Lady Bird Deed in Florida: How It Works, What It Costs, and When It Does Not Work

A lady bird deed in Florida — formally an enhanced life estate deed — transfers your real property to a named beneficiary at your death without probate, while you keep the unrestricted right to sell, mortgage, lease, rent or revoke it during your life without that beneficiary’s consent or knowledge. It is also written ladybird deed, and its formal name is the enhanced life estate deed. Florida has no transfer on death deed, and a Florida lady bird deed is what the state uses instead.

It is also the wrong instrument for a meaningful number of the people who ask for one, and the reasons are constitutional rather than technical. This page sets out the pros and cons of a Florida lady bird deed, how the deed works, what Florida requires to make one valid, what a lady bird deed costs, how to tell whether you need one at all, the two situations in which it fails rather than merely being inadvisable, and what happens to your property taxes on the day you die — which is the part almost nobody is told. Every proposition below is tied to the statute, rule, advisement or decision behind it.

The short answers

Question	Answer	Where it comes from
Is there a Florida lady bird deed statute?	No. No statute creates it. Florida courts and title underwriters recognize it anyway	Hirschenson (Fla. 3d DCA 2023); Uniform Title Standards 6.10–6.12
Does it avoid probate?	Yes, for the property described in the deed — and nothing else	Title vests in the remainderman at death by operation of law
Can I still sell or mortgage the house?	Yes, alone, without the beneficiary’s consent or knowledge	Hirschenson; Varano (Fla. 4th DCA 2025)
How many witnesses?	Two, and you must sign in their presence. Notarised to be recordable	§ 689.01(1); § 695.03
If I am married, does my spouse have to sign?	On homestead, yes — even if the spouse is not on the title	Art. X, § 4(c), Fla. Const.; Clemons v. Thornton
If I have a minor child?	Not on homestead if that child survives you — to anyone, your spouse included. The remainder fails, and the homestead passes under § 732.401 instead. No statute cures that, and no decision supplies a repair. Your life estate and retained powers survive, and the test is applied at your death, not when you sign; a deed to your spouse is permitted only where no minor child survives	§ 732.4017(1) → § 732.4015(1) → § 732.401
Does it trigger the Medicaid five-year look-back?	Not on the better reading. Nothing has been given away while you can still take it back	42 U.S.C. § 1396p(c)
Can Medicaid recover against the house after I die?	Not as Florida law currently stands. Florida recovers from the probate estate only	§ 409.9101(2); § 731.201(14)
Do my heirs get a step-up in basis?	Yes. The property is in your gross estate, and that is what produces the step-up	IRC § 2036(a)(1) → IRC § 1014(a)
Do I file a gift tax return?	No. It is an incomplete gift while you keep the power to revoke	Treas. Reg. § 25.2511-2(c)
Documentary stamp tax if the house is mortgaged?	Unresolved in Florida. The better argument is that none is due on a properly drafted one, because no present beneficial interest passes — but no court or rule has decided it	See documentary stamp tax
Does my homestead exemption survive?	Yes during your life. Your Save Our Homes cap generally does not survive your death unless a statutory exception applies	§ 193.155(3); see below
Can a power of attorney sign one for my parent?	Usually not. It takes specifically enumerated authority, signed or initialled by the principal next to it	§ 709.2202(1); § 709.2202(6)
What are the pros and cons?	Probate avoided on one parcel with total control retained, against no incapacity planning, no privacy and a lost tax cap	See pros and cons
Do I need one, and is it a good idea?	Yes if the home is your main asset and your children are adults. No if you have a funded trust. Never if you have a minor child	See do I need one
Is “ladybird deed” the same thing?	Yes. One word or two, and formally an enhanced life estate deed — one instrument	See the spelling
What do you charge?	$675 flat, including the cost of recording	See what it costs

Start with your situation

Start with the situation that brought you here. Two of these can end in a new deed. The third cannot.

• You are planning for your own property. Start with who can and cannot use one, then what it costs and how to get one.
• You are helping a parent or relative who is still living. Being someone’s child or relative does not by itself give you authority to sign. The owner signs. Whether anyone else may sign for them is a separate question — start with whether a power of attorney can — and the homestead rules turn on the owner’s marriage and children rather than yours.
• The owner has already died. Do not prepare a new lady bird deed for the deceased owner. Start with the deed that already exists, the death certificate, and the steps that establish the resulting ownership — what the family does after the owner dies. If the existing deed looks wrong, read how to tell whether it is defective.

What is a lady bird deed in Florida?

A lady bird deed is a deed you record now that takes effect at your death. The deed conveys the property to you for life, with the express power to undo the whole thing at any time, and on your death to a named beneficiary — the remainderman. You appear on it as both grantor and grantee.

Nothing about your daily ownership changes. You live there, you pay the taxes and insurance, you keep the homestead exemption, and you can sell the house tomorrow and spend the proceeds without telling the beneficiary. What changes is what happens on the day you die: title passes to the beneficiary automatically, by operation of law, without a probate case.

The name comes from a teaching example that used the Johnson family, and it has no legal significance. In Florida the accurate name is enhanced life estate deed, and if you are searching for the statute or asking a title company about it, that is the phrase that gets you a useful answer.

What the word “enhanced” is doing

In an ordinary life estate deed, the remainder vests in your beneficiary the moment you sign. From that day you cannot sell, mortgage or refinance without their signature, and if they refuse, or divorce, or go bankrupt, or simply stop speaking to you, you are stuck in your own house.

The enhanced version reserves powers that prevent that from happening: the power to sell, convey, mortgage, encumber, lease or gift the property without the beneficiary’s joinder, the right to keep every dollar of proceeds, and the power to replace or remove the beneficiary entirely. Those reserved powers are not decoration. They are what produces every advantage on this page — the Medicaid treatment, the step-up in basis, the absence of a gift tax return, and the documentary stamp result. Drop them and you have a different instrument with worse consequences.

What your beneficiary actually owns while you are alive

Very little, which is the point. Your beneficiary has no right of possession, no right to object to anything you do, nothing they can give a lender or a buyer, and no enforceable interest at all unless you die without having exercised your powers.

The precise legal characterization is unsettled, and it is worth stating accurately rather than confidently. In Hirschenson v. Compu-Link Corp. of MI, 389 So. 3d 574, 576 n.1 (Fla. 3d DCA 2023), the Third District quoted a commentator’s description of the remainderman’s interest as “at best, vested and subject to defeasance, but arguably contingent” — a characterization the court repeated rather than adopted as a holding. Title industry materials generally call it a vested remainder subject to divestment. Nothing turns on the label while you are alive. It matters in exactly one situation, and that is if a beneficiary dies before you do.

Ladybird deed or lady bird deed — is there a difference?

No. A ladybird deed and a lady bird deed are the same instrument, and Florida title underwriters treat the two spellings as interchangeable. The one-word form is simply how most people type it, and it is the spelling you will see on a good deal of the Florida material written about this deed.

The formal name is the enhanced life estate deed, and that is what the instrument is usually called in Florida title standards and in the case law — not a “ladybird deed.” If you are searching for an enhanced life estate deed in Florida, a Florida enhanced life estate deed, a ladybird deed in Florida, or a lady bird deed in Florida, you are searching for one document.

The nickname is usually attributed to President Lyndon Johnson conveying land to his wife, Lady Bird Johnson, by this sort of deed. The story is almost certainly apocryphal — nobody has produced the deed — but the name stuck, and a “lady bird trust” is not a thing at all. There is no trust involved and nothing is held in trust.

How does a lady bird deed work in Florida?

Four steps, and only the first two involve you.

1. The deed is drafted and signed. You sign in front of two witnesses and a notary. If the property is homestead and you are married, your spouse signs too. Signing can be done remotely from anywhere in the world under sections 689.01(2) and 117.265.
2. It is recorded in the official records of the county where the property sits. Recording is what makes it good against anyone who later deals with the property, under section 695.01.
3. Nothing happens for years. You own the house, you claim the homestead exemption, you can sell it, refinance it, rent it out, or sign a new deed naming somebody else. Your beneficiary has no say and no notice.
4. At your death, title vests automatically. Your beneficiary records a certified death certificate and an affidavit of death of life tenant, and the public record now shows them as the owner. No probate case is opened for that property.

Two things this sequence does not include are worth naming. There is no court, at any point. And there is no protection if you become incapacitated before you die — the deed operates at death and appoints nobody to act for you before it. That gap is covered under the disadvantages.

A lady bird deed example, with numbers

Maria is 74, widowed, and lives in the Hialeah house she and her husband bought in 1991 for $78,000. It is worth $520,000 today. Her assessed value is $141,000 because of the Save Our Homes cap, and her annual tax bill is about $1,900. She has one son, aged 44. Her only other assets are a $30,000 bank account and a car. She wants the house to go to her son and she wants to stay in control of it.

She signs a lady bird deed conveying a life estate to herself, with the express powers to sell, mortgage, lease and revoke, naming her son as remainderman, and records it in Miami-Dade. Here is what each option would have produced:

What Maria does	Probate on the house?	Her son’s capital gains tax if he sells at $520,000	Medicaid penalty if she applies next year?	Can she still sell it?
Lady bird deed	No	$0 — basis steps up to $520,000	None — no completed gift	Yes, alone
Quit claim deed to her son now	No	Roughly $66,000 to $88,000 on a $442,000 gain, depending on his bracket	Yes — a transfer penalty measured against the full $520,000 she gave away, which on current Florida divisors is more than three years	No, not without him
Will only	Yes — a court proceeding to pass title, formal or summary depending on what else is in her estate. Because the house is her protected homestead it sits outside the § 733.6171(3) fee base under § 733.608(1); the cost is the proceeding, the delay and any § 733.6171(4) extraordinary-service work, not a percentage of the house	$0	None	Yes
Nothing	Yes, intestate	$0	None	Yes

Her total cost is $675. The one thing the deed does not fix is the $30,000 account and the car, which still need a will or a beneficiary designation, and it does nothing if she loses capacity — so she signs a durable power of attorney at the same time. Change one fact and the answer changes completely: if Maria had a 15-year-old child rather than a 44-year-old son and died while that child was still a minor, the remainder would fail and the house would descend under § 732.401 — and a revocable trust would not change that, because § 732.4015(2) puts a trust under the same restriction. I would be talking about an irrevocable transfer under § 732.4017(1), or a plan that does not depend on the house passing by this deed.

Is there a Florida lady bird deed statute?

No. No Florida statute creates, authorizes or defines an enhanced life estate deed. Chapter 689, which governs conveyances of land, contains no such section, and neither does chapter 732 or chapter 736. If you have been searching for the statute, that is why you have not found it.

The instrument is assembled from ordinary life estate and remainder principles together with a broad reserved power, and it rests on four things instead of a statute:

• Execution formalities. Section 689.01(1) requires a writing signed in the presence of two subscribing witnesses. Section 695.03 requires acknowledgment before a notary or other authorised officer before the clerk will record it.
• Common law. Oglesby v. Lee, 73 Fla. 39, 73 So. 840 (1917), recognized that a grantor may convey while reserving substantial powers over the property, including the power to sell it.
• Modern appellate authority. Hirschenson v. Compu-Link Corp. of MI, 389 So. 3d 574, 576 (Fla. 3d DCA 2023), states that “[b]y definition, the enhanced life estate gives the holder or grantee exclusive power to mortgage the property without the joinder of the remainder person.” Varano v. Varano, 415 So. 3d 1100 (Fla. 4th DCA 2025), confirms the distinction from an ordinary life estate, holding that in the absence of a lady bird deed a life tenant cannot convey the property without the joinder of the remainderman. Johnson v. Johnson, 413 So. 3d 872 (Fla. 1st DCA 2025), treats these deeds as subject to the same reformation principles as any other deed where a mutual mistake means the writing does not say what the parties agreed.
• The title industry. Florida Uniform Title Standards 6.10, 6.11 and 6.12, adopted by the Real Property, Probate and Trust Law Section of The Florida Bar on 1 June 2019, address enhanced life estates in non-homestead property, in homestead, and the position of the remainderman. These are what an underwriter actually consults.

Why having no statute matters to you

The drafting carries the entire weight. Where a statute creates an instrument, it supplies the terms the drafter forgot. Nothing supplies them here. A deed that omits the power to mortgage is not a lady bird deed with a gap in it — it is a different instrument with different tax consequences, and the omission surfaces when a bank declines to lend against your house.

The real validity test is whether a title underwriter will insure it. This is the point most consumer pages avoid. An instrument with no statute behind it is worth what the title industry says it is worth on the day your family tries to sell, and the Uniform Title Standards are persuasive rather than binding on any underwriter. I draft to the standards because that is the audience. The comment to Standard 6.10 concedes there is scant judicial authority for the device, which is an honest thing for a title standard to say and a reason to take the drafting seriously rather than a reason to avoid the instrument.

What are the requirements for a valid Florida lady bird deed?

Two witnesses, and a notary to record it

Section 689.01(1) requires that a conveyance of a freehold interest be in writing and signed by the grantor in the presence of two subscribing witnesses. Florida is one of a small number of states that still requires witnesses on a deed at all, which is why out-of-state form packages so often arrive without witness lines.

Notarization is a separate question governed by a separate statute. Section 689.01 says nothing about it. Section 695.03 requires acknowledgment before a notary or other authorised officer to make the deed recordable. So the sentence “a deed must be notarised to be valid in Florida” is not accurate — notarization is what lets you record it, and an unrecorded lady bird deed is a practical disaster for other reasons.

Use witnesses who take nothing under the deed. Florida imposes no general disinterest requirement, but the Second District has said a grantee may not generally sign as a witness to a deed, and unlike wills there is no statute saving a deed from an interested witness. The notary may serve as one of the two witnesses, but only if the notary actually signs on a witness line — taking the acknowledgment is a different act.

The powers the deed has to reserve

Nothing in Florida law dictates this language, which is precisely the problem. A deed that calls itself a lady bird deed but contains the wrong powers is an ordinary life estate deed with a marketing name. To work, the instrument must reserve, on its face:

• The power to sell, convey, mortgage, encumber, lease or gift the property, in fee simple, without the remainder beneficiary’s joinder or consent
• The right to retain all proceeds of any such transaction, absolutely
• The power to divest, replace or add remainder beneficiaries at will
• A remainder that is expressly contingent on the grantor’s death without having exercised those powers
• What happens if a beneficiary predeceases you — see below, because this is the omission that most often puts a share into probate

The legal description, and recording it

A deed conveys the land its legal description identifies — not the street address and not the folio or parcel number. A patently ambiguous description is void and parol evidence cannot rescue it; Heartwood 2, LLC v. Dori, 208 So. 3d 817 (Fla. 3d DCA 2017), held that a unit number, a condominium name and a street address, with no declaration book and page, was not enough. This is why we ask for your recorded deed rather than a tax bill: the description gets copied forward from the instrument that already conveyed the property.

The deed must then be recorded during your lifetime. Under section 695.01(1) an unrecorded conveyance is not good against creditors or a later purchaser for value without notice, and an unrecorded deed found in a drawer after death is an invitation to litigation even where it is technically valid. One reassurance about old deeds: section 95.231 cures a missing seal, a missing witness and defects in acknowledgment five years after recording — but it does not cure a missing homestead joinder, because that defect is constitutional rather than a formality of execution. Florida deed preparation covers the clerk’s requirements in full.

The two situations where a lady bird deed does not work

Florida homestead is protected by the state constitution rather than by statute, and the protection runs against the owner as much as for them. Two rules in Article X, section 4(c) do different jobs, and a great deal of published material runs them together.

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

Article X, section 4(c) provides that the owner of homestead real estate, joined by the spouse if married, may alienate the homestead by mortgage, sale or gift. The trigger is being married. It is not whose name appears on the title. A married person whose name is the only name on the deed still needs the spouse to join.

Florida courts have applied this to exactly this instrument. Clemons v. Thornton, 993 So. 2d 1054 (Fla. 1st DCA 2008), held a deed conveying a remainder interest in homestead to a daughter ineffective without the wife’s joinder — the grantor kept the remainder, and at his death the widow took a life estate with a vested remainder in the descendants under section 732.401, which is the opposite of what he intended. Isaacs v. Federal National Mortgage Association, 373 So. 3d 1172 (Fla. 4th DCA 2022), required joinder even though the husband had left and established a separate residence.

A spouse can waive the devise restriction by signing waiver language under section 732.7025, and where you want to name someone other than your spouse that waiver is what makes it possible. That language can sit in the deed itself rather than in a separate document. But note what section 732.7025(2) says: the waiver is not a waiver of the restriction on alienation without joinder. The spouse waives, and then still signs the deed. Nor does the waiver touch the homestead’s protection from your creditors. Those are two separate acts, and a form that collapses them into one accomplishes neither.

If you have a minor child, you cannot use one on your homestead at all

This is the rule that catches the most people, and almost nothing published online explains why it is true. The explanation is a statute from 2010 that most summaries of this subject never mention.

Section 732.4017(1) provides that an inter vivos transfer of homestead property is not a devise — but only “if the transferor fails to retain a power, held in any capacity, acting alone or in conjunction with any other person, to revoke or revest that interest in the transferor.”

Read that against what a lady bird deed is. The retained power to revoke is not an incidental feature; it is the entire instrument. It is what makes the gift incomplete for federal gift tax purposes, what keeps the property in your estate for the step-up, and what keeps Medicaid from treating it as a transfer. And it is precisely the power section 732.4017(1) says you must not have retained.

So on the text of the statute the deed fails the safe harbour and is exposed to treatment as a devise, although no Florida court has yet said so about this deed. Once it is a devise, section 732.4015(1) applies: the homestead is not subject to devise if the owner is survived by a spouse or a minor child, except that it may be devised to the spouse if there is no minor child. The chain runs one way and ends in one place:

• Survived by a spouse, no minor child — you may name your spouse. You may name anyone else only with a section 732.7025 waiver, and your spouse must still join the deed.
• Survived by a minor child — the homestead cannot be devised at all, and that includes a devise to your spouse. Section 732.4015(1) permits a devise of homestead to a spouse only where there is no minor child, so a surviving minor child closes the door completely. On that reading the remainder in a lady bird deed naming a child, a sibling, a trust or a spouse fails as a devise, though the grantor’s life estate and retained powers do not, and the homestead descends under section 732.401.
• What happens instead — the homestead descends under section 732.401: the surviving spouse takes a life estate with a vested remainder to the descendants per stirpes, or may elect within six months to take an undivided one-half interest as a tenant in common.

There is no cure and no waiver. Section 732.7025 lets a spouse waive. Florida law provides no mechanism by which a minor child’s homestead interest can be waived, by anyone, including a parent. The five-year curative statute in section 95.231 does not reach it either. And this is not a theoretical worry about what a court might do decades later: Florida Uniform Title Standard 6.12 addresses this precise problem and underwriters apply it. In practice the deed does not fail in a courtroom. It fails at a closing, when your children try to sell and discover nobody will insure the title.

Three points of precision, because they change what you should do. First, what fails is the remainder, not the whole deed: Clemons v. Thornton, 993 So. 2d 1054 (Fla. 1st DCA 2008), holds that the invalidity of a remainder in homestead does not touch the validity of the life estate, so your life estate and your powers to sell, mortgage and revoke survive. Second, the test is applied at your death, not when you sign — Article X, § 4(c) asks whether the owner “is survived by” a minor child, and the courts read it that way in 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) — so a deed signed while a child is fifteen becomes fully effective if you outlive that child’s eighteenth birthday, and a child born later 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. Third, a revocable trust is not the answer: § 732.4015(2) and § 736.1109(1) put a revocable trust under the same restriction, which is why the instrument I use where there is a minor child is not a trust either.

Who can use a lady bird deed in Florida, and who cannot

Your situation	Can you use one?	Why	What we would use instead
Single, adult children, homestead	Yes	No spouse, no minor child, no devise restriction	—
Married, leaving the homestead to your spouse	Yes	Devise to a spouse is permitted where there is no minor child	—
Married, leaving the homestead to a child	Yes, with two signatures	§ 732.7025 waiver and spousal joinder in the deed itself	—
Survived by a minor child	No	§ 732.4017(1) → § 732.4015(1). Fails — passes under § 732.401. No waiver exists	Not a revocable trust — § 732.4015(2) puts one under the same restriction. An irrevocable transfer fitting § 732.4017(1), or wait until majority
Blended family, children from a prior marriage	Legally yes, practically risky	Whoever takes at your death owns it outright and may leave it to anyone	Trust with a life interest for the spouse, remainder to your children
You want someone to manage the house if you lose capacity	Not on its own	The deed operates at death. It appoints nobody during life	Deed plus a durable power of attorney, or a trust
Beneficiary is a minor	Not directly	A minor can hold title but cannot convey it; a guardianship of the property results	Trust named as remainderman
Beneficiary receives SSI or Medicaid	No	Inheriting real property can end means-tested benefits	Special needs trust as remainderman
Beneficiary has creditors, or is mid-divorce	Caution	Protected while you live; exposed the moment title vests	Trust as remainderman
Several children as co-beneficiaries	Yes, with care	They take as tenants in common. Any one can force a sale by partition	Survivorship language, or a trust
Rental, vacation home or vacant land	Yes	Non-homestead. No joinder issue, but no Art. X, § 4 creditor protection and a 10% assessment cap rather than 3%	—
Property titled in an LLC, or a closely held business interest	No	The entity owns the land, not you, so there is nothing for the deed to convey. A business interest is not real property at all. And a home moved into a company loses the homestead package entirely: no protection from forced sale, no exemption and no Save Our Homes cap, because the Constitution exempts homestead owned by a natural person	Operating agreement transfer provisions, or a trust as member
You want the inheritance layered or phased rather than outright	No	The deed delivers the whole parcel, at once, with no conditions. It cannot stagger, delay or qualify anything	Trust with distribution terms
You want someone managing the property after your death	No	The deed ends at the moment of vesting. There is no posthumous management of any kind — no trustee, no authority, no instructions	Trust, which survives you
Property outside Florida	No	A Florida deed conveys Florida land, and most states do not recognize this instrument	Trust, to avoid ancillary probate in that state

If you found yourself in that table. Most of those rows turn on facts I have to check rather than facts you can be certain of from memory — whether the house is titled the way you believe it is, whether a spouse has to sign, whether a beneficiary’s circumstances make a direct transfer a bad idea.

Looking at that is the work. Our standard preparation service is a flat $675, covering speaking directly with attorney Jose Lorenzo, the homestead and joinder analysis, the documentary stamp analysis, the drafting, execution including online notarization subject to confirming appropriate signing arrangements, the cost of recording, and the minimum documentary stamp charge. We explain the appropriate scope and any separate charges before you engage us. See what it costs for the full breakdown.

Ask whether a lady bird deed fits your property →

Lady bird deed compared with the alternatives

Five instruments do overlapping jobs in Florida and they are not interchangeable. A will does not avoid probate at all — it is the document that tells the probate court who gets what. A traditional life estate deed avoids probate but vests the remainder immediately, so you cannot sell or refinance without your beneficiary’s signature, the gift is complete and reportable, and the transfer starts the Medicaid clock. The row that decides most cases is not probate avoidance — every one of these avoids probate in some form. It is what the instrument costs you in control, in tax basis, and in flexibility if your circumstances change.

Feature	Lady bird deed	Revocable living trust	Traditional life estate deed	Quitclaim to a child now	Will only
Avoids probate on the house	Yes	Yes, if retitled into it	Yes	Yes	No — a will guarantees probate
You keep full control during life	Yes	Yes	No — needs remainderman joinder	No — you no longer own it	Yes
Change beneficiaries without consent	Yes, alone	Yes	No	No	Yes
Covers assets other than the house	No	Yes — anything retitled	No	No	Yes
Plans for your incapacity	No	Yes — successor trustee	No	No	No
Triggers the Medicaid 5-year look-back	No	No	Yes	Yes	No
Exposed to Medicaid estate recovery	No, as Florida law stands	No, if it passes outside probate	No	No	Yes — it is a probate asset
Step-up in basis at your death	Yes	Yes	Yes, as to the retained life estate	No — carryover basis	Yes
Gift tax return required now	No	No	Yes — the remainder is a completed gift	Yes	No
Homestead exemption kept during life	Yes	Yes	Yes	No, once you are off title	Yes
Save Our Homes cap survives your death	No, unless a statutory exception applies — see the exceptions below	No, unless a statutory exception applies — see the trust note below	No, unless a statutory exception applies — see the exceptions below	Not applicable — the cap ends during your lifetime; see the quitclaim note below	No, unless a statutory exception applies — see the exceptions below
Private, or public record	Public from the day it records	Private	Public	Public	Public once probate opens
Typical cost	$675	$2,000–$5,000	Similar to a lady bird deed	$575	Varies

Trust note. The revocable-trust answer reflects the statutory analysis. No published Florida appellate decision has resolved this specific Save Our Homes reassessment question.

Quitclaim to a child now. This column assumes an outright transfer: you sign a deed conveying the property to your child, you are named only as grantor, and you are off title afterwards. On those facts the deed is a change of ownership when you sign it. Section 193.155(3)(a)1.c shelters a deed only where you are listed as both grantor and grantee, which an outright transfer is not; the error-correction, legal-to-equitable and joint-tenant-removal exceptions do not describe it; the spousal exception does not apply to a transfer to a child; and the operation-of-law, dependency and surviving-joint-tenant exceptions all turn on a death rather than a lifetime transfer. So your homestead exemption and your accumulated cap both end effective January 1 of the year after the transfer, while you are alive. Nothing remains to pass at your death, which is why this column answers the row differently from the others.

Intestacy and devise. Section 732.401 transfers by operation of law and devises by will are not interchangeable for this exception. A qualifying devise to a surviving spouse may fall within the separate spousal exception. Naming a minor child in a will does not, by itself, bring the transfer within the section 732.401 exception.

Lady bird deed vs. a revocable living trust

Cost is the obvious difference and the least important one. The real difference is scope and incapacity. A trust covers every asset you retitle into it and names a successor trustee who can act the moment you cannot. A lady bird deed covers one parcel of real estate and appoints nobody.

If your home is your only significant asset and you have a durable power of attorney in place, the deed usually does the job for a fraction of the cost. If you own property in more than one state, want distributions staggered rather than handed over outright, want privacy, or have a beneficiary who cannot safely receive property directly, the trust is doing work the deed cannot do at any price. Two differences get overlooked. The trust provides posthumous management — it survives you, and a trustee can hold, rent, repair or sell the house for a beneficiary who is not ready to own it. The deed ends the instant title vests and leaves nobody in charge of anything. And a trust can layer or phase an inheritance; the deed hands over the entire parcel at once, outright, to whoever is named. So is a lady bird deed better than a trust? For one Florida parcel going outright to one capable adult, usually yes, on price alone. For anything else, usually not. The two also combine — a lady bird deed naming your trust as remainderman is a legitimate structure. See the full comparison.

Lady bird deed vs. a quit claim deed to your children now

A quitclaim deed transfers the house today. That single difference produces four bad outcomes: you lose control and cannot sell without your children’s agreement; you lose the homestead exemption on a property you no longer own; you make a completed gift that starts the Medicaid clock; and your children take your original cost basis rather than a stepped-up one, which is usually the most expensive of the four.

The numbers make it concrete. A house bought in 1988 for $60,000 and worth $600,000 today, deeded to a child now, carries a $60,000 basis; a sale after your death produces roughly $540,000 of taxable gain. The same house passing under a lady bird deed comes to the same child at $600,000 basis, and an immediate sale produces almost none. See the deed-by-deed comparison.

Does Florida have a transfer on death deed?

No. Florida did not adopt the Uniform Real Property Transfer on Death Act, and chapter 689 contains no transfer-on-death provision for real estate. Chapter 711 has a similar name but governs transfer-on-death registration of securities and requires a registering entity such as a broker, which does not exist for land. Florida does allow beneficiary designations on bank accounts under section 655.82 and on motor vehicle titles, which is part of why people reasonably assume real estate works the same way.

The lady bird deed is Florida’s answer. If you arrived here searching for a Florida transfer on death deed or a beneficiary deed, this is the instrument you were looking for.

Lady bird deed in Florida: pros and cons

The pros and cons of a Florida lady bird deed come down to one trade: you get probate avoidance on a single parcel for a few hundred dollars, and you give up the breadth, the privacy and the incapacity planning a trust would have given you. Here is the whole ledger in one place. Every con is expanded in the seven disadvantages below, and the two that make a ladybird deed fail rather than merely imperfect are set out under the two situations where it does not work.

Pros — what a lady bird deed does well	Cons — where it fails
Avoids probate on that parcel. Title vests in your beneficiary by operation of law at your death. No petition, no letters of administration, no creditor claim period for that asset	Covers one property and nothing else. Your bank accounts, car, investments and any other parcel are untouched and still go through probate
You keep total control. You can sell, mortgage, lease, rent, gift or revoke it without the beneficiary’s consent — or knowledge	It does nothing about incapacity. The deed operates at death and appoints nobody to act for you during life. You still need a durable power of attorney
No Medicaid transfer penalty. Because you keep the power to take it back, nothing has been given away, so there is no five-year look-back problem	Homestead restrictions can defeat it. If a minor child survives you, the remainder fails as to the homestead, though your life estate and retained powers do not. A spouse who does not sign voids it as to the homestead from the day you sign
Full step-up in basis. The property stays in your gross estate, so your beneficiary takes it at its value on the date of your death and the built-up capital gains tax disappears	Multiple beneficiaries can end in a forced sale. Co-owners hold as tenants in common and any one of them can file a partition action
The documentary stamp position is favourable but not settled. The Department of Revenue concluded no tax was due on the unencumbered enhanced life estate deed it reviewed, because no present beneficial interest passes — but that advisement binds only the taxpayer who asked for it, and where the property is mortgaged the question is unresolved	It is a public record from the day it is filed. Your beneficiary, the amount of your mortgage and the fact of your plan are all searchable by anyone
Keeps your homestead exemption during your life, and no gift tax return is due because the gift is incomplete while you can revoke	It is not asset protection. It does not shield the house from your own creditors, and once title vests it is exposed to your beneficiary’s creditors and divorce
Cheap and fast. A flat $675 here against roughly $2,000 and up for a funded revocable trust, and it is drafted, signed and recorded in days	Your Save Our Homes cap generally dies with you. The assessment resets to just value on 1 January after your death unless a statutory exception applies, and on a long-held Florida home that is the single largest hidden cost

The benefits of a lady bird deed, in the order they actually matter

1. Probate avoidance without giving anything up. Every other way of keeping a house out of probate asks you to surrender something — a joint owner gets present rights, a quit claim to your children hands them the title today, a trust requires a transfer of the deed into the trust. This one asks you to surrender nothing.
2. The Medicaid answer. This is the reason most of our clients end up with one. A transfer that would be a disqualifying gift if it were outright is not a gift at all while you hold the power to revoke, so a lady bird deed keeps the house out of probate without buying a penalty period.
3. The step-up in basis. Deeding a house to your children during your life hands them your basis and, on a home bought decades ago, a capital gains tax bill that can run into six figures. A lady bird deed leaves the property in your estate for tax purposes, which is exactly what produces the step-up.
4. Medicaid estate recovery. As Florida law currently stands the state recovers only from the probate estate, and this asset never enters it.
5. Reversibility. Almost every other transfer is hard or impossible to undo. You can revoke this one by recording a new deed, and you do not need anyone’s permission.
6. Price. At $675 it is the least expensive competent probate-avoidance instrument in Florida for a single parcel, and the purpose of a lady bird deed is precisely that narrow job done properly.

Those are the pros. They are real, and for a single person whose home is their main asset and whose children are grown, they are usually decisive. The cons below are what our intake process is actually screening for, because two of them are not disadvantages at all — they are invalidity.

Do I need a lady bird deed, and is it a good idea for me?

A lady bird deed is a good idea in a narrow and identifiable set of circumstances, and a bad idea — sometimes one that fails outright — outside them. You do not need a lady bird deed if your house is already titled so that it passes outside probate, or if your plan is broad enough that a single-parcel instrument adds nothing. Work down the three lists below in order. If anything in the third list applies to you, stop: the answer is no regardless of how well the first two fit.

You probably do need one

• You are single, widowed or divorced, your children are adults, and your Florida home is your principal asset.
• You want the house to pass to one person, outright, with no conditions and no staggered distribution.
• You are planning for long-term care and want probate avoided without creating a Medicaid transfer penalty.
• You want your beneficiary to get the full step-up in basis rather than inherit your capital gains tax exposure.
• You already have a durable power of attorney, a will and a health care surrogate, and the house is the one thing still pointed at probate.
• You want it reversible, because you are not certain the beneficiary is the right one forever.

You probably do not need one

• You already have a funded revocable trust and the house is titled in it. Do I need a lady bird deed if I have a trust? Almost never — the trust already avoids probate on that parcel and does more besides. The one real use is a lady bird deed naming the trust as remainderman where, for homestead creditor-protection or Save Our Homes reasons, you would rather not retitle the house into the trust during your life.
• You and your spouse own the home as tenants by the entireties and each of you is leaving it to the other. It already passes to the survivor without probate. The question only returns at the survivor’s death.
• Your only asset is the house and you also need incapacity planning, staggered gifts, a special needs beneficiary or out-of-state property. Those are trust problems; the deed cannot reach them at any price.
• You think a will does this. Do I need a lady bird deed if I have a will? A will is the instrument that sends the house through probate. It does not avoid it. A lady bird deed is one of the few things that actually keeps a Florida homestead out of the process.
• You own the property through an LLC or partnership. The entity owns the land, not you, so there is nothing for this deed to convey. What passes at your death is your membership interest, and that is a transfer-on-death or operating-agreement question, not a deed question.

You cannot use one at all

• You will be survived by a minor child and the property is your homestead. The remainder fails as a devise no matter who you name — your spouse included — and no waiver, consent or signature cures it. This is constitutional, not procedural, and it is tested at your death rather than when you sign.
• You are married, the property is homestead, and your spouse will not or cannot sign. Joinder is required even where the spouse is not on the title.
• The property is not in Florida. A Florida deed conveys Florida land, and most states do not recognize this instrument at all.

The verdict. If you are in the first list and nothing in the third applies, a ladybird deed is not merely a good idea — it is very likely the most cost-effective estate planning document available to you, and I will say so. If you are in the second list, I will tell you that too rather than sell you a deed that duplicates what you already have. And if you are in the third, I will not prepare one, because a deed that fails is worse than no deed: your family finds out it failed at the worst possible moment, and by then you are not there to fix it. The three checks I run are how I place you.

Which question applies to you before you sign

Find your situation. The middle column is what has to be settled before a deed is drafted, and it is what I settle first.

Your situation	What has to be answered first	Where that is
Married, and the house is your homestead	Will your spouse join in the deed itself — not merely consent to it?	Spousal joinder
You will be survived by a child under 18	Nothing is left to decide. Where a minor child survives you, Florida homestead cannot be devised to anyone — your spouse included — and the restriction is tested at your death, not when you sign	The minor-child bar
Somebody else will sign for the owner	Does the power of attorney enumerate the specific authority this transaction needs, signed or initialled by the principal next to it, and is the deed otherwise properly executed?	Power of attorney
Your beneficiary receives SSI or Medicaid	Would inheriting a house cost them the benefits they live on?	Who can use one
More than one child takes the house	How will they share ownership, expenses, occupancy and the decision to sell after your death?	Several beneficiaries
The house carries a mortgage	How do the loan terms, the federal transfer protections and the documentary stamp rules apply to this particular deed?	Documentary stamp
Title is unusual — a trust, an LLC, a co-owner who has died and is still on the deed	What do the current deed, the ownership history and any death or trust documents establish about who owns it and who can sign?	How to get one, step 1
You already signed one	Does it actually reserve the powers that make it a lady bird deed?	Defective deeds
The owner has died	What documents are needed to establish the resulting ownership and complete the post-death steps?	After the owner dies

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

Seven, in the order they actually cause problems. These are the cons in the pros and cons table above, set out in full — and the first three are the lady bird deed problems that actually cost families money.

1. It covers one property and nothing else

A lady bird deed passes the real estate described in it. Your bank accounts, your brokerage account, your car, your personal property and any other parcel you own are untouched, and if they need probate they will get it. Families are sometimes told the deed is their estate plan. It is one instrument in a plan that still needs a will, and usually a durable power of attorney and a health care surrogate.

2. It does nothing about incapacity

This is the largest gap and the least discussed. The deed operates at death. If you develop dementia at eighty-one and the house has to be sold to pay for care, the deed appoints nobody to sell it. Without a durable power of attorney that specifically covers the transaction, your family is looking at a guardianship proceeding. A revocable trust closes this gap; a lady bird deed does not.

3. The homestead restrictions can make it fail

Covered in full above. A minor child makes the remainder fail, whoever you named and your spouse included, with no waiver available; a missing spousal joinder makes the deed void as to the homestead from the day you sign. These are the failure modes that surface years later at a closing.

4. Multiple beneficiaries can end in a forced sale

Name three children and they take as tenants in common unless the deed says otherwise. One wants to sell, one wants to rent it out, one wants to live in it. Any one of them can force a sale of the whole property through a partition action, and the others pay for the litigation out of the proceeds. This is the most common way a lady bird deed produces a lawsuit, and it is a drafting question rather than bad luck.

5. It is a public record from the day it is filed

Anyone with a browser can look up your county’s official records and see who you named. A trust keeps that private. In a blended family, or where you have named some children and not others, that visibility can cause the argument years before you die.

6. It is not asset protection

During your life the property is still yours, and if it is not homestead your creditors can reach it exactly as before. The deed adds no protection against your own creditors, and once title vests at your death it is exposed to your beneficiary’s creditors, divorce and bankruptcy. See creditors and the IRS.

7. What happens to your Save Our Homes cap at your death

The deed avoids probate. It does not carry your property tax assessment cap to your children, and on a long-held Florida home that number is frequently larger than any probate fee saved. It is set out below because nothing else published on this subject seems to say it.

Do you pay documentary stamp tax on a lady bird deed in Florida?

On an unencumbered homestead, the Department of Revenue has said no tax is due. In Technical Assistance Advisement 20B4-004 it reviewed an enhanced life estate deed over property unencumbered by any lien or mortgage, with no other consideration, and concluded that because no present beneficial interest transferred, the deed was not subject to documentary stamp tax regardless of any consideration recited. That is persuasive rather than binding — under section 213.22 an advisement has no precedential value except for the taxpayer who requested it, and only for the transaction described — and a clerk may still collect the minimum tax where a deed recites nominal consideration. Where the house carries a mortgage, the question is unresolved in Florida: there is a strong argument that no tax is due on a properly drafted deed, set out below, and no court or rule has decided it either way. The reason is worth understanding, because it is the drafting that produces the argument rather than the name on the document.

Section 201.02(1)(a) taxes deeds conveying an interest in real property at 70 cents for every $100 of consideration — 60 cents in Miami-Dade — and defines consideration to include the amount of any mortgage whether or not the underlying indebtedness is assumed. Read that clause alone and a lady bird deed on a mortgaged house looks expensive. On a $300,000 balance it would be $2,100.

But the mortgage clause answers the second question, not the first. The threshold question is whether any present beneficial interest was transferred at all. If nothing presently passes, there is no taxable conveyance for a mortgage balance to be measured against, and on that reading the size of the loan does not enter the calculation. That is the argument, and I think it is the better one; it is not a holding. The Florida Supreme Court stated the principle in Crescent Miami Center, LLC v. Department of Revenue, 903 So. 2d 913 (Fla. 2005): the tax requires both a purchaser and consideration, and a change in the form of ownership without an exchange of value is not taxable.

The Department of Revenue has applied that reasoning to encumbered property in a published advisement. Technical Assistance Advisement 12B4-001 (2012) concerned residential property encumbered by a mortgage with an outstanding balance, and found no tax due on a deed of a life estate interest notwithstanding the mortgage. It is worth reading that one carefully rather than treating it as decisive here: in 12B4-001 the owner conveyed a life estate to his parents and kept the remainder himself, which is the mirror image of a lady bird deed, and the Department’s stated reason was that only a life estate interest had been transferred rather than that no present beneficial interest passed. It is good authority on the encumbrance point and it does not decide the enhanced life estate deed question. TAA 20B4-004 (16 October 2020) considered an enhanced life estate deed to three daughters reserving broad powers to grant, sell, convey, reconvey, mortgage, encumber, lease and divest, and advised that no tax was due because the deed transferred no present beneficial interest. Two 1993 advisements reached the same result for encumbered property deeded into an owner’s own revocable trust, and Rule 12B-4.013(25)(a) exempts a deed to a trustee to the extent of the grantor’s beneficial ownership whether or not the property is encumbered.

The retained powers do the tax work, not the label

Calling a deed a lady bird deed does not make it one. To hold the analysis above, the instrument has to reserve the powers listed under what the deed must reserve.

Drop those powers and the result flips. An ordinary life estate deed presently transfers a vested remainder to a third party — Kach v. Cooley, 201 So. 2d 254 (Fla. 1st DCA 1967) — and where the property is mortgaged, the outstanding balance is taxable consideration under section 201.02(1)(a) and Rule 12B-4.013(16). Same family of instrument, same house, same mortgage; a four-figure difference in tax, decided entirely by which powers the drafter reserved. This is the clearest illustration on this page of what a $349 form cannot do for you.

Two honest qualifications, because they belong on a page a client will rely on. Under section 213.22 an advisement binds the Department only as to the taxpayer who requested it and only for the transaction it addressed, and Rule 12-11.007(1) provides that a taxpayer may not rely on an advisement issued to somebody else. The advisements above show a departmental position that has held since at least 2012; they are not a license. And no Florida court has ruled on the documentary stamp treatment of an enhanced life estate deed. The Department has never written a rule addressing these deeds either, and when Rules 12B-4.013 and 12B-4.014 were amended in January 2026 no provision was added. Pointing the other way, Department of Revenue v. PMR Resorts, Inc., 868 So. 2d 621 (Fla. 2d DCA 2004) holds that after the 1990 amendment the only question is whether the conveyed property is encumbered — which is why everything turns on whether a taxable conveyance happened at all. On a large balance, requesting your own advisement before recording converts a well-grounded position into a binding one for a modest cost.

What happens to your homestead exemption and Save Our Homes cap?

During your life

Recording a lady bird deed does not cost you the homestead exemption, and a deed that lists you as both grantor and grantee is designed to keep the Save Our Homes assessment cap from resetting. Section 193.155(3)(a)1.c provides that no change of ownership occurs where the same person remains entitled to the exemption and the instrument lists the owner as both grantor and grantee, with one or more others additionally named as grantees. Florida’s First District has held, outside the tax context, that reserving a life estate does not make a grantor a grantee (Ciungu v. Bulea, 162 So. 3d 290 (Fla. 1st DCA 2015)). A deed in which the owner appears only as grantor and reserves a life estate therefore does not fit that exception on its text, and no Florida appellate court has yet applied the exception to a lady bird deed. You keep the life estate, you keep occupying the property, and section 196.041(2) treats a beneficial interest for life as equitable title for exemption purposes. Florida Attorney General Opinion 2005-52 confirms it. Where the deed lists you as both grantor and grantee, your assessment is designed to go on rising by no more than 3 percent a year, as before.

What happens to the cap at your death

Your death is a change of ownership. The property is reassessed at just value as of 1 January of the following year unless the person taking the property independently fits one of the statutory exceptions. Where none fits, your children must apply for their own homestead exemption if they qualify, and the cap you spent twenty or thirty years accumulating does not travel with the house.

The size of that deserves numbers, because “reassessed at just value” understates it. A Miami-Dade homestead bought in 1998, assessed at $180,000 today and worth $700,000, is carrying a Save Our Homes benefit of roughly $520,000. Assuming no preservation exception applies to the person who takes it, on the first tax bill after reassessment the property tax on that house can more than triple. Families who inherit a mortgage-free home and then cannot afford to keep it are usually meeting this number, not a mortgage.

Section 193.155(3)(a) lists transfers that are not a change of ownership, and four of them can arise at a death. Where one applies, the property is not reassessed: a transfer to a surviving spouse; 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; descent by operation of law under section 732.401 to a surviving spouse or minor child; and a transfer at the owner’s death to someone who is a permanent resident of the property and legally or naturally dependent on the owner, an exception the courts read narrowly. An adult child living elsewhere ordinarily fits none of them.

There is one partial answer. Section 193.155(8) allows a person who held a Florida homestead exemption in any of the three immediately preceding years to carry up to $500,000 of accumulated benefit to a new homestead. A child who owned and homesteaded their own Florida house, moves into the inherited one and makes it their homestead may be able to port their own benefit into it. That is their benefit moving, not yours surviving, and the benefit being carried is theirs rather than yours surviving — confirm it with the county property appraiser, because homestead administration is handled county by county.

None of this is a reason to avoid a lady bird deed. The same reassessment happens whether the house passes by deed, by trust, by will or through probate. It is a reason to know the number before your family finds it on a tax bill, and it is frequently the fact that decides whether children keep a house or sell it.

Lady bird deeds and Medicaid: two different questions

Almost every page on this subject runs these together. They have different answers, different authorities and different levels of certainty.

Does it trigger the five-year look-back?

On the better reading, no. Under 42 U.S.C. § 1396p(c) the look-back penalty applies to a disposal of assets for less than fair market value. Because you keep the unrestricted power to sell the property or revoke the deed, nothing has been disposed of — you can take it back tomorrow. On that reasoning there is no completed transfer to penalise. No Florida rule addresses this kind of deed either way, though — the rules are silent rather than permissive — and no Florida court has decided it. 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.

This is the instrument’s central advantage over what families do instead. Deeding the house outright to a child is a disposal, and inside the sixty-month window it produces a penalty period calculated by dividing the uncompensated value by the average monthly private-pay nursing facility rate. A traditional life estate deed causes a similar problem, because the remainder it gives away is a completed gift.

Two limits worth stating. The homestead is not a countable asset for eligibility in the first place while it remains your principal residence, so for many applicants this deed is not what qualifies them. The federal home equity limit is a separate rule: it does not make the home countable, but equity above it bars nursing facility and waiver eligibility unless your spouse, a child under 21, or a blind or disabled child lives in the home. And a later step — transferring the retained life estate to the remainderman once a parent enters a facility, which is exactly the move families make — is a different transaction and may well be an uncompensated transfer. Creating the deed should be safe. Unwinding it is not obviously safe.

Can Florida recover against the house after death?

Not as the law currently stands, and the qualification matters. Section 409.9101(2) accomplishes Florida’s Medicaid estate recovery by the Agency for Health Care Administration filing a statement of claim against the estate as provided in part VII of chapter 733, and section 731.201(14) defines an estate as the property of a decedent that is the subject of administration. That is the probate estate. Property that vests in your beneficiary outside probate never enters it.

Why we write “currently.” Federal law at 42 U.S.C. § 1396p(b)(4)(B) permits a state to define “estate” far more broadly — to reach property passing by joint tenancy, survivorship, life estate, living trust or other arrangement. Several states have taken it. Florida has declined it. That is a policy choice reversible by the Legislature or a state plan amendment, not a permanent feature of Florida law, and a page that promises your family permanent immunity is promising something Florida has not given. Any plan built on this should be reviewed if the definition changes.

Does a lady bird deed give my heirs a step-up in basis?

Yes — a full step-up — and the mechanism is worth understanding because it is the same feature that produces every other advantage. This is the single largest tax saving the deed produces, and the reason a lady bird deed beats deeding the house to your children now: it wipes out the capital gains tax on everything the property gained while you owned it.

Because you retain the right to possess and enjoy the property for life, the full value is included in your gross estate under IRC § 2036(a)(1) — confirmed for retained possession and use in Estate of Whitt v. Commissioner, 751 F.2d 1548 (11th Cir. 1985). Inclusion in the gross estate is what triggers IRC § 1014(a), which gives your beneficiary a basis equal to the property’s fair market value on the date of your death.

For almost every Florida family, estate-tax inclusion costs nothing — the federal exemption is far above the value of a house — and the basis adjustment is worth a great deal. A house bought for $60,000 and worth $600,000 passes with a $600,000 basis, so a sale shortly after your death produces little or no capital gain. Deed the same house to the same child during your life and IRC § 1015 gives them your $60,000 basis instead.

And no gift tax return is required. Under Treasury Regulation § 25.2511-2(c) a gift is incomplete wherever the donor reserves the power to revest the property in themselves, so nothing is complete when you sign, no Form 709 is due, and none of your lifetime exclusion is used. A traditional life estate deed is the opposite: the remainder is a completed gift, reportable, and the annual exclusion does not help because a remainder is a future interest under IRC § 2503(b).

One honest note: no published IRS ruling addresses lady bird deeds by name. This rests on general principles of §§ 2036 and 1014 applied to the retained interest, which is a well-settled application but not a named safe harbour. The step-up also runs the other way — if the property has lost value, basis steps down. See the full tax analysis.

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

Yes, all three, without your beneficiary’s consent, signature or knowledge. Can I sell my house with a lady bird deed on it? Yes — alone, at any time, and you keep the proceeds. That is the defining feature of the instrument, and Hirschenson confirms the life tenant’s exclusive power to mortgage without the remainder person joining. You may take out a HELOC, a reverse mortgage, or sell the house outright and keep every dollar, and your beneficiary simply receives nothing.

Two practical frictions are worth expecting. First, a title company or lender unfamiliar with the instrument may ask for the remaindermen’s signatures anyway, even where the deed plainly does not require them. That is an underwriting preference rather than a legal requirement, and it is usually resolved by pointing the underwriter at Uniform Title Standard 6.10 — but on a closing timetable it costs days you did not budget. Second, an existing mortgage is unaffected: signing a lady bird deed does not remove you from the loan, and the loan does not become your beneficiary’s problem until you die.

Recording the deed does not trigger a due-on-sale clause in the ordinary case. The Garn-St Germain Act, 12 U.S.C. § 1701j-3(d), bars a lender from accelerating a loan on residential property of fewer than five units on a list of transfers that includes transfers to a spouse or children and transfers to a relative on the borrower’s death.

Can I revoke or change a lady bird deed?

Yes, unilaterally, at any time, for any reason, and without telling anyone. Your beneficiaries do not have to agree and have no standing to object. This is the single most reassuring fact about the instrument and the one clients most often do not believe.

Mechanically, you do it by recording a new instrument — a deed conveying the property back to yourself in fee simple, or a new enhanced life estate deed naming a different beneficiary. Do not simply tear up your copy: the recorded deed is the one that counts, and the public record has to be corrected by another recorded document. Do not rely on a will either. A will cannot revoke a recorded deed.

One trap for anyone tidying up an estate plan late in life. If you release the retained powers within three years of death — for instance by signing a later deed relinquishing the right to revoke — IRC § 2035(a) can pull the property back into your gross estate, and the transfer may become a completed gift for gift tax purposes. Undoing a lady bird deed is a decision to take advice on rather than a form to sign.

Will a title company accept a lady bird deed?

Florida title underwriters generally do, and the Uniform Title Standards are the reason. Standard 6.10 states that the holder of an enhanced life estate in non-homestead property may convey or encumber the fee simple during life without the remainderman; 6.11 applies the same power to homestead subject to spousal joinder; 6.12 addresses when the remainderman actually takes fee simple at death.

Three qualifications matter more than the general answer. The standards are persuasive, not binding — each underwriter sets its own policy, and a deed drafted without the full reserved powers gives an underwriter a reason to decline. Federal tax liens are treated differently from state judgment liens regardless of what the standards say. And where the homestead devise restrictions were violated, no amount of good drafting helps: Standard 6.12 exists precisely to stop an underwriter insuring a remainderman who took nothing.

Because the instrument has no statute behind it, underwriter acceptance is the practical test of validity. That is a reason to have the deed drafted to the standards, not a reason to avoid the instrument.

What if my beneficiary dies before I do?

It depends entirely on what your deed says, and a deed that says nothing creates the exact problem the instrument was meant to prevent.

Florida’s anti-lapse rules apply to wills, not deeds. So if you name three children and one predeceases you, and the deed is silent, that child’s one-third share may pass to their own estate — and require a probate case to sort out. A well-drafted deed answers the question on its face: either the share passes to the surviving beneficiaries, or it passes to that beneficiary’s own descendants per stirpes. Both are legitimate; the deed has to pick one.

The simplest protection is to name a contingent beneficiary, and to review the deed whenever your family changes. Because you can revoke at any time, updating it is cheap. Discovering the gap after a death is not.

What if I name more than one beneficiary?

They take as tenants in common in equal undivided shares unless the deed expressly says otherwise. Section 689.15 abolished the right of survivorship in joint tenancies in Florida except where the instrument expressly provides for it, so a deed naming three children with no survivorship language gives each of them a one-third interest that passes through their own estate when they die.

The consequence people do not anticipate is that any one co-owner can force a sale of the whole property through a partition action, and the others cannot stop it. One child who needs cash, or one child’s creditor or ex-spouse who acquires their share, can put the family home on the market over everyone else’s objection.

Where you want the house kept in the family rather than divided, a trust as remainderman does what co-ownership cannot: it names someone to decide, and it can say who may live there and on what terms. Where equal shares really are the goal, the deed should at least specify survivorship or per stirpes so the arrangement does not fragment at the first death.

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

Usually not, and the reason surprises the families who ask — which is almost always a family whose parent has begun to decline and who assume the durable power of attorney signed years ago covers it.

Section 709.2202(1) provides that an agent may exercise certain authorities only if the principal signed or initialled next to that specific enumeration in the document itself. Three items on that list are exactly what a lady bird deed does: creating or changing rights of survivorship, creating or changing a beneficiary designation, and making a gift. A power of attorney granting broad authority to “convey real property” reaches none of them. It authorizes a sale. It does not authorise an instrument that names who inherits.

Two further conditions sit on top: section 689.111 permits a homestead deed by an attorney in fact only where the power was executed with the same formalities as a deed, and does not remove the constitutional joinder requirement; and section 709.2202(6) provides that a power of attorney signed by a Florida-domiciled principal and witnessed remotely cannot grant those enumerated authorities at all.

The uncomfortable but useful conclusion is that a lady bird deed is a document to sign while the owner is unquestionably competent. The full analysis, including what happens when an agent exceeds the authority granted, is at can a power of attorney sign a lady bird deed in Florida.

Creditors, the IRS, and the limits of the protection

A lady bird deed is a probate-avoidance instrument. It is not an asset protection instrument, and it is sold as one often enough to be worth separating out.

• During your life, the homestead protection is the protection. Article X, section 4(a) exempts Florida homestead from forced sale and bars any judgment lien on it. That comes from the property being your homestead, not from the deed. If the property is not homestead, a lady bird deed gives it no protection at all while you are alive, because you still own it.
• Your beneficiary’s creditors cannot reach it while you live. Because the beneficiary holds nothing they can convey and you can divest them at any moment, a judgment against your child does not attach to the house. Uniform Title Standard 6.10 addresses this directly, and it is a genuine advantage over adding a child to your deed — which exposes the house to that child’s creditors, divorce and bankruptcy from the day it records.
• Your unsecured creditors cannot reach it after your death. Florida creditor claims are made against the probate estate under part VII of chapter 733. Property that vests outside probate never becomes available to that process.
• Homestead protection can pass — to the right people. Article X, section 4(b) provides that the exemptions inure to the surviving spouse or heirs of the owner. That word does real work: naming a remainderman who is not an heir can forfeit protection that would otherwise have continued.
• The IRS is different, and this is the exception nobody publishes. Under 26 U.S.C. § 6321 a federal tax lien attaches to all property and rights to property belonging to the taxpayer, and Florida’s homestead protection does not stop it the way it stops a state judgment. In United States v. Voshelle (M.D. Fla. 2024) the court allowed the IRS to reach property conveyed by a lady bird deed, reasoning that the grantor’s retained powers meant he still effectively owned it.
• A deed signed to defeat a creditor is voidable. Section 726.105 reaches a transfer made with actual intent to hinder, delay or defraud, and the badges-of-fraud analysis applies here as to any other conveyance. Signing one after a lawsuit has started is not planning.

Can a lady bird deed disinherit my spouse?

No, and anyone who tells you otherwise is describing a plan that will fail. Two separate rules stop it.

The first is the homestead joinder requirement above — your spouse has to sign the deed for it to convey homestead at all. The second is the elective share. Under section 732.2035, property conveyed by a lady bird deed enters the elective estate on two independent grounds: subsection (5) captures transfers that were revocable by the decedent at death, and subsection (6)(a) captures transfers where the decedent retained possession or use. A lady bird deed satisfies both, and your surviving spouse’s 30 percent elective share is calculated including that property.

Older material sometimes cites Kelley v. Hill, 481 So. 2d 1311 (Fla. 2d DCA 1986), for the proposition that a deed reserving a life estate with a power of sale removes the home from the elective share calculation. That is no longer good law. The 1999 amendments replaced the old elective share with the current augmented estate framework, which expressly reaches revocable and retained-interest transfers. See a surviving spouse’s rights in Florida.

What does my family have to do after I die?

Title vests in your beneficiary at the moment of death by operation of law. Nothing has to be filed to make that happen and no court is involved. What remains is proving it to the public record so that a buyer, lender or title underwriter can see it.

1. Record a certified death certificate in the county where the property sits — order one without the cause of death, since the recorded version is public.
2. Record an affidavit of death of life tenant identifying the deed by book and page, the life tenant, the date of death and the remainderman now holding title. No statute compels it; every underwriter wants it.
3. Expect the underwriter to ask for more — a no-estate-tax-lien affidavit, a continuous marriage affidavit, or evidence that the homestead devise restrictions were satisfied. This is where a hidden minor-child or joinder problem finally surfaces.
4. Apply for a new homestead exemption by 1 March if a beneficiary will live there. The exemption does not transfer, and see Save Our Homes for what happens to the cap.
5. Deal with the mortgage. The loan does not disappear, but Garn-St Germain bars acceleration on a transfer to a relative resulting from the borrower’s death, so the beneficiary can keep paying or refinance.
6. If there are several beneficiaries, they now own it as tenants in common and any one can force a sale by partition.

Our page on a lady bird deed after death in Florida works through the sequence, the forms and the county-by-county variations in detail.

If the owner has already died and you want the recorded deed read before anything is filed, 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 a lady bird deed be contested in Florida?

Yes. An enhanced life estate deed can be challenged like any other conveyance, and the grounds are the familiar ones: the owner lacked capacity when they signed, someone in a position of trust procured the transfer through undue influence, the signature was forged, or the homestead was conveyed without the spouse joining. Johnson v. Johnson, 413 So. 3d 872 (Fla. 1st DCA 2025), confirms these deeds are also subject to reformation where a mutual mistake means the instrument does not say what the parties agreed.

Deadlines matter more than grounds, and they are short enough to catch families who wait. The grounds, the proof required and the time limits are set out at can a lady bird deed be contested in Florida, and if the instrument in question is something other than a lady bird deed, see setting aside a Florida deed.

I already signed a lady bird deed — how do I know if it is defective?

This is the most common reason people reach us about this deed, and it is almost always a form that was bought online or copied from another state. A defective lady bird deed does not announce itself. It is on the public record, it looks like a deed, the recording office accepted it, and nothing goes wrong until the owner dies — at which point the family discovers that the problem they thought they had solved for $40 is now a probate, a quiet title action, or a house that cannot be sold. Read the deed you signed against this list. Most of the problems are fixable while you are alive, and almost none of them are fixable afterwards.

Five drafting errors I see most often

1. The reserved powers are missing or incomplete. This is the defect that matters most and the one nobody spots. Look for an express reservation of the right to sell, convey, mortgage, lease and revoke during your lifetime without the remainderman’s joinder. No Florida statute supplies those words. A deed creating a life estate and naming a remainderman, and stopping there, is an ordinary life estate deed: you can no longer convey clear fee simple title alone, the remainder is vested, and the Medicaid and documentary stamp analysis changes. A form that reserves only “the right to use and occupy” is this error.
2. A missing spousal joinder on homestead. If you were married when you signed and the property is your homestead, your spouse had to join in the deed — even if your spouse has never been on the title. A deed to anyone other than the spouse without that signature is ineffective as to the homestead. This is the error online forms produce most reliably, because the form asks who the owner is and never asks whether the owner is married.
3. A minor child. If you are survived by a child under 18, the remainder in this deed fails as to the homestead — to anyone, your spouse included; the spouse exception in Article X, § 4(c) applies only where no minor child survives. No signature, waiver, consent or prenuptial agreement cures it. What counts is who survives you, not who was a minor on the day you signed: a deed signed while a child was fifteen operates if you outlive that child’s eighteenth birthday and no minor child survives you.
4. Execution failures. Two witnesses are required and you must sign in their presence. One witness, witnesses who signed later, a notary standing in as the second witness where that was not properly done, a missing acknowledgement — all of these are defects in execution, and some of them stop the deed conveying legal title until they are cured.
5. A bad legal description, or no recording. A description copied from a tax bill rather than from the recorded deed, a lot number with no plat reference, or a description that does not match the parcel. And the single most common practical failure of all: the deed was signed and never recorded. An unrecorded deed can still be good between you and your beneficiary, but it gives way to a later buyer, lender or creditor who had no notice, and it is effectively invisible to the title industry.

What can be fixed, and how

While the owner is alive and has capacity, most of this is straightforward. The cure is almost always a new deed rather than litigation.

The defect	What it actually does	How it is cured
Reserved powers missing or too narrow	You hold a plain life estate. You cannot convey fee simple alone; the remainder is vested	A new, correctly drafted deed — and because the remainder has vested, the remaindermen now have to join in it. That is why this gets harder with time, not easier
Spousal joinder missing (homestead)	Ineffective as to the homestead. Section 95.231’s five-year cure reaches defects in execution, witnessing and acknowledgement — it is not addressed to a homestead joinder failure	Re-execute with the spouse joining. If the spouse has since died, the problem may have resolved itself — or may not. It needs looking at
Minor child surviving you	The remainder fails as to the homestead; your life estate and retained powers are not. What counts is whether a minor child survives you, not the child’s age on the day you signed. Nothing cures it by agreement	After the owner’s death: nothing. The remainder has failed and the homestead descends under § 732.401. While the owner is alive: not a revocable trust — § 732.4015(2) and § 736.1109(1) put one under the same restriction; the routes that hold are an irrevocable transfer fitting § 732.4017(1), or accepting that the deed operates only if no minor child survives, with a fresh deed after the youngest reaches majority to take the question off a title examiner’s desk
One witness, or witnesses not present	A defect in execution. May not convey legal title until cured	Re-execute and re-record properly. Section 95.231 also cures certain execution, witnessing and acknowledgement defects once an instrument has been of record for five years — but do not wait for it, and it does not reach the homestead problems above
Scrivener’s error, wrong name, transposed description	Usually latent rather than fatal	A corrective or confirmatory deed signed by the original grantor, or a scrivener’s affidavit for the smallest errors
Legal description wrong or insufficient	If the parcel genuinely cannot be identified, the deed can fail for uncertainty	Corrective deed with the description taken from the last recorded instrument, not from the tax roll
Never recorded	Good between the parties; gives way to a later purchaser, lender or creditor without notice	Record it. Then look at what was recorded in the meantime
Defect discovered after the owner has died	This is the expensive one	Equitable reformation if there is clear and convincing evidence of the owner’s actual intent, a quiet title action under chapter 65, or — if neither works — probate of the property the deed was meant to avoid

If the owner has already died. You are not necessarily out of options, but you are now litigating rather than drafting. Florida courts will reform a deed to reflect the grantor’s actual intent where a mutual mistake or a scrivener’s error is proved by clear and convincing evidence, and the personal representative of the estate is normally the party who brings it. A quiet title action can clear a defective or ambiguous record. Both cost several multiples of what the deed would have cost to do properly, and neither is guaranteed. Where the defect is the minor-child bar or a missing spousal joinder, there is usually nothing to reform — the property simply descends the way the constitution says it descends, and the deed is a piece of paper.

What to do now. Send us the recorded deed. I read it against this list, tell you in writing which of these problems you have, and quote the fix before you commit to anything. If the deed is sound, I will tell you that and charge you nothing for reading it.

How to get a lady bird deed in Florida, and how to file it

Six steps, in order. Nothing here is filed with a court and there is no hearing — a lady bird deed is recorded in the county’s public records, not filed in a case. If you are asking how to file a lady bird deed in Florida, steps five and six are the filing; the first four are what make the filing worth doing.

1. Read the current recorded deed. Not the one you remember. I pull the recorded instrument and read it. Surprises here are common: a deceased co-owner still on the deed, an old life estate, a deed that was never recorded, a name that does not match.
2. Run the homestead analysis. Are you married? Will you be survived by a minor child? Is this your homestead? This is the step that decides whether a lady bird deed is available to you at all, and it is the step that online forms skip entirely.
3. Check the mortgage and the title policy. Most mortgages contain a due-on-sale clause. Federal law protects certain transfers; a transfer to a remainderman on death is generally within them, but the clause should be read rather than assumed. If there is an existing owner’s title policy, the deed should be drafted so coverage is not disturbed.
4. Draft the deed with the reserved powers expressly stated. No Florida statute supplies them. If the reservation of the right to sell, mortgage, convey, lease and revoke without the remainderman’s joinder is not written into the document, you do not have an enhanced life estate deed — you have an ordinary life estate, with different tax, Medicaid and saleability consequences.
5. Sign in front of two witnesses and a notary. Two witnesses are required by section 689.01(1), you must sign in their presence, and acknowledgement before a notary is what makes it recordable under section 695.03. If the property is homestead and you are married, your spouse signs as well. Remote online notarization is permitted, so this can be done from anywhere, including outside the United States.
6. Record it in the county where the land sits, and pay the recording fee plus the minimal documentary stamp. Recording is what protects the deed against later claims under section 695.01. In most counties this is the clerk of the circuit court; in Broward it is the Records, Taxes and Treasury Division; in Orange County it is the Comptroller. We record electronically and send you the recorded copy with the book and page.

Timeline. From the first call to a recorded deed is usually five to ten business days, and most of that is reading the existing title and settling the homestead questions. Nothing about it requires you to appear anywhere.

What you do not have to do. You do not notify your mortgage lender, you do not tell the property appraiser, you do not re-file your homestead exemption, you do not file a gift tax return, and you do not need your beneficiary’s signature, consent or knowledge. Nothing is reported to Medicaid. The only office that receives anything is the recording office.

How much does a lady bird deed cost in Florida?

The lady bird deed cost in Florida divides into two things that are often confused: what the lawyer charges, and what the county and the state charge. I prepare and record a Florida lady bird deed for a flat $675, and that figure includes the cost of putting it on the public record — the clerk’s charges under section 28.24 and the nominal stamp an instrument must carry before the clerk will accept it. There is no second invoice for recording, and no separate charge for remote online notarization if you are out of state or out of the country.

What	Cost	Paid to
Lady bird deed, prepared and recorded	$675 flat	Lorenzo Law — includes recording
Quit claim deed, prepared and recorded	$575 flat	Lorenzo Law — includes recording
County recording charges	$10.00 first page, $8.50 each later page, $1.00 per name past the fourth	The county — covered by our fee
Documentary stamp tax on consideration	None due on an unencumbered deed, on the Department of Revenue’s own advisement — persuasive, not binding. Unresolved where the property is mortgaged. See above	The state, by the parties — not included in any fee
Online form service	Roughly $349, recording usually extra	A form vendor
Florida probate of $450,000 in compensable assets instead	Statutory attorney compensation of roughly $13,500, plus court costs and a personal representative’s commission. That figure illustrates the § 733.6171(3) schedule, which the statute presumes reasonable; it is not a mandatory charge, and fees are negotiable. The percentage runs on the inventory value of probate assets, and protected homestead sits outside that base under § 733.608(1) — so a homestead alone does not generate this figure. Where the deed earns its keep on a homestead is the § 733.6171(4) extraordinary-service work and the delay, not a percentage fee	§ 733.6171(3); § 733.608(1)

The comparison with a $349 form service is a fair question, and the honest answer is about scope rather than drafting quality. What the lower figure does not include is anybody reading your recorded deed to see how title is actually held, asking whether you have a minor child, checking whether your spouse must join, confirming the reserved powers are drawn well enough to hold the documentary stamp and Medicaid treatment, or telling you that a lady bird deed is the wrong instrument for what you are trying to do. That last one is not hypothetical. Most of the calls I take about a deed that failed are about a deed that was drafted competently and was simply the wrong deed.

The fees above are flat fees for standard matters — one Florida property, a clean chain of title, straightforward parties — and are confirmed in writing after I read the current recorded deed. They are not a quote for your matter and not a representation about the tax treatment of any particular transfer.

How I decide whether a lady bird deed is right for you

Three questions, asked in this order, before anything is drafted. You can answer all three before you call.

1. The spouse and minor child check

Are you married, and do you have a minor child? This decides whether the instrument is available at all, and it is the one question a form cannot ask you. A minor child ends the analysis for homestead. A spouse means a joinder and, if the remainderman is anyone other than the spouse, a section 732.7025 waiver drafted alongside the deed. See the homestead section.

2. The blended family assessment

If you leave the house to a second spouse, they own it outright at your death and may leave it to anyone, including their own children. If you leave it to children from a first marriage, your spouse’s elective share and homestead rights still apply. Neither outcome is what most people picture. A lady bird deed is a blunt instrument and a blended family usually needs a sharper one.

3. The recorded deed and the mortgage

I read the current recorded deed, check the legal description against it rather than against a tax bill, look at the mortgage for the documentary stamp analysis, and draft the reserved powers to satisfy the Uniform Title Standards. A deed that is legally sound but not insurable is not a solution, because the failure surfaces at a closing your family cannot postpone.

Myths and facts about Florida lady bird deeds

• Myth: it is the same as a living trust, only cheaper. Fact: a trust covers every asset you retitle and plans for your incapacity. A lady bird deed covers one property and does nothing if you lose capacity.
• Myth: it keeps my plan private. Fact: it is a public record from the day it is filed, searchable by anyone. A trust is private.
• Myth: I will lose my homestead exemption. Fact: you keep it during your life under section 196.041(2).
• Myth: my children inherit my low tax bill. Fact: not automatically. Your death is a change of ownership, and unless a statutory exception applies to the person who takes the property, it is reassessed at just value on January 1 of the following year and the Save Our Homes cap is lost. This is the most expensive misconception on the list.
• Myth: it protects the house from my creditors. Fact: homestead protection does that, and only for homestead. The deed adds nothing, and a federal tax lien can reach it anyway.
• Myth: there is such a thing as a “lady bird trust.” Fact: there is not. It is a deed. The confusion is understandable because both avoid probate, but a trust can hold accounts and investments and this cannot.
• Myth: my beneficiaries have to agree before I sell. Fact: they have no say whatsoever, and no right to notice.
• Myth: a lady bird deed is a good idea for everybody who owns a house. Fact: it fails on homestead if you will be survived by a minor child, it is void as to the homestead without your spouse’s signature, and it is redundant if you already have a funded trust. See whether you need one.
• Myth: the deed I downloaded is fine because the clerk recorded it. Fact: recording offices check formalities, not substance. A deed that omits the reserved powers records perfectly well and is not a lady bird deed at all. See defective deeds.

Where I prepare lady bird deeds

Lorenzo Law works from offices in Coral Gables and Fort Lauderdale. Deeds are a matter of state law and county recording practice, so I prepare them and record them electronically for property anywhere in Florida, and you do not need to come to either office — signing can be done remotely under sections 689.01(2) and 117.265 wherever you are, including outside the United States.

Lorenzo Law prepares lady bird deeds for property throughout Florida, including Miami-Dade, Broward, Palm Beach, Orange, Osceola, Hillsborough, Pinellas and Duval counties. Escambia County in the western Panhandle is covered on its own page for a lady bird deed attorney in Pensacola, including the Official Records counter there and the communities that record with it. Recording takes place in the county where the property sits. For Palm Beach County — one office for deeds and probate, and a homestead analysis that changes on a seasonal home — see my Palm Beach County lady bird deed page. For Lee County — where a deed can be recorded on the Cape Coral side of the river but an estate has to be opened in Fort Myers — see my Cape Coral lady bird deed attorney page. For Osceola County — where fifty community development districts levy assessments that outlive the owner, and short-term rental ownership is common enough to change the homestead analysis — see my Kissimmee lady bird deed attorney page. For Polk County — where the county line runs through Poinciana and past Davenport, so a mailing address does not tell you which Clerk records the deed — see my Polk County lady bird deed attorney page. For Brevard County — Melbourne, Palm Bay, Titusville and the beachside towns, where the Clerk takes deeds electronically — see my Brevard County lady bird deed attorney page.

County practice varies more than most people expect, and that is the one part of this that is genuinely local. A ladybird deed in Orlando records with the Orange County Comptroller rather than the clerk of courts, which is not how most Florida counties are set up. A Broward County lady bird deed goes to the county’s Records, Taxes and Treasury Division. A Miami-Dade lady bird deed records with the County Recorder on the fifth floor of the new Justice Center downtown, at the county’s sixty-cent documentary stamp rate. A Tampa or Hillsborough County lady bird deed, like a Pinellas County one, records with the clerk of the circuit court, as it does in Duval, Leon and almost everywhere else. Electronic recording is available in every county we work in, which is why a Tampa, Jacksonville or Tallahassee ladybird deed takes no longer than a Miami one. In Lee County the same is true: a Fort Myers lady bird deed attorney submits it to the Clerk of Court in the Official Records, and it is recorded on the same terms.

Recording requirements themselves are statutory and identical statewide — two witnesses, a notary, the correct legal description, and the right recording office. Hablamos español.

Talk to a Florida lady bird deed attorney

If you want a lady bird deed prepared, or you have one already and want to know whether it does what you were told it does, call 305-224-6811 or send us the current recorded deed. I will tell you whether this is the right instrument for your family, what the documentary stamp position is on your property, and what it costs, before any work starts. There is no charge for that conversation.

See also: our Florida lady bird deed attorney page for the flat-fee service, what is included and how long it takes.

More on Florida lady bird deeds

• Hiring a lady bird deed lawyer in Florida — the flat fee, what is included, and how long it takes
• Lady bird deed tax consequences — capital gains, the step-up, gift tax and the homestead exemption
• The Florida lady bird deed form — what the document says and the powers it must reserve
• Lady bird deed vs. living trust — which one your situation needs
• Lady bird deed vs. quit claim deed — transferring now versus transferring at death
• Lady bird deed after death — what your family files, and in what order
• Can a power of attorney sign one? — the § 709.2202 enumeration problem
• Can a lady bird deed be contested? — grounds, proof and time limits
• Florida deed preparation — witnesses, recording and what the clerk requires

Frequently asked questions

What is a lady bird deed in Florida?

A lady bird deed, formally an enhanced life estate deed, is a Florida deed that transfers real property to a named beneficiary at the owner’s death without probate, while the owner keeps the unrestricted right to sell, mortgage, lease or revoke it during life without the beneficiary’s consent. It is also written ladybird deed. No Florida statute creates it; it is recognized by Florida courts and by the Florida Uniform Title Standards.

What is the downside of a lady bird deed in Florida?

Seven, set out above. The three that cause the most trouble are that it plans for death but not for incapacity, that the remainder fails if you are survived by a minor child, whoever you named and your spouse included, and that your death is a change of ownership, so unless a statutory exception applies, the property is reassessed at just value on January 1 of the following year and your Save Our Homes assessment cap is lost.

Can I do my own lady bird deed in Florida, or do I need a lawyer?

Nothing stops you, and you do not legally need a lawyer for a lady bird deed. Section 454.18 confirms a person may act on their own behalf, and can I do a lady bird deed myself is a question with a simple legal answer and a complicated practical one. The risk is not permission but accuracy: no statute supplies the reserved powers if you leave them out, and a deed missing them is an ordinary life estate deed with different tax and Medicaid consequences. The two failures we see most from online forms are missing witness lines and a missing homestead joinder, and the second produces a deed that conveys nothing.

How much does a lady bird deed cost in Florida?

Ours is a flat $675, including speaking directly with attorney Jose Lorenzo, the homestead and joinder analysis, documentary stamp analysis, drafting, execution and the cost of recording. Online form services advertise around $349 with recording usually billed separately. Documentary stamp tax on consideration is separate from any fee. On an unencumbered deed the Department of Revenue has concluded that none is due, though that advisement binds only the taxpayer who requested it, and where the property is mortgaged the answer is unresolved in Florida.

Do you pay taxes on a lady bird deed in Florida?

Not when you sign it. There is no gift tax and no Form 709, because the retained power to revoke makes the gift incomplete under Treasury Regulation § 25.2511-2(c). The Department of Revenue concluded that the enhanced life estate deed it reviewed in Technical Assistance Advisement 20B4-004 was not subject to documentary stamp tax. I read the proposed deed and the transaction facts, including any mortgage, to determine the applicable treatment before recording. You keep your homestead exemption during life. The tax that does arrive is a property tax one. Your death is a change of ownership, and unless a statutory exception applies, the property is reassessed at just value on January 1 of the following year and the Save Our Homes cap is lost.

Does a lady bird deed avoid Medicaid estate recovery in Florida?

As Florida law currently stands, yes. Section 409.9101(2) recovers by filing a claim against the probate estate under part VII of chapter 733, and property passing by lady bird deed never becomes a probate asset. Florida has declined the broader definition of “estate” that 42 U.S.C. § 1396p(b)(4)(B) permits, and that is a policy choice the Legislature could reverse.

Can I use a lady bird deed if I have minor children?

Not on your homestead, and not to anyone — your spouse included. Because the deed retains a power to revoke, on the text of section 732.4017(1) it does not qualify for that section’s shelter, which leaves it exposed to section 732.4015(1), prohibiting the devise of homestead where the owner is survived by a minor child. No Florida appellate court has applied that reading to a lady bird deed. The spousal exception in that section is available only where there is no minor child, and no waiver exists for a minor child. If the remainder fails, the homestead descends under section 732.401; your life estate and retained powers are unaffected. Because the restriction turns on who survives you, the text points to your death rather than the signing date as the moment that matters, although no decision has said so about this deed.

Does a lady bird deed override my will?

As to the property described in the deed, yes. That property passes automatically at your death and never becomes part of the probate estate your will governs, so a contrary provision in the will has nothing to operate on. Changing the beneficiary requires a new recorded deed, not a new will.

How do I revoke a lady bird deed in Florida?

By recording a new instrument — either a deed conveying the property back to yourself in fee simple, or a new enhanced life estate deed naming someone else. You do not need your beneficiary’s agreement and do not have to tell them. Destroying your copy does nothing; the recorded deed is what counts.

Can I use a lady bird deed on a condo or a rental property?

Yes to both. A condominium works the same way, though the legal description must reference the declaration book and page — a unit number and address is not sufficient. A rental or vacation home is non-homestead, so there is no spousal joinder issue, but also no Article X, section 4 creditor protection, and the assessment cap is 10 percent under section 193.1554 rather than 3 percent.

Is there such a thing as a lady bird trust?

No. “Lady bird trust” is a common misnomer for this deed. The confusion is understandable because both avoid probate, but a lady bird deed is strictly a real estate instrument, while a trust can hold bank accounts, investments and personal property. You can, however, name a trust as the remainder beneficiary of a lady bird deed, which is often the right answer where a beneficiary is a minor, has creditors, or receives means-tested benefits.

Is a lady bird deed legal in Florida, and does Florida have lady bird deeds?

Yes. Florida is one of a small number of states where the enhanced life estate deed is recognized, and it is recognized by decision and by title practice rather than by statute. The Third District addressed one in Hirschenson in 2023, the Fourth District in Varano in 2025, and Uniform Title Standards 6.10 to 6.12 tell underwriters how to insure one. Florida does not have a transfer on death deed, which is the instrument most other states use — the lady bird deed is what Florida has instead.

Who owns the property in a lady bird deed?

You do, for every purpose that matters while you are alive. You hold the life estate together with the retained power to sell, mortgage, lease or revoke, which means you can deal with the property exactly as you could before, alone. Your beneficiary holds a remainder interest that carries no present right to possess, to object, to be consulted or to be told. It is on the public record, so a title searcher will see their name, but they do not own the house and they cannot stop you doing anything with it. They own it outright at the moment of your death, and not a day sooner.

Do I need a lady bird deed if I already have a will or a trust?

If you have a funded revocable trust and the house is already titled in it, no — the trust avoids probate on that parcel and does a great deal the deed cannot. If you have only a will, the answer is usually yes: a will is the document that sends the house through probate, not around it. The combination people most often get wrong is a will plus a house in their sole name, which is exactly the situation a lady bird deed is built for. The two instruments also work together — a lady bird deed naming your trust as remainderman is a legitimate Florida structure, and it is sometimes better than retitling the home into the trust during your life.

Can I sell my house with a lady bird deed on it?

Yes, and you do not need the beneficiary’s signature or consent. The retained power to convey is the whole point of the word “enhanced,” and a properly drafted deed lets you sell, mortgage, refinance, lease or rent alone. You keep every dollar of the proceeds; your beneficiary has no claim on them. Expect the closing agent to read the deed carefully and occasionally to ask for a short affidavit confirming the powers were reserved — that is routine, not an obstacle. If you sell the property, the lady bird deed simply expires with it, because there is nothing left for it to convey.

Is a lady bird deed revocable, and can I file one myself?

It is fully revocable for as long as you are alive and competent, by recording a new deed — no court, no beneficiary consent. Can I file a lady bird deed myself? Nothing in Florida law stops you. Section 454.18 confirms a person may act on their own behalf, and the recording office will accept a deed from anyone who brings one in. The risk is not permission but accuracy, and a lady bird deed is unusually unforgiving: no statute supplies the reserved powers if you leave them out, no waiver cures a missing spousal joinder, and no signature cures the minor-child bar. A form that is wrong does not announce itself — it sits on the public record looking valid until your family tries to use it.

I live out of state. Can I still sign one?

Yes. Section 689.01(2) allows the two subscribing witnesses to be present and sign by audio-video communication technology, and under sections 117.209(3) and 117.265(1) a Florida online notary physically in Florida may notarise regardless of where you are, including outside the United States. Both mechanisms have to be arranged together — a session producing a valid notarization but only one witness has not produced a deed.

This page is general information about Florida law, not legal advice for any particular situation, and reading it does not create an attorney-client relationship. Statutes, constitutional provisions, administrative rules and tax rates change, and documentary stamp tax, income tax, Medicaid, homestead and elective share questions depend on facts specific to the property and the parties. Fees shown are flat fees for standard matters, cover the legal work and recording costs described and no other charge, and are confirmed in writing after I read the current recorded deed. Nothing here is a quote for your matter or a representation about how any tax authority will treat a particular transfer.