward County folio number?

Through the Broward County Property Appraiser at bcpa.net, or by calling 954-357-6830. The Property Appraiser’s office is at 115 S. Andrews Avenue, Room 111 — two rooms from the recording counter.

Does a lady bird deed affect my homestead exemption?

No. Under Fla. Stat. § 196.041(2), the retained life interest is equitable title, so you remain the person entitled to the exemption. The Save Our Homes cap is a separate question, answered by section 193.155(3)(a)1.c rather than section 196.041(2): it is designed to continue where the deed lists you as both grantor and grantee. 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. One warning: a remainder beneficiary must not apply for homestead on the property while you are alive, because that application is treated as a change of ownership.

Do my children keep my Save Our Homes cap?

Generally not. When the property vests in an adult, non-dependent child who fits none of the statutory exceptions, it is a change of ownership and the property is reassessed at just value on January 1 following the death. The deed avoids probate; it does not carry the cap. On a long-held Broward home this is a substantial tax increase and your family should know about it in advance.

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.

I still owe on my house — can I do this?

Yes. The mortgage stays where it is, you remain the borrower, and the lien passes with the house to your beneficiaries. Two things change: documentary stamp tax on mortgaged property is unsettled under Florida law, and the loan documents should be reviewed against the due-on-sale clause before recording. This is the most common reason a Broward file is not a flat-fee file.

Do you owe documentary stamp tax on a lady bird deed on mortgaged property in Florida?

It is unsettled, but not in the way most pages say. The general rule applies — § 201.02 counts an outstanding mortgage as consideration whether or not it is assumed. What no Florida court or published advisement has decided is whether the whole balance is consideration for a remainder interest when the grantor keeps a life estate, or whether the base should be apportioned. No reliable figure can be given, and the deed should be reviewed before recording.

Can I still sell my house after I record one?

Yes, and you do not need your beneficiaries’ signatures or consent. The reserved powers to sell, mortgage, lease and revoke are what make this an enhanced life estate deed rather than a plain one. A sale extinguishes the remainder interests.

How soon can my children sell the house after I die?

Sooner than probate would allow. Title vests at the moment of death. A certified death certificate goes into the Broward Official Records, the title underwriter sets its requirements, and the sale proceeds — no probate case, and in a clean file a matter of weeks rather than months.

Will my child’s debts put the house at risk?

Not while you are alive — and that is exactly its advantage over adding a child to the deed. Your child holds no vested interest a creditor can reach, because you can defeat it at any moment by selling, mortgaging or revoking. After your death the position reverses: the property is theirs, and their creditors, liens and circumstances attach to it like any other asset they own. If a beneficiary has a judgment against them, is in a divorce, or is in bankruptcy, say so before the deed is drafted.

My beneficiary receives SSI or disability benefits. Is this still the right instrument?

Often not. Needs-based benefits carry strict asset limits, and receiving an interest in a Broward house can end them. The instrument for that situation is a trust built to hold the property without disqualifying them, with the deed written around it. Raise it at the first conversation, because it changes the recommendation rather than the drafting.

Can I use a lady bird deed on a cooperative apartment?

Generally no. A cooperative interest is ordinarily shares in a corporation plus a proprietary lease — personal property, not real property — and a deed is the wrong instrument for it. This matters in Lauderdale Lakes, Lauderhill and other central-Broward buildings. Establish what you own before paying for a deed.

Does a lady bird deed work on a mobile home?

It depends on titling. If the home has been permanently affixed to land you own and converted to real property, a deed reaches it. If it remains separately titled through the state, a deed describing the land does not carry the home sitting on it. Bring both documents.

Does my out-of-state transfer-on-death deed cover my Florida property?

No. Florida has no transfer-on-death deed statute, and an instrument executed under another state’s statute has no effect on Florida land. The Florida property needs a Florida instrument.

What is ancillary probate and does this avoid it?

Ancillary probate is a second Florida proceeding used to administer Florida real estate of someone who died domiciled elsewhere. A recorded lady bird deed avoids it entirely as to that property. For a non-resident owner of a Broward condominium this is the strongest argument for the instrument.

Will the condo board be able to block it?

A transfer at death by recorded deed is not a sale, and most screening machinery is written around sales and leases — but association documents vary, and some are drawn more broadly. Read the transfer article of your declaration before naming beneficiaries on a unit, and expect estoppel and transfer costs in any event.

What is the difference between a lady bird deed and a quit claim deed in Broward County?

A quit claim deed immediately transfers your current interest to someone else. A lady bird deed keeps full ownership and control in your hands for life and transfers title only at your death. In Florida the lady bird deed is often drafted in quit claim form — the form is the same, the operative reservation language is not.

Warranty deed vs. lady bird deed — which one do I need?

They answer different questions, so it is rarely a choice between them. A warranty deed is about what the grantor promises regarding title; a lady bird deed is about when the interest passes and what the owner retains. A Florida lady bird deed can be drafted in either warranty or quit claim form.

Is a lady bird deed the same as a plain life estate deed?

No — and note that this is the opposite answer to the enhanced life estate deed question above, because these are two different instruments with confusingly similar names. A plain life estate deed transfers a vested remainder immediately and leaves the life tenant unable to sell or mortgage without the remaindermen’s consent. A lady bird deed — an enhanced life estate deed — gives the owner those powers, so nothing is given away during the owner’s lifetime.

What are the disadvantages of a lady bird deed in Florida?

Nine of them, set out in full above: it covers one property only, your children generally lose the Save Our Homes cap, the protection ends the moment it vests in them, it cannot stage or condition what they receive, it is void on homestead if the marital or minor-child question is wrong, co-owning beneficiaries can end up in a partition suit, the documentary stamp position on mortgaged property is unsettled, no Florida appellate court has squarely validated the mechanism, and it does nothing about incapacity.

Deed or trust — which should I use?

For an owner whose main asset is a single Florida home, a lady bird deed does the same probate-avoidance job at a fraction of the cost. A revocable living trust is better where there are multiple properties, out-of-state assets, minor or special-needs beneficiaries, a need to stage or condition what a child receives, or a need to plan for incapacity.

My will leaves the house to someone else. Which one wins?

The deed. It acts at the instant of death, and by the time the will takes effect the property has already passed to the remainder beneficiaries. This is why a will should never be updated without someone reading the deeds alongside it.

What is the Florida lady bird deed statute?

There is none. Chapter 689 does not authorize the instrument. Its validity rests on Florida common law, the Florida Bar RPPTL Uniform Title Standards, and long-standing title insurance underwriting practice.

Can I get a lady bird deed PDF or printable template?

Downloadable PDFs and printable templates exist, but a Florida deed has to match the property’s existing legal description, the owner’s marital and homestead status, and the beneficiary structure. A printable form cannot do any of those, which is why defects in template-based deeds are so consistent.

What does a lady bird deed look like in Florida?

Like an ordinary warranty or quit claim deed with one crucial addition: a life estate expressly conveyed to the owner, coupled with the power to sell, convey, mortgage, lease and revoke without the remaindermen’s joinder. That reservation clause is the entire difference.

Does a quit claim deed avoid probate in Florida?

Only in the sense that you no longer own the property, because you gave it away while alive. That carries consequences a lady bird deed avoids: exposure to the recipient’s creditors and divorce, loss of the stepped-up tax basis, and no ability to change your mind.

What is a ladybird trust?

There is no such thing. The term confuses two instruments. A lady bird deed is a deed covering one parcel of real property; a revocable living trust is a separate instrument that can hold many kinds of assets.

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 it must identify the trust by name and date: under section 689.07 a deed that adds only the word trustee, without naming the trust or its date, hands the trustee the property in fee simple with full power to sell and encumber it — the opposite of what was intended, and a problem nobody notices until the property is being sold. The fee-simple result is not automatic, though. 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.

Can a power of attorney sign a lady bird deed in Florida?

Only if the power of attorney expressly grants the authority, and two separate statutes both have to be satisfied. Fla. Stat. § 689.111 governs the instrument itself — the power of attorney must be executed in the same manner as a deed, and nothing in that section dispenses with spousal joinder on homestead, though joinder can be accomplished through a power of attorney. Fla. Stat. § 709.2201(2)(b) governs the agent’s authority — an agent may convey homestead, but not without the spouse joining if the principal is married. Florida also requires specific enumerated authority for an agent to create or change a right of survivorship or a beneficiary designation, so a general form will usually not be sufficient. Have the instrument reviewed before relying on it. The detail is set out in full on can a power of attorney sign a lady bird deed in Florida.

My mother died without one. Is there anything to be done now?

No. A deed is signed by a living owner, and nobody can sign one on behalf of someone who has already died. If the owner has died with no deed recorded, the property passes under the will or by intestacy and the route is probate. Homestead protections, summary administration and a determination of homestead may still make that a much smaller proceeding than expected.

How fast is deed recording in Broward County?

It varies with the Division’s queue — e-recording fastest, walk-in next, mail slowest. Watch the date that matters: notice runs from the book and page stamp, not from the day you signed. Confirm the current turnaround before you build a closing around it.

What do I need to bring to record a deed at 115 S. Andrews Avenue?

The original, not a copy — signed in front of two subscribing witnesses, notarized, carrying the right legal description and folio number, with payment for the recording charge and any documentary stamps due.

---

Broward County Areas Served

Lady bird deeds are prepared and recorded for property owners across Broward County, from the coastal condominium corridor to the western single-family communities. Wherever the property sits — Fort Lauderdale, Hollywood, Pompano Beach, Pembroke Pines, Coral Springs, Miramar, Plantation, Sunrise, Davie, Weston, Parkland, Deerfield Beach, Lauderhill, Lauderdale Lakes, Tamarac, Hallandale Beach, Oakland Park, Coconut Creek, Margate or North Lauderdale — every one of them is recorded in the same central Official Records series at 115 S. Andrews Avenue in Fort Lauderdale. For estates reaching into neighboring counties, see Palm Beach County lady bird deeds and the Miami lady bird deed guide.

---

Talk to a Broward County Lady Bird Deed Attorney

Estate planning with real estate requires precision to avoid title failures and tax surprises. Use this framework to evaluate your next step:

• Married homeowners: spousal joinder is constitutionally required on Florida homestead. Do not record anything without it.
• Families with minor children: constitutional devise restrictions prevent a lady bird deed from transferring homestead away from a minor child. Alternative planning is required.
• Mortgaged properties: unsettled documentary stamp treatment and the due-on-sale clause both call for review before recording.
• A beneficiary on needs-based assistance: naming them directly can cost them their benefits. This changes the instrument, not just the drafting.
• Condominium and co-op owners: establish what you own and read the transfer article before naming anyone.
• Out-of-state owners: the deed avoids a second Florida probate your home-state will cannot prevent.
• Single owners with adult beneficiaries: a lady bird deed is a clean, low-cost probate-avoidance tool for a single residence.
• Told you need a life estate attorney: Broward County and Fort Lauderdale clients are sent looking for one under that name all the time. It is the same deed work described on this page, done by a real property and estate planning lawyer.
• The owner has already died: speak with a Florida probate lawyer about title transfer and administration. Do not record anything first.

What should you bring to a consultation?

The recorded deed, the folio number, and the mortgage statement. Those three answer the questions that determine both the tax and whether the deed can be drafted at all.

If the property is a condominium, add the most recent assessment notice and anything the association has sent about a special assessment or an inspection. If anyone in the family receives needs-based assistance, say so at the outset — a remainder interest arriving at death can end a benefit, and the remedy has to be designed into the instrument rather than bolted on afterward.

How do you reach a lady bird deed attorney for Broward County?

Searching lady bird deed near me from anywhere in the county turns up the same answer, because one office records them all and, here, one attorney prepares them. Call (305) 224-6811 or use the contact page. You will speak with the attorney who will prepare your deed, and the same attorney will handle the file from the first call to the recorded instrument coming back. Jose M. Lorenzo, Jr., Esq. (Fla. Bar No. 107002) practices from 12 SE 7th St., Suite 701, Fort Lauderdale, and assists property owners throughout Broward County with estate planning, probate and real estate conveyancing. Se habla español.