A Florida Lady Bird deed form is an enhanced life estate deed that names a beneficiary to receive your real property automatically at your death while you keep the right to sell, mortgage, or revoke it during your lifetime. To be valid and recordable in Florida, the form must contain specific reservation language, an accurate legal description, and signatures from you, two witnesses, and a notary — plus your spouse if the property is homestead.
What the Deed Does
A Lady Bird deed reserves to you, the grantor, the power to sell the property, take out a mortgage, or revoke the deed entirely without the beneficiary’s consent. The beneficiary has no enforceable interest until you die, and only then if you haven’t already transferred the property to someone else.1UF Advisor Network. Using Enhanced Life Estate Deeds to Pass Real Property to Charity – Opportunities, Pitfalls, and Best Practices That reservation language is what separates it from an ordinary life estate deed, where the remainder beneficiary has to cooperate before you can sell or refinance.
Information the Form Must Contain
Before drafting, gather each of the following. Missing or wrong information in any of these fields is where most home-drafted deeds run into trouble.
- Full legal names and mailing addresses for you (the grantor) and the remainder beneficiary. Florida’s recording statute requires every signer’s name to be legibly printed or typed beneath the signature, with a mailing address.2Florida Statutes. Florida Code 695.26 – Requirements for Recording Instruments Affecting Real Property
- The legal description of the property. This is not the street address. It’s the formal lot-and-block or metes-and-bounds description that defines the parcel boundaries. Pull it from your existing deed and verify it against current county property appraiser records; a mismatch in township, range, or section numbers can cloud the title for years.
- The parcel identification number, which most counties expect on any recorded instrument affecting real property.
- The enhanced life estate reservation language reserving your right to sell, lease, mortgage, or revoke the transfer without the beneficiary’s consent. Omitting this language or getting it wrong creates an irrevocable transfer you probably didn’t intend.
Spousal Joinder for Homestead Property
If you are married and the property is your homestead, your spouse must sign the deed. Florida law is emphatic: nothing exempts a homestead conveyance from the requirement that both spouses join.3The Florida Legislature. Florida Code 689.111 – Conveyance of Homestead A Lady Bird deed signed by only one spouse on homestead property is void.
Florida’s constitution adds a further limit. Homestead property generally cannot be left to anyone other than a surviving spouse if the owner is survived by a spouse or minor child. A Lady Bird deed naming a child or third party as the remainder beneficiary while a surviving spouse exists can be challenged after the grantor’s death. Leaving homestead to someone other than your spouse requires your spouse to voluntarily waive their homestead rights, and that waiver needs careful legal drafting to hold up.
Signing, Witnesses, and Notarization
Florida requires two witnesses for any deed transferring an interest in real property.4The Florida Legislature. Florida Code 689.01 – How Real Estate Conveyed You sign first, and both witnesses sign in your presence. The statute itself says no seal is needed for the deed to be legally valid, but validity and recordability are two different things.
To record the deed, your signature must be acknowledged before a notary public or other authorized officer.5The Florida Legislature. Florida Code 695.03 – Acknowledgment and Proof An unrecorded deed technically transfers the interest between the parties, but it won’t protect the beneficiary against later claims from creditors or other buyers. A Lady Bird deed that isn’t recorded defeats its own purpose.
Florida also permits remote witnessing. Witnesses can appear through audio-video communication technology rather than in the same room, as long as the witness can hear you acknowledge the signature and electronically co-signs the document.4The Florida Legislature. Florida Code 689.01 – How Real Estate Conveyed That option helps grantors who are homebound or far from their witnesses.
Recording the Deed and What It Costs
Once signed, witnessed, and notarized, the deed goes to the Clerk of the Circuit Court in the county where the property sits. You can file in person, by mail with a self-addressed stamped envelope, or through a certified e-recording vendor. The clerk assigns an official records book and page number and returns the original to the sender.
Two categories of cost apply. Recording fees under Florida’s fee schedule combine a base charge, a modernization surcharge, and a per-page service charge, totaling $10.00 for the first page and $8.50 for each additional page.6The Florida Legislature. Florida Code 28.24 – Service Charges by Clerk of the Circuit Court A typical Lady Bird deed runs two to three pages. Documentary stamp tax is $0.70 per $100 of consideration on deeds. Because a Lady Bird deed during your lifetime is a gift with no money changing hands, the tax is typically calculated on zero consideration, and the minimum stamp of $0.70 applies.7Florida Statutes. Florida Code 201.02 – Tax on Deeds and Other Instruments Relating to Real Property or Interests in Real Property
Record promptly. Until the deed appears in the public record, the beneficiary’s future interest isn’t protected against later conveyances or liens.
Changing or Revoking It Later
The reservation language built into the deed preserves your unilateral power to revoke the transfer or change the beneficiary without the current beneficiary’s involvement or knowledge. To do it, record a new deed that either transfers the property back to yourself, names a different beneficiary, or states the revocation of the prior instrument. The new deed must satisfy the same signing, witnessing, and notarization requirements, and it must be recorded in the same county. Once recorded, it supersedes the old one.
What Happens When You Die
When you die, the property passes to the named remainder beneficiary automatically, without probate. No court order or personal representative is needed. The standard process is for the beneficiary to record a certified copy of your death certificate in the county where the property sits, which updates the public record and lets the beneficiary sell, refinance, or insure the property under their own name.
The deed transfers only whatever interest remains at the time of death. If you sold or transferred the property before dying, the beneficiary receives nothing.
Tax and Medicaid Effects
Because the property doesn’t transfer until your death, the beneficiary receives a stepped-up tax basis equal to the property’s fair market value on the date of death.8Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 26 USC 1014 – Basis of Property Acquired From a Decedent During your lifetime, the deed does not trigger a taxable gift, because you retain full control and the power to revoke, so the IRS does not treat the deed as a completed gift. You continue to claim any homestead exemption and property tax benefits as before.
Florida Medicaid estate recovery can only reach assets that pass through the deceased recipient’s probate estate. A Lady Bird deed transfers outside probate, so the home generally isn’t reachable by state recovery after the Medicaid recipient dies. Recording the deed during your lifetime is also not treated as a disqualifying transfer for Medicaid eligibility, because you retain full control and the right to revoke. Medicaid rules are complex and change over time, so anyone using a Lady Bird deed primarily for Medicaid planning should confirm current program rules with an elder law attorney.
Mortgaged Property
If you still owe money on the property, the federal Garn-St. Germain Act prohibits lenders from enforcing a due-on-sale clause when a borrower transfers property into a life estate while remaining in the home. Because a Lady Bird deed preserves your occupancy and ownership during your lifetime, it fits within that protection. After your death, the Act also protects a spouse or child who inherits the property from having the loan called due immediately; the heir can continue making payments, refinance, or sell to satisfy the debt. Mortgage documents vary, though, and some older or unconventional loans contain unusual language, so having an attorney review your specific mortgage terms before recording the deed is a reasonable precaution.