Florida Quit Claim Deed Statute: Requirements, Taxes & Risks

A Florida quitclaim deed transfers whatever ownership interest the grantor holds in a piece of real property, with no promise that the title is good, that the property is free of liens, or even that the grantor owns anything at all. That makes it a fast, low-cost tool for transfers between people who already trust each other—spouses, family members, a person moving property into their own trust—and a poor choice for arm’s-length deals with strangers. To be valid in Florida, the deed has to be written, signed before two witnesses, notarized, and recorded in the county where the property sits, and a few Florida-specific rules (homestead, documentary stamp tax, Save Our Homes) can turn a routine transfer into an expensive one if you miss them.

What a Quitclaim Deed Actually Transfers

A quitclaim deed conveys the grantor’s present interest, if any, and nothing more. A Florida Senate legislative analysis described it as a conveyance made “without representing, covenanting, or warranting that the title is good.”¹ By contrast, Florida’s statutory warranty deed form includes an explicit promise to “fully warrant the title” and “defend the same against the lawful claims of all persons.”²

If the grantor holds full ownership, full ownership passes. If they hold a half interest, a half interest passes. If they hold nothing, the grantee receives nothing, with no recourse against the grantor. That is the entire deal.

Legal Requirements for a Valid Florida Quitclaim Deed

Miss any of these and the deed can be challenged or rejected at recording.

Written instrument. Florida’s Statute of Frauds requires any real-property transfer lasting more than one year to be made by a signed writing.³
Two witnesses. The grantor must sign in the presence of two subscribing witnesses, and both witnesses must sign the deed.³
Notary acknowledgment. A notary public must acknowledge the grantor’s signature. Florida caps notary fees at $10 per notarial act.⁴
Names and grantee address. Both parties must be identified by name, and the grantee’s mailing address should appear on the deed to meet the clerk’s recording requirements.⁵
Legal description. The property must be described precisely enough to distinguish it from every other parcel, typically by lot and block within a subdivision or by section-township-range. A vague description can make the deed unenforceable.
Parcel identification number. Florida’s warranty deed statute requires space for the property appraiser’s parcel ID, and it should be filled in before recording when available.²

Homestead Property and the Spousal Signature Rule

Under Article X, Section 4 of the Florida Constitution, if the property being transferred is the grantor’s homestead, the grantor’s spouse must also sign the quitclaim deed, even if that spouse is not on the title and has no ownership interest. A homestead transfer signed only by the record owner is void, not merely voidable. It has no legal effect at all.

Homestead status also drives a separate tax problem. Florida’s Save Our Homes cap limits annual increases in assessed value on homestead property to 3% or the change in the Consumer Price Index, whichever is lower. Transferring a long-held homestead by quitclaim deed can trigger reassessment at full market value, wiping out years of accumulated cap savings. Before signing, pull the current assessed value and compare it with market value. If there’s a large gap, the post-transfer tax bill can jump sharply.

When People Use Quitclaim Deeds in Florida

Divorce Settlements

In a Florida divorce, one spouse often quitclaims their interest in the marital home to the other. Both parties already know the property, and the transfer is part of the court process. Federal law also shields divorce-related transfers from a mortgage lender’s due-on-sale clause, which removes one of the biggest risks of using a quitclaim deed on a mortgaged property.⁶

Moving Property Into a Trust or Adding a Family Member

Owners sometimes use a quitclaim deed to move property into a revocable living trust or to add a child or spouse to the title. A transfer into a trust where the borrower remains a beneficiary is another federally protected transfer that won’t trigger a due-on-sale clause.⁶ Trust ownership can help the property avoid Florida probate. The capital gains issue described below, though, often makes lifetime gifts to children a costly move.

Correcting a Prior Deed

A quitclaim deed is a common way to fix a misspelled name or a bad legal description in an earlier deed. In practice, that means asking both the current owner and the original grantor to sign the corrective deed, which is not always possible if the original grantor has died or refuses to cooperate.¹

Documentary Stamp Tax and Recording Fees

Florida imposes a documentary stamp tax on nearly every deed, quitclaim deeds included. The rate is $0.70 for every $100 of consideration.⁷ On a $300,000 sale, that’s $2,100. For a gift with only nominal consideration—the classic “love and affection and $10″—the Florida Department of Revenue calculates the tax on that nominal amount, so the tax comes to $0.70.⁸

Two exemptions matter for family transfers. A deed transferring homestead property between spouses is exempt when the only consideration is the existing mortgage balance. And documentary stamp tax paid on a deed tied to a divorce is refundable if the deed was executed within one year before the dissolution.⁹

Recording fees are set by state statute and are uniform across counties: $10 for the first page and $8.50 for each additional page. Most quitclaim deeds run one to three pages, so total recording cost falls between $10 and $27. The deed also has to meet formatting rules, including a maximum size of 8.5 by 14 inches, or the clerk will reject it.⁵

Gift Tax and Capital Gains When You Give Property Away

When you transfer property by quitclaim deed without receiving fair market value in return, the IRS treats it as a gift. If the property’s fair market value exceeds $19,000—the 2026 annual gift tax exclusion—you must file Form 709. Most people won’t actually owe gift tax, because the lifetime basic exclusion in 2026 is $15,000,000, but the filing requirement still applies.¹⁰ Married couples can split gifts, effectively doubling the annual exclusion to $38,000 per recipient.

The bigger tax problem is cost basis. When you give property away during your life, the recipient takes your original cost basis, adjusted for improvements and depreciation. If you bought a house for $80,000 and quitclaim it to your child when it’s worth $400,000, your child’s basis stays at $80,000. When they sell, they’ll owe capital gains tax on up to $320,000 of gain. Had you held the property until death, your child would have received a stepped-up basis to fair market value at that time, potentially erasing the capital gains tax. This is one of the most expensive mistakes people make with quitclaim deeds in estate planning.

Mortgages and Title Insurance

Due-on-Sale Clauses

Most mortgages include a due-on-sale clause that lets the lender demand full repayment on transfer of ownership. A quitclaim deed can trigger it. For residential properties with fewer than five units, though, the federal Garn-St. Germain Act bars the lender from calling the loan due on several common family transfers:

A transfer to a spouse or child of the borrower.
A transfer resulting from a divorce decree or legal separation agreement.
A transfer to a relative after the borrower’s death.
A transfer into a revocable trust where the borrower remains a beneficiary.

⁶

Outside those protected categories—transferring to a friend, a business partner, an unrelated buyer—the lender has the legal right to accelerate. The type of deed used is irrelevant; what matters is that a transfer of ownership happened without lender approval.

Title Insurance

An owner’s title insurance policy typically continues in force only as long as the insured has liability through warranties made in a transfer. A quitclaim deed makes no warranties, so the original owner’s coverage may terminate on transfer. The grantee gets no title insurance protection from the deed itself and would need to buy a new policy independently—something that rarely happens in informal family transfers, and probably should.

Medicaid Look-Back Period

If nursing home care is on the horizon, transferring property by quitclaim deed can create a serious Medicaid problem. Federal law imposes a five-year look-back: when someone applies for Medicaid to cover nursing home care, the state reviews the prior 60 months for uncompensated transfers. Gifting a home by quitclaim deed during that window triggers a penalty period during which Medicaid will not pay for the nursing home stay. The penalty length is calculated by dividing the value of the transferred property by the regional monthly nursing home cost.

Several home transfers are exempt from the penalty:

Transfers to a spouse.
Transfers to a child under 21, or a certified blind or disabled child of any age.
Transfers to a caretaker child who lived in the home for at least two years immediately before the owner’s institutionalization and provided care that delayed the need for a nursing facility.
Transfers to a sibling who has an equity interest in the home and lived there for at least one year immediately before the owner’s institutionalization.

Anyone considering a quitclaim deed for Medicaid planning should talk to an elder law attorney first. Timing, recipient, and circumstances all affect whether a penalty applies, and the numbers are large enough that a mistake can cost hundreds of thousands of dollars in uncovered nursing home bills.

Risks for the Grantee

The person receiving a quitclaim deed carries almost all the risk. Because the grantor makes no warranties, there is no legal claim against them if the title turns out to be defective. A few specific risks stand out:

Unknown liens. Tax liens, mechanic’s liens, and judgment liens stay with the property. You inherit the obligation to clear them.
Boundary problems. If the legal description is wrong, or the boundaries don’t match what you expected, there’s no warranty to fall back on.
Competing claims. An undisclosed heir, a prior unrecorded deed, or an adverse possession claim becomes your problem to resolve.

Florida law doesn’t require a title search before accepting a quitclaim deed, but running one through the county’s public records will surface most recorded liens and competing interests. Title insurance adds a financial backstop. For any deal between unrelated parties at arm’s length, a warranty deed backed by title insurance is almost always the right choice; a quitclaim deed wasn’t designed for that setting.

Recording the Deed

Executing the deed is only half the job. The signed, witnessed, notarized deed has to be recorded with the clerk of the circuit court in the county where the property sits. Until it’s recorded, the deed is valid between grantor and grantee but doesn’t provide notice to the public.¹¹ Without recording, a later buyer with no knowledge of your deed could claim the property ahead of you.

You can record by bringing or mailing the executed original to the county clerk’s office. Many Florida counties also accept electronic submissions through e-recording vendors, with the recorded document returned within hours. Either way, you’ll pay the recording fee ($10 first page, $8.50 per additional page) plus any documentary stamp tax at submission. The clerk will reject deeds that don’t meet Section 695.26’s formatting standards, so check margins, legibility, and the identifying information for both parties before you send it in.⁵

1
Florida Senate. CS/HB 567 Staff Analysis – Correction of Errors in Deeds
2
Official Internet Site of the Florida Legislature. Florida Statutes 689.02 – Form of Warranty Deed Prescribed
3
Florida Senate. Florida Statutes Title XL Chapter 689 – 689.01 How Real Estate Conveyed
4
Official Internet Site of the Florida Legislature. Florida Statutes 117.05 – Use of Notary Commission
5
Official Internet Site of the Florida Legislature. Florida Statutes 695.26 – Requirements for Recording Instruments Affecting Real Property
6
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 12 USC 1701j-3 – Preemption of Due-on-Sale Prohibitions
7
Official Internet Site of the Florida Legislature. Florida Statutes 201.02 – Tax on Deeds and Other Instruments Relating to Real Property
8
Florida Department of Revenue. Documentary Stamp Tax
9
Official Internet Site of the Florida Legislature. Florida Statutes Chapter 201 – Excise Tax on Documents
10
Internal Revenue Service. Whats New – Estate and Gift Tax
11
Official Internet Site of the Florida Legislature. Florida Statutes 695.11 – Instruments Deemed To Be Recorded From Time of Filing