Deed Preparation & Property Transfers
A deed is usually one page. That is what makes it dangerous. It looks like a form, people treat it like a form, and the consequences of getting it wrong — a void transfer, an unexpected tax bill, a lost homestead exemption, a title nobody will insure — do not show up until years later, often when the property is being sold or someone has died.
Irina Prell prepares and records deeds for Florida property owners: transfers between family members, additions and removals of an owner after marriage or divorce, transfers into an LLC or a trust, estate planning transfers, and corrections to deeds that were recorded wrong the first time.
Deeds We Prepare
Quitclaim Deed
Transfers whatever interest the grantor has — and makes no promise that the grantor has any. Appropriate between people who already trust each other and know the title history: adding a spouse, removing an ex-spouse under a divorce judgment, moving property between related entities. Not appropriate for a sale to a stranger.
General Warranty Deed
The grantor warrants title all the way back through every prior owner, not just their own period of ownership. The standard instrument in an arm’s-length Florida sale, and the one that gives a buyer the most to sue on if a defect surfaces later.
Special Warranty Deed
The grantor warrants only against defects that arose while they owned the property, and says nothing about what happened before. Common from estates, trusts, banks, corporate sellers and investors.
Corrective and Scrivener’s Deeds
For a recorded deed carrying a wrong legal description, a misspelled name, a missing witness or a defective acknowledgment. These are worth fixing before a sale rather than during one, when the error becomes a title objection and a closing delay.
Lady Bird (Enhanced Life Estate) and Life Estate Deeds
A Lady Bird deed passes property at death without probate while leaving the owner free to sell, mortgage or change their mind during life — which an ordinary life estate deed does not. We cover the mechanics in more depth in our article on Lady Bird deeds in Florida.
Personal Representative’s and Trustee’s Deeds
Conveyances out of an estate or a trust, where the authority to sign has to be established on the face of the deed and in the record before a title insurer will accept it.
Transfers Into LLCs, Land Trusts and Revocable Trusts
Asset protection and estate planning transfers, prepared with the documentary stamp tax consequences worked out in advance rather than discovered at the clerk’s window. See also Florida land trusts.
For a deed given to a lender to resolve a defaulted mortgage, see deed in lieu of foreclosure.
Five Things That Go Wrong With Do-It-Yourself Deeds
1. The spouse who was not on the title still had to sign
Article X, Section 4(c) of the Florida Constitution requires a spouse to join in any conveyance of homestead property — even a spouse whose name has never appeared on the deed. Those rights attach to the marriage and the occupancy, not to the title. A deed of homestead signed by only one spouse is void, not merely voidable, and no title insurer will write over it.
2. A “gift” deed can carry a real tax bill
Florida documentary stamp tax runs $0.70 per $100 of consideration outside Miami-Dade, and consideration includes the balance of any mortgage on the property — whether or not the new owner assumes it. Deed a mortgaged property worth $400,000 with a $300,000 loan into your own LLC and the tax is calculated on the $300,000, not on the zero dollars that changed hands.
There is a narrow exemption for transfers of homestead property between spouses where the only consideration is the existing mortgage balance. It does not extend to transfers into a trust or an LLC. Which side of that line a transfer falls on is worth knowing before the deed is signed.
3. Two witnesses, and Florida still means it
Section 689.01 requires two subscribing witnesses to a conveyance of Florida real property. The Legislature removed that requirement for leases; it did not remove it for deeds. Online form sites frequently produce deeds with a notary block and no witness lines at all.
4. The clerk can reject it outright
Section 695.26 requires the preparer’s name and address, printed names and addresses beneath every signature including the witnesses and the notary, the grantee’s mailing address, and a reserved 3-inch square at the top right of the first page for the clerk. A deed missing those comes back unrecorded — and an unrecorded deed does not protect the new owner against the seller’s creditors or a later buyer.
5. The consequences nobody mentioned
Changing who is on title can reset the Save Our Homes assessment cap and disturb the homestead exemption. It can trigger a mortgage’s due-on-sale clause, though federal law shields several family transfers. It can start a five-year Medicaid look-back on a gift to a child. It can move the property out of reach of a homestead creditor protection that was working perfectly well where it was. None of that appears on the form.
Why Not Just Use a Form Website
You can buy a Florida quitclaim deed online for the price of lunch, and for a genuinely simple transfer it may even record. The problem is that the form cannot tell you whether a quitclaim is the wrong instrument for what you are trying to do, whether your spouse has to sign, what the transfer does to your tax assessment, or what it costs in documentary stamps. It answers the question you asked. The expensive mistakes live in the questions you did not know to ask.
A deed also has no undo. Once it is recorded and the grantee has an interest, getting it back requires their cooperation — or a quiet title action, which costs considerably more than doing it correctly the first time.
How It Works
We start by asking what you are actually trying to accomplish, because that determines the instrument — not the other way around. We check the current vesting and the existing title, identify the tax and homestead consequences, prepare the deed, handle execution with proper witnesses and notarization, and record it in the correct county. You receive the recorded deed.
Where a transfer is part of a closing, it is handled alongside the rest of the transaction. Where it is part of an estate plan, it is coordinated with the rest of the plan rather than done in isolation.
Frequently Asked Questions About Florida Deeds
Can I prepare my own quitclaim deed in Florida?
Nothing stops you from filling in a form. The question is whether the transfer does what you intended, and whether it creates a problem that surfaces later — usually when you try to sell, refinance or settle an estate. Most of the defective deeds this firm is asked to fix were not rejected by the clerk. They recorded cleanly, and were only discovered to be a problem years afterward when a title examiner looked at the chain.
How many witnesses does a Florida deed need?
Two. Florida Statutes section 689.01 requires a deed conveying an interest in land to be signed in the presence of two subscribing witnesses, and the signature must be notarized before the deed can be recorded. The notary may serve as one of the two witnesses, but a notary acknowledgment alone is not enough. This is the most common defect in do-it-yourself deeds, because most online forms are written for states that do not require witnesses.
Does my spouse have to sign if the property is only in my name?
If the property is your homestead, yes. Article X, section 4(c) of the Florida Constitution requires the joinder of a spouse to convey homestead property, even when that spouse is not on the title and never has been.
The consequence is severe: a homestead deed without the required spousal joinder is void, not merely voidable. It does not become valid with the passage of time, and it is not cured by the other spouse later agreeing to it.
What is the difference between a quitclaim deed and a warranty deed?
A quitclaim deed transfers whatever interest the grantor happens to own, with no promise that they own anything at all. A general warranty deed transfers the property and warrants the title against defects arising at any point in its history. A special warranty deed sits between the two, warranting only against defects that arose during the grantor’s own ownership.
Quitclaim deeds suit people who already trust each other and know the title history — spouses, family members, an owner moving property into their own trust. They are rarely appropriate in an arm’s-length sale.
Will a quitclaim deed remove my ex-spouse from the mortgage?
No, and this is the most expensive misunderstanding in this area of law. A deed moves ownership. It has no effect on the loan. Whoever signed the note remains personally liable to the lender regardless of whose name is on the deed.
Removing someone from a mortgage requires either a refinance in the remaining owner’s name alone, or a formal release from the lender, which lenders rarely grant. A divorce agreement saying one spouse will “take over the mortgage” does not bind the lender at all.
Do I owe documentary stamp tax on a transfer to a family member?
It depends on whether anything of value changes hands — and an outstanding mortgage counts as value. Florida’s documentary stamp tax under section 201.02 is calculated on the consideration for the transfer, at $0.70 per $100 in most counties, and the balance of any mortgage on the property is treated as consideration even when no money is exchanged.
So a parent adding a child to the deed of a house carrying a $300,000 mortgage may create a real tax liability, while the same transfer on a house owned free and clear may cost almost nothing. There is a specific exemption for transfers of homestead property between spouses under section 201.02(7)(b). The arithmetic is worth doing before the deed is signed, not after the clerk sends a bill.
Will transferring my home affect my homestead exemption or Save Our Homes cap?
It can, and the effect is often larger than the transfer itself. A change of ownership generally causes the property to be reassessed at just value the following January 1, which strips away the accumulated Save Our Homes benefit. On a long-held Southwest Florida property that gap can run to hundreds of thousands of dollars in assessed value.
Some transfers preserve the exemption and some do not, and the distinctions are technical — a transfer into a properly drafted revocable trust is treated differently from a transfer into an LLC. Ask before you sign, because the assessment consequence is very hard to unwind afterward.
Can I transfer my house into an LLC or a trust?
Often yes, but three things need checking first. The mortgage almost certainly contains a due-on-sale clause allowing the lender to call the loan when title transfers. The homestead exemption and Save Our Homes cap may be lost on a transfer to an entity. And documentary stamp tax may be due on the outstanding mortgage balance.
None of these are necessarily deal-breakers. All of them are worse discovered after recording.
What is a Lady Bird deed and should I use one?
An enhanced life estate deed, commonly called a Lady Bird deed, lets an owner keep full control of the property during their lifetime — including the right to sell or mortgage it without the remainder beneficiary’s consent — with the property passing automatically at death without probate.
Used well, it avoids probate on the homestead while preserving the homestead exemption. Used carelessly, it can conflict with a will, complicate Medicaid planning, or create friction where there are several children. It is a precise tool for a narrow set of situations, not a default.
How long does it take to record a deed in Florida?
Preparation and signing usually take a few days, mostly governed by how quickly everyone can get to a notary with two witnesses. Recording happens through the clerk in the county where the property sits; counties accepting electronic recording often post the document within a day or two, while mailed documents take longer. The property appraiser’s records typically update some weeks after recording.
I already recorded a deed and think something is wrong. Can it be fixed?
Usually, and the sooner the better. Errors in the legal description, a missing witness, a misspelled name or an omitted spousal joinder can often be repaired with a corrective deed, and sometimes with a curative affidavit. Where the original parties are unavailable or the defect is serious, a quiet title action may be required. What makes these harder is time — intervening liens, deaths and later transfers all complicate the repair.
Talk to Us Before You Sign
If you have already recorded a deed and are wondering whether it did what you intended, that is worth a conversation too — most deed problems are cheaper to fix before a sale than during one. Call (239) 231-2222 or use our contact page.
This page is general information about Florida law, not legal advice, and reading it does not create an attorney-client relationship. Whether any of it applies to your property depends on facts we would need to review.