Brevard County Quit Claim Deed: Recording, Stamp Tax, and Risks

A Brevard County quitclaim deed transfers whatever interest the grantor has in a piece of real property to the grantee, with no promise that the interest is good or the title is clean. You prepare the deed with the required information, sign it in front of two witnesses and a notary, and record it with the Brevard County Clerk of the Circuit Court, paying both recording fees and Florida documentary stamp tax at the time of filing.¹ Because the deed carries no title guarantees, it fits transfers between family members, moves into a living trust, divorce settlements, and corrections to prior deeds. It is a poor choice for arm’s-length sales.

What You Give Up by Using a Quitclaim

A warranty deed promises the grantor owns the property free and clear and will defend the title against future claims. A quitclaim promises none of that. The grantor hands over whatever interest they happen to have, which could be full ownership, partial ownership, or nothing. If a lien, boundary dispute, or competing claim surfaces later, the grantee has no legal recourse against the grantor. That is the trade you are making, and it is why quitclaims almost always appear between people who already trust each other or in transfers that are essentially administrative: adding or removing a spouse from title, deeding property into your own trust, or fixing a misspelled name.

Information the Deed Must Contain

Every quitclaim deed filed in Brevard County needs the full legal names and mailing addresses of both grantor and grantee. Florida law also requires that the name and address of the person who prepared the deed appear on the document itself.²

The deed must include the full legal description of the property, not just a street address. That means the metes-and-bounds description or lot-and-block information that defines the parcel in the public record. You also need the Parcel ID, which in Brevard County uses an alphanumeric format like “20G-35-03-XY-234-56.7” encoding the township, range, section, subdivision, block, and lot.³ Both the legal description and Parcel ID appear on any previously recorded deed for the same property and through the Property Appraiser’s online search. Copy the legal description exactly; errors here can create title problems that are expensive to fix later.

Signing, Witnesses, and Page Formatting

Florida requires two witnesses to observe the grantor sign and then sign the deed themselves.⁴ A notary public then acknowledges the grantor’s signature. The conveyance statute itself does not require a seal to make the transfer legally valid, but the recording statute requires that any notary whose signature appears on the instrument have their name legibly printed beneath it, and clerks routinely reject unnotarized deeds.² A Florida notary may charge up to $10 per notarial act.⁵

The physical format matters too. The first page must leave a blank three-inch by three-inch space in the top right corner for the Clerk’s recording stamp, and each page after that needs a one-inch by three-inch space in the same spot.² Blank forms with these spaces built in are available through the Clerk’s website or legal stationery suppliers.

Recording with the Brevard County Clerk

Once the deed is signed, witnessed, and notarized, you file it with the Clerk of the Circuit Court to make it part of the official record. You can submit in person at the Titusville courthouse, the Moore Justice Center in Viera, or the Melbourne branch courthouse.⁶ The Clerk also accepts submissions by mail and through authorized e-recording vendors, which is often faster.⁷

Florida’s base statutory recording fee is $5.00 for the first page and $4.00 for each additional page, with surcharges under various statutes bringing the effective total higher.⁸ The Clerk’s website has a recording fee calculator that returns the exact amount before you file. All fees are due at submission. Once processed, the deed receives an Official Records book and page number, and the original is returned to the designated party.

Documentary Stamp Tax

On top of recording fees, Florida charges documentary stamp tax on deeds that transfer real property. In Brevard County, as in every Florida county except Miami-Dade, the rate is $0.70 per $100 of consideration. Consideration means the total value exchanged, including cash paid and any mortgage balance the grantee assumes or takes subject to.⁹ A $250,000 transfer produces $1,750 in documentary stamps.

Several common quitclaim scenarios reduce or eliminate the tax:

A deed between spouses or former spouses transferring the marital home as part of a divorce is exempt regardless of consideration. If the property is not the marital home, the tax applies based on consideration including any mortgage balance.¹⁰
A deed transferring homestead property between spouses is exempt when the only consideration is an existing mortgage on the property.⁹
A gift with genuinely no money and no mortgage assumed may owe no documentary stamp tax, because the tax is calculated on consideration. If the property carries a mortgage, however, the outstanding balance counts as consideration even if the grantee is not formally assuming the loan.¹⁰
Florida provides no specific documentary stamp tax exemption for deeds transferring property into a trust for estate planning. If the property is mortgaged, the mortgage balance is treated as consideration and the tax applies to that amount.¹⁰

The mortgage-as-consideration rule catches many people off guard. Even a simple transfer from your individual name into your own revocable trust triggers the tax if there is an outstanding mortgage, because the Department of Revenue treats encumbrances on the property as consideration whether or not anyone formally assumes the debt.

Property Tax Reassessment and Homestead

A quitclaim deed can produce a sharp property tax increase. Florida’s Save Our Homes amendment caps annual increases in a homestead’s assessed value at 3% or the change in the Consumer Price Index, whichever is lower. Over time this creates a gap between assessed and market value. When ownership changes, the cap resets and the property is reassessed at full market value as of the following January 1.¹¹

Not every quitclaim triggers reassessment. Transfers between spouses, transfers where the same person keeps the homestead exemption before and after the deed, and certain transfers at death are protected.¹¹ Adding someone to your title while you remain both a grantor and a grantee on the deed also avoids the reset, as long as the new co-owner does not apply for a separate homestead exemption on the property. Deeding your home entirely to an adult child or an unrelated person will almost always wipe out the accumulated Save Our Homes savings.

The homestead exemption itself is separate. A new owner who will use the property as a primary residence must file a new homestead exemption application with the Brevard County Property Appraiser. If you are transferring portability benefits from a prior homestead, the application and portability form (DR-501T) are due by March 1 of the year after you move in.¹²

Mortgage Due-on-Sale Risk

If the property still has a mortgage, a quitclaim can trigger the lender’s due-on-sale clause and let them demand immediate repayment. Federal law limits when lenders can enforce that clause on residential properties with fewer than five units. Under the Garn-St. Germain Act, a lender cannot accelerate the loan for certain protected transfers:

Transfers where the borrower’s spouse or children become an owner of the property.¹³
Transfers into a trust where the borrower remains a beneficiary and the transfer does not change who occupies the property.¹³
Transfers resulting from a divorce decree or separation agreement where the borrower’s spouse becomes the owner.
Transfers upon the death of a joint tenant or to a relative after the borrower’s death.

Transfers outside those categories, such as deeding a mortgaged property to an unrelated friend or business partner, give the lender the right to call the loan. Even for protected transfers, notify the lender beforehand. One more thing to understand: a quitclaim deed does not remove the grantor from the mortgage. If you sign over the property but remain on the loan, you are still liable for the payments.

Federal Gift Tax

When a quitclaim transfers property for less than fair market value, the IRS may treat the difference as a taxable gift. For 2026, the annual gift tax exclusion is $19,000 per recipient.¹⁴ A real estate transfer almost always exceeds that, so the grantor needs to file IRS Form 709 for the year of the transfer. Filing does not necessarily mean paying tax, because the excess is applied against the grantor’s lifetime estate and gift tax exclusion, which is $15,000,000 for 2026. Failing to file at all can create problems later.

Transfers between spouses who are both U.S. citizens are generally covered by the unlimited marital deduction, so no gift tax return is required. For everyone else, if you are deeding property worth more than $19,000 to someone without receiving fair market value in return, plan on filing Form 709 by April 15 of the following year.

No Title Insurance Comes With It

A quitclaim deed does not come with title insurance, and any existing owner’s title insurance policy held by the grantor does not transfer to the grantee. If a title defect surfaces after the transfer, the grantee bears the full cost of resolving it. If you are receiving property by quitclaim and want title protection, you can hire an attorney to run a title search and then buy a new owner’s title insurance policy through a title company. For a family transfer of property with a known history, many people skip this. For anything less certain, a few hundred dollars on a title search is cheap compared to the surprises it can surface.

1
Brevard County Clerk of the Court. Official Records
2
The Florida Legislature. Florida Statutes 695.26 – Requirements for Recording Instruments Affecting Real Property
3
Brevard County Property Appraiser. Brevard County Property Appraiser – Property Search
4
Florida Senate. Florida Statutes 689.01 – How Real Estate Conveyed
5
The Florida Legislature. Florida Statutes 117.05 – Use of Notary Commission
6
Brevard County Clerk of the Court. Office Locations
7
Brevard County Clerk of the Court. eRecording
8
Florida Senate. Florida Statutes Chapter 28 – Clerks of the Circuit Court
9
Justia Law. Florida Statutes 201.02 – Tax on Deeds and Other Instruments Relating to Real Property or Interests in Real Property
10
Florida Department of Revenue. Documentary Stamp Tax
11
Florida Senate. Florida Statutes 193.155 – Homestead Assessments
12
Florida Department of Revenue. Can I Keep My Homestead Exemption If I Move?
13
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 12 U.S. Code 1701j-3 – Preemption of Due-on-Sale Prohibitions
14
Internal Revenue Service. Gifts and Inheritances