Lady Bird Deed Fort Myers: The Checklist Lee County Will Delete Your Order Without
A lady bird deed Fort Myers homeowners sign is recorded on the second floor of 2115 Second Street. If it fails, the estate opens forty blocks away on Martin Luther King Boulevard — different building, different post office box, and a mandatory checklist most people filing there have never heard of. At Lorenzo Law I handle these across Lee County. Jose M. Lorenzo, Jr., Florida Bar member 107002.
| Lee County | Where |
|---|---|
| Deeds | Clerk of the Circuit Court, 2115 Second Street, 2nd Floor, Fort Myers |
| Probate | Justice Center, 2075 Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd., Fort Myers — a different building |
| Homestead and parcel data | Property Appraiser, 2480 Thompson Street, 4th Floor, Fort Myers |
| Judicial circuit | Twentieth — Charlotte, Collier, Glades, Hendry and Lee |
| Recording, page one | $10.00, then $8.50 each later page |
| Documentary stamps | $0.70 per $100 — the standard rate, no surtax |
| Lorenzo Law flat fee | $675, recording included |
| Call | (305) 224-6811 |
Where does a lady bird deed Fort Myers owners sign get recorded?
The second floor of 2115 Second Street, in the Lee County Constitutional Complex. The Clerk’s Official Records counter runs on (239) 533-5007.
Hours are 8:30 in the morning until 4:45 in the afternoon. Note the closing time. It is 4:45, not five o’clock. Sarasota’s counter runs to five and Naples runs to five, so a homeowner who drives in from Lehigh Acres at half past four with a signed deed on the passenger seat has fifteen minutes, not forty-five.
Deeds sent by post go to Lee County Clerk of Courts, P.O. Box 2278, Fort Myers 33902, with a stamped self-addressed envelope and payment enclosed. Copy that number carefully. Estates use a different box entirely, and a deed posted to the wrong one comes back unrecorded a week later.
Why is the estate handled in a different building?
Because Lee splits recording from the courts across two buildings and two post office boxes. Deeds go to Second Street. Estates go to the Justice Center.
The Lee County Justice Center sits at 2075 Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard, second floor, and its mail goes to P.O. Box 2469.
| County in this series | Deed goes to | Estate goes to |
|---|---|---|
| Lee | 2115 Second St., 2nd floor — Box 2278 | 2075 MLK Jr. Blvd., 2nd floor — Box 2469 |
| Collier | 3315 Tamiami Trail E., Suite 102 | The same suite |
| Sarasota | 2000 Main St. | The same building |
| St. Johns | 4010 Lewis Speedway | The same building |
| Escambia | 221 Palafox Place, Suite 110 | 190 W. Government St. — a different building |
Two of the five counties in this series separate the two functions. Lee is one of them, and it is the one where the separation costs the most, for the reason set out next.
What is the Lee County probate checklist?
A form the Twentieth Judicial Circuit requires with every petition. File without it and your proposed order is deleted unread — not rejected with a note, removed.
The circuit’s own case management page states that the checklists “must be filed with the Clerk of Court either prior to or simultaneously with submission of the corresponding Petition for Formal Administration, Petition for Summary Administration or Final Discharge,” and that “failure to file the appropriate completed and signed checklist will result in proposed orders being deleted and not processed for review by the Court.”
There are three: formal administration, summary administration, and the petition for discharge. Each must be completed and signed. The circuit also requires documents be submitted with editing enabled, because a locked file cannot be worked on by the court.
Now the part that matters for this page. Collier County, in the same circuit, under the same administrative structure, has no case management at all. The circuit’s page says so plainly and directs Collier filers to their own clerk. Charlotte, Hendry and Glades likewise have none.
| Twentieth Circuit county | Probate case management |
|---|---|
| Lee | Mandatory checklists — a missing one deletes the order |
| Collier | None |
| Charlotte | None |
| Hendry | None |
| Glades | None |
The same estate, with the same facts and the same lawyer, is handled one way in Fort Myers and another way forty minutes north in Naples. That is not a footnote. It is the difference between an order being read and an order vanishing.
A lady bird deed is how you avoid finding out. The homestead never enters an estate, so no petition is filed, and no checklist is required for a proceeding that never opens.
Can I record the deed anywhere other than downtown Fort Myers?
Yes. The Cape Coral branch records deeds. It does not handle probate, so an estate still comes back across the bridge to Fort Myers.
| Counter | Address | Records deeds | Probate |
|---|---|---|---|
| Fort Myers | 2115 Second St., 2nd floor | Yes | Filed at the Justice Center |
| Cape Coral | 1039 SE 9th Place, 2nd floor | Yes | No |
Both run 8:30 to 4:45. The Clerk’s deed-recording requirements page lists both addresses for in-person submission, so a Cape Coral owner has no reason to cross the river to record. If that same owner dies with the homestead still in the estate, the family drives to Fort Myers, because the Cape Coral counter’s published services do not include probate.
A third location is coming. The Clerk announced in September 2025 an office at 600 Homestead Road South in Lehigh Acres, inside the East Lee County Government Complex, slated to open in early fall of 2026 and offering most of the services available in Fort Myers, courts and official records among them.
What does recording a lady bird deed cost in Lee County?
Page one costs $10.00, and every page behind it adds $8.50. A two-page deed on an unencumbered homestead reaches $19.20 at the counter.
| Charge | Amount |
|---|---|
| First page | $10.00 |
| Each additional page | $8.50 |
| Each name indexed past the first four | $1.00 |
| Documentary stamps, nominal consideration | $0.70 |
| Two-page deed, at the counter | $19.20 |
That $10.00 is not a Lee County rate. It is three statutory charges stacked together under section 28.24(13): a $5.00 base for the first page, $1.00 to the Public Records Modernization Trust Fund, and a $4.00 court technology charge. Later pages run $4.00 plus $0.50 plus $4.00. Every county in this series charges the identical figure, because none of them sets it.
The documentary stamp is the number that surprises people. Under section 201.02 the tax runs 70 cents per $100 of consideration, and the Florida Department of Revenue’s published guidance is that a deed reciting nominal consideration — “love and affection and $1,” or “$10 or other good and valuable consideration” — draws 70 cents in total. Not 70 cents per hundred of the home’s value. Seventy cents.
So a Fort Myers homestead worth $400,000, conveyed to two children on an unencumbered title, costs $19.20 to record. The arithmetic holds whether the house is worth $200,000 or $2 million, because there is no consideration to tax.
That changes if there is a mortgage. Section 201.02 counts “the amount of any mortgage, purchase money mortgage lien, or other encumbrance” as consideration. An unencumbered homestead is the clean case.
Does a lady bird deed cost me my homestead exemption?
No. A life tenant holds equitable title and the statute says so in terms. The exemption survives, and so does the assessment cap underneath it.
Section 196.041(2) provides that a person who otherwise qualifies by residence is entitled to the homestead exemption where their possessory right “is based upon an instrument granting to him or her a beneficial interest for life,” and it declares that interest to be “equitable title to real estate.”
You will not find that on the county’s website. The Lee County Property Appraiser publishes a general exemption page, a portability page and a FAQ, and none mentions a life estate, a life tenant, or a remainderman. The only ownership variation the office addresses is a trust. A Lee County homeowner researching this on the county’s own site finds nothing, which is why so many conclude, wrongly, that recording the deed costs them the exemption.
Two Lee County specifics are worth having:
- March 1 is the filing deadline. The Property Appraiser states applications must be submitted by March 1 of the year in which you qualify to be considered timely filed, that you must hold legal title or a beneficial interest as of January 1, and that the property must be your permanent residence as of January 1.
- The office asks to hear about ownership changes. Its exemption page says that if ownership changes in any manner you need to contact the office, giving trusts and LLCs as examples. A lady bird deed does not change who is entitled to the exemption, but the call is cheap and the record is clean.
Save Our Homes follows the exemption. The Property Appraiser explains that homesteaded property automatically receives the benefit the year after the exemption is granted, limiting annual assessment increases to the lower of 3% or the change in the Consumer Price Index. Portability transfers up to $500,000 of that accumulated benefit, on form DR-501T, filed by March 1 and within three years of January 1 of the year the previous homestead was abandoned.
Under section 193.155(3), a change of ownership means a transfer of legal or beneficial title in equity — and the statute carves out transfers converting between legal and equitable title where the same person remains entitled to the exemption. That carve-out is the mechanism. The life tenant keeps the exemption and keeps the cap.
Do I have to sign in front of witnesses?
Two of them, plus a notary. Section 689.01(1) requires an interest in Florida real property be created by writing “signed in the presence of two subscribing witnesses.”
Section 695.26 supplies the recording formalities: printed names and post office addresses beneath the signatures, the name and address of whoever prepared the instrument, the grantee’s address, and a blank three-inch square in the upper right of the first page for the Clerk’s stamp, with a one-inch by three-inch space on each page after.
Lee County will refuse a deed failing any of these. The refusal comes by post, days later, and the deed sits unrecorded the whole time.
Can I use a free lady bird deed form I found online?
You can. Whether it does what you want is a different question. A free form cannot read your title, and title is where these fail.
A blank template has no way of knowing that your property carries a mortgage with a due-on-sale clause, that a prior deed left a defect in the legal description, that one of your children receives needs-based benefits a sudden remainder interest would disqualify, or that a minor child in the household makes homestead descent mandatory under section 732.401 regardless of what your deed says. Each of those turns a correctly-typed document into a worse outcome than doing nothing.
The do-it-yourself version also has to survive the Clerk. Two subscribing witnesses, the notary block, the preparer’s name and address, the reserved stamp space, the grantee’s address — a form that misses one comes back by post, and the days it spends in transit are days the deed is not in effect.
The form is not the work. The title check before it, and the diagnosis of whether this is the right instrument at all, is the work.
Should I e-record instead of going to the counter?
Not if the timing matters. The Clerk expressly recommends in-person submission for time-sensitive filings, because same-day recording is not assured.
E-recording runs through CSC, eRecording Partners Network, Hopdox, Indecomm and Simplifile. Typical processing runs within two business days.
Two business days is usually irrelevant. It stops being irrelevant when the life tenant is in hospice, because this deed operates only if it is recorded and effective before death. The counter on Second Street exists for exactly that case.
What does Lorenzo Law charge for a Fort Myers lady bird deed?
$675 flat, recording included. The $19.20 the county charges comes out of that fee rather than sitting on top of it.
The fee covers the title check, drafting, the execution appointment with witnesses and notary, and delivery to the Clerk at 2115 Second Street.
What it does not cover is the matter that should not be a lady bird deed at all. Lender consent problems, a blended family where the remainder split will be contested, a beneficiary on needs-based benefits, or a homestead where a minor child makes section 732.401 descent mandatory — each turns a $675 document into a problem. Finding that out is part of the work.
What is a lady bird deed, in one paragraph?
An enhanced life estate deed conveys the remainder in your homestead while you keep everything. You may still live there, sell, mortgage, or revoke it without anyone’s permission.
Nothing vests in the remaindermen until you die. At that point the property passes to them outside probate, which means no petition, no personal representative, and — in Lee County specifically — no checklist.
Where should you go next?
Start with the hub if you are still deciding whether this deed fits. Start with a sibling page if you already know which county the property sits in.
The Florida lady bird deed hub covers the statewide mechanics, the Medicaid treatment and the situations where this is the wrong instrument. What a lady bird deed actually is walks the mechanics more slowly, and the Florida form discussion covers what the document itself has to contain.
If your property is across the river, the Cape Coral page covers the flood-zone questions that come with a canal lot. If it is in Collier County, Naples covers the same circuit’s very different probate practice.
A lady bird deed Fort Myers owners record correctly costs $19.20 at the counter on Second Street and keeps the homestead out of the Justice Center entirely. Call (305) 224-6811 and we will look at the deed you have before drafting the one you need. Our preparation checklist lists what to bring.
Last updated: 7 August 2026. What changed: new page. Lee County recording fees, counter hours and both post office boxes verified against the Clerk’s published schedule; the probate checklist requirement verified against the Twentieth Judicial Circuit’s case management page; homestead and portability figures verified against the Lee County Property Appraiser.
This page is general information about Florida law, not legal advice, and reading it does not create an attorney-client relationship. Lorenzo Law is a solo practice — Jose M. Lorenzo, Jr., assisted by staff. Florida Bar No. 107002.