Florida Quitclaim Deeds

A Florida quitclaim deed transfers whatever interest a grantor owns in a property to the grantee. It is the standard deed for non-sale transfers between related people. A quitclaim deed is used for adding or removing a spouse, funding a trust, moving property into an LLC, settling a divorce, or correcting a name on a prior deed. Quitclaim deeds should not be used for selling property to an unrelated party.

Requirements

A Florida quitclaim deed must contain the following elements:

• Grantor. The full legal name of the person transferring the interest, written exactly as it appears on the current recorded deed.
• Grantee. The grantee’s full legal name and the chosen ownership form (sole, joint tenancy, tenants by the entireties, or tenants in common).
• Consideration. The amount paid for the transfer, even if nominal.
• Legal description. The metes-and-bounds, lot-and-block, or condominium description from the current recorded deed. A street address is not a legal description.
• Parcel identification number. The number assigned by the county property appraiser. The statute requires a space for the parcel ID on the deed; an incorrect number does not invalidate the deed, but it slows recording.
• Grantor’s signature. The grantee does not sign.
• Two witnesses’ signatures. Both witnesses must be present when the grantor signs and must sign in the grantor’s presence. Florida now permits remote online witnessing through audio-video communication if all participants are on the same video link.
• Notary acknowledgment. A Florida notary public, or another notary authorized to act in Florida, must take the grantor’s acknowledgment.

Reasons to Use a Quitclaim Deed

A Florida quitclaim deed allows property owners to easily transfer title to another person or company. It’s best for non-sale transfers between parties who already know each other.

Here are the most common reasons people use a quitclaim deed:

• Adding a spouse to the title after marriage. Transferring from one spouse into both spouses’ names creates tenancy by the entireties, the joint-ownership form Florida law reserves for married couples. Each spouse owns the whole property, and the survivor takes full title automatically when the first spouse dies.
• Removing a former spouse after divorce. Marital settlement agreements and final judgments of dissolution routinely require one spouse to deed their interest to the other. A quitclaim deed completes that obligation.
• Moving property into a revocable living trust. Funding a Florida revocable living trust with real estate requires a deed transferring title from the individual to the trust as trustee.
• Transferring property to a Florida LLC. A property owner who moves real estate into an LLC uses a quitclaim deed to convey the existing interest without warranting clean title.
• Adding or removing a family member. Parents who want to put an adult child on title, siblings consolidating an inherited property, or anyone correcting a misnamed prior deed uses a quitclaim deed to make the change.
• Clearing a cloud on title. When someone has a stale interest in a property (a former co-owner, an old judgment debtor, an heir with an arguable claim), a quitclaim deed from that person releases whatever interest they may have without anyone admitting that the interest existed.

Disadvantages

The main disadvantage of a quitclaim deed is that it doesn’t provide any guarantees of title. In this way, a quitclaim deed is different than a warranty deed. While a warranty deed guarantees clear title, a quitclaim deed does not. Warranty deeds are used for an arm’s-length purchase, a transaction backed by a mortgage, a transfer where the grantee plans to insure title, or a transfer where the parties cannot verify each other’s title.

Title insurance companies will not insure a buyer who took title by quitclaim deed from an unrelated grantor. A quitclaim transfer between strangers leaves the buyer unable to sell or refinance until the title problem is cured.

Steps to Create a Quitclaim Deed

To create a quitclaim deed, you must fill in the form, execute it before witnesses and a notary, and record it with the county clerk.

Step 1: Prepare the deed. Pull the legal description from the current recorded deed or from the county property appraiser’s records. Do not retype it. Copy, paste, and proofread. Errors in legal descriptions are the most expensive mistake on this form and frequently require a corrective deed or a quiet title action to fix.

Use a Florida-specific quitclaim form that follows the § 689.025 format and includes a blank for the parcel ID. Many Florida county clerks publish free fillable quitclaim deed forms on their websites that follow the statutory format. The free statutory form is workable for a transfer with no tax complications; an attorney-drafted form costs $400 to $1,000 and reduces the risk of preventable errors.

Step 2: Execute the deed. The grantor signs in the presence of two witnesses and a notary, all physically present together, or all present on the same audio-video link under Florida’s remote online notarization rules. The witnesses must be competent adults who are not named in the deed as parties. The notary completes the acknowledgment in the form prescribed by Florida law, identifying the grantor by personal knowledge or by valid government-issued photo identification.

Step 3: Record the deed. File the executed original with the clerk of the circuit court in the county where the property is located. Recording fees are approximately $10 for the first page and $8.50 for each additional page, set by section 28.24 of the Florida Statutes and uniform across counties. The clerk also collects documentary stamp tax (covered below) at the time of recording.

The clerk records any deed that meets the formatting requirements and carries the right fee; recording is not a review for legal sufficiency, and a defective deed records just as easily as a valid one. After recording, the clerk returns the original deed to the address listed in the upper left corner. Keep the recorded original; future title work depends on it.

Recording is not technically required for the transfer to be valid, but an unrecorded deed does not put third parties on notice. An unrecorded deed leaves the grantee exposed to any subsequent purchaser, lender, or lienholder who records first.

Does a Quitclaim Deed Give You Ownership?

A quitclaim deed makes the grantee the legal owner of whatever interest the grantor held, and the transfer takes effect the moment the grantor delivers the signed deed, not when the deed is recorded.

The ownership the grantee receives is exactly as good as the ownership the grantor had. A grantor who owned the property outright and free of liens passes clean title. A grantor who owned a half interest passes a half interest. A grantor whose title was subject to a mortgage, a judgment lien, or a defect in the chain passes title with the same problems attached. The deed transfers the interest; it does not improve it.

New ownership also brings new exposure: once the grantee is on title, the property becomes an asset the grantee’s own judgment creditors can reach, and part of the grantee’s marital estate if they later divorce. How the new owner takes title is a Florida asset protection decision: tenancy by the entireties protects a married couple, an LLC isolates rental property, and a trust separates legal ownership entirely.

Homestead Property

If the property is the grantor’s homestead and the grantor is married, the non-owner spouse must sign a quitclaim deed even if the spouse has no record interest in the property. Article X, Section 4(c) of the Florida Constitution requires spousal joinder on any conveyance of homestead realty.

A homestead deed signed only by the titled grantor is void as to the homestead interest. The transfer has no legal effect, and no curative document recorded later can fix it. The only repair is a new deed signed by both spouses. If the original grantor refuses or has died, the cure requires litigation.

The spousal joinder rule applies whenever the property is the grantor’s primary residence at the time of the transfer, regardless of how the deed is titled. A married grantor cannot avoid the requirement by holding title in their sole name; the Constitution looks at the property’s use, not the form of ownership.

Documentary Stamp Taxes

Florida imposes a documentary stamp tax on most deeds. Chapter 201 of the Florida Statutes sets the rate at $0.70 per $100 of consideration. The tax is calculated on the consideration paid, which the statute defines to include the amount of any mortgage balance the grantee assumes or takes the property subject to.

Exempt Transfers

Several common quitclaim transfers are exempt from documentary stamp tax:

• Spousal transfers where no mortgage is assumed. Adding or removing a spouse on a free-and-clear home triggers no tax.
• Transfers incident to divorce. Deeds executed within a year of a divorce judgment are exempt under section 201.02(7) of the Florida Statutes, provided the deed carries out what the judgment requires.
• Transfers into a revocable trust where the grantor is also the beneficiary of the trust. The grantor has not divested beneficial ownership, so no consideration moves.
• Transfers between commonly owned entities in some structuring scenarios, including transfers from an individual to a wholly owned LLC where no mortgage exists.

A transfer of mortgaged property to a non-spouse is rarely exempt, even when no cash changes hands, because the assumed mortgage balance counts as consideration.

Does a Quitclaim Deed Affect Property Taxes?

A quitclaim deed can raise the property taxes on a Florida home, because a change of ownership ends the prior owner’s Save Our Homes cap and triggers reassessment at full market value.

Not every quitclaim transfer triggers reassessment. Transfers between spouses, including transfers required by a divorce judgment, do not. Funding a revocable living trust does not, because the grantor keeps beneficial ownership. Adding a co-owner while the original owner stays on title and keeps the homestead exemption does not either, but if the newly added owner applies for their own homestead exemption, the addition is treated as a change of ownership.

An outright quitclaim gift of a home to a child resets the cap. The property is reassessed at market value, and the child must file their own homestead exemption application by March 1, which they can do only if the home is their permanent residence.

Existing Mortgages

A Florida quitclaim deed transfers title to the property but does not transfer the mortgage. The original borrower remains personally liable for the loan after the deed is recorded. The grantee owns the property subject to the mortgage but has no contractual obligation to pay it, and the lender has no obligation to release the original borrower.

Most mortgages contain a due-on-sale clause, also called an acceleration clause, that lets the lender call the entire balance due on any transfer of ownership. Federal law limits when the clause can be enforced. Under the Garn-St. Germain Depository Institutions Act of 1982, a lender may not call a loan due on a transfer:

• To a surviving joint tenant
• To a relative on the borrower’s death
• Resulting from a divorce, legal separation, or marital settlement
• Into a revocable trust where the borrower remains a beneficiary
• To a borrower’s spouse or children

Quitclaim transfers between family members for estate or marital planning are almost always protected by these exceptions. Transfers to non-relatives, including transfers to most LLCs, are not.

Even when the due-on-sale clause cannot be enforced, lenders rarely accelerate a loan that is current and paid on time. In the deed transfers we have handled over the past three decades, we have not seen a lender call a performing loan after a quitclaim transfer between family members, even when the transfer technically falls outside the Garn-St. Germain exceptions. Lenders care about being paid; the property securing a paying loan does not need to be foreclosed. The legal risk is real but the practical risk is small for borrowers who keep payments current.

The transfer does not relieve the original borrower of personal liability. A grantor who deeds away mortgaged property and stops paying is still on the hook for the deficiency if the lender forecloses and the sale price is less than the loan balance.

Quitclaim Deed vs. Lady Bird Deed

The main difference between a quitclaim deed and a lady bird deed is that a quitclaim deed transfers property immediately, while a lady bird deed transfers property upon death.

Parents who want to keep their home for life and pass it to children at death almost always use a lady bird deed. A quitclaim deed gift of a home to an adult child during the parents’ lifetime gives up control, exposes the property to the child’s creditors and divorce, and creates a tax bill that a lady bird deed would have avoided.