Florida Quitclaim Deed: Requirements, Doc Stamps, and When to Use One

A quitclaim deed says, in effect, whatever I own, if anything, is now yours. The grantor makes no promise that the title is good, that there are no liens, or even that the grantor owns the property at all. Florida recognizes the quitclaim alongside the general warranty deed, which promises good title against the world, and the special warranty deed, which promises only that the grantor created no defects. The difference is the reason lenders, buyers, and title insurers treat the three deeds so differently; our comparison of warranty deeds against quitclaim deeds covers the mechanics.

The quitclaim's lack of warranty is a feature when the parties already know each other and the title: spouses adding or removing a name, a divorcing couple carrying out a marital settlement, a parent moving a home into a revocable trust, or an owner clearing a cloud on title by having a former co-owner release a claim. It is a defect when a stranger is paying money, because a buyer who receives a quitclaim has no one to sue if a lien or a prior owner surfaces, and most Florida title underwriters will not insure a purchase conveyed by quitclaim without a full examination and, often, a corrective warranty deed.

Florida is one of the few states that still requires witnesses on deeds. Section 689.01 provides that a conveyance of real property must be in writing and signed by the grantor in the presence of two subscribing witnesses, who sign as well. A notary may serve as one of the two witnesses in Florida, but the deed still needs a separate acknowledgment before a notary under Section 695.03 to be recorded, and an unrecorded deed does not protect the grantee against later purchasers or creditors under Section 695.01.

Section 695.26 governs what the clerk will accept for recording, and a 2024 amendment made it stricter. To be recorded, a deed must show the grantor's name and the grantee's name and post office address, the name and address of the person who prepared the instrument, the printed name of each signer beneath the signature, and, effective January 1, 2024, the printed name and post office address of each witness beneath the witness signature. A physical address or post office box is required; an email address does not qualify. The legal description must match the prior deed of record, and the parcel identification number is customarily included. Clerks across the state have been rejecting deeds that omit the witness addresses since the rule took effect, and a rejected deed leaves the transfer unrecorded and unprotected.

Florida also permits remote online notarization and electronic witnessing of deeds under the 2020 framework, with the witnesses either physically present or supervised through an approved online platform. The witnesses must actually observe the signing; a witness who signs later, or who signs a deed the grantor signed alone, produces a deed that may fail under Section 689.01 years afterward when the property is sold.

Florida taxes deeds. Under Section 201.02 the documentary stamp tax is 70 cents per 100 dollars of consideration, or fraction thereof, on every deed transferring an interest in Florida real property. Miami-Dade County applies 60 cents per 100 dollars on a single-family residence and 60 cents plus a 45-cent surtax per 100 dollars on any other property. The tax is paid to the clerk at recording, and the clerk will not record a deed without it or without a sworn statement that no tax is due.

The trap is the definition of consideration. Under the Department of Revenue's rules, consideration includes any mortgage or other lien encumbering the property, whether or not the grantee assumes or agrees to pay it. A parent who quitclaims a home with a 200,000-dollar mortgage balance to a child as a pure gift still owes documentary stamp tax on 200,000 dollars, which is 1,400 dollars at the statewide rate. On a truly unencumbered gift the tax is the minimum 70 cents. Owners are routinely surprised at the recording counter, and a deed submitted with the wrong tax is either rejected or later assessed with penalties and interest.

Section 201.02(7) carves out two exemptions that matter for families. A deed transferring homestead property between spouses is exempt when the only consideration is the mortgage balance, so adding a spouse to the title of a mortgaged homestead carries no tax. And a deed between spouses or former spouses pursuant to a dissolution of marriage is exempt when the property is or was the marital home, regardless of consideration, with a refund available for tax paid on a transfer made within a year before the divorce. Transfers of non-homestead or non-marital property between spouses, and all transfers to children, siblings, or friends, remain taxable on the mortgage balance.

Article X, Section 4 of the Florida Constitution restricts the owner of homestead property from conveying it without the joinder of a spouse, and a deed of homestead signed by only one married owner is void as to the non-signing spouse. This applies even when the non-signing spouse's name is not on the title. Florida Statutes Section 689.11 allows spouses to convey homestead to each other, and Section 689.111 governs conveyances of homestead and the use of a power of attorney, but in every other case the practice is the same: a married grantor's spouse signs the quitclaim deed as a joining party, with a signature block that says so.

Homestead status also affects what happens after the deed is recorded. Florida's Save Our Homes cap limits annual assessment increases on a homestead, and a change of ownership can trigger reassessment at market value under Section 193.155. Transfers between spouses and certain transfers that keep the same permanent resident in the home are protected; adding an adult child as a co-owner generally is not, and the child's share may be reassessed and lose the exemption. Before quitclaiming any interest in a homestead, the tax consequence at the property appraiser's office deserves a call.

• Divorce. The marital settlement agreement awards the home to one spouse, and the other quitclaims their interest. The deed is exempt from documentary stamp tax under Section 201.02(7), but it does not remove the departing spouse from the mortgage; only a refinance or lender release does that.
• Adding or removing a spouse. Newlyweds adding a spouse to a homestead title record a quitclaim with no tax due on the mortgage balance; the spouse then holds as tenants by the entirety, which carries creditor protection in Florida.
• Funding a revocable trust. The owner quitclaims the home to themselves as trustee. A revocable living trust funded by deed only avoids probate for property actually titled in it, and the quitclaim is the usual vehicle, though many Florida attorneys prefer a warranty deed into the trust to preserve the chain of title warranties for a later sale.
• Clearing a cloud. A former co-owner, an heir with a possible claim, or a party to an old contract releases their interest so the title is insurable.
• Transfers between family members who accept the title as is. Parents to a child, siblings equalizing an inheritance, or co-owners consolidating, when everyone knows the title history and no money changes hands.

Sales. A buyer paying money should receive a warranty deed and a title insurance policy. A quitclaim leaves the buyer without recourse, and underwriters commonly treat a quitclaim in the recent chain as a red flag requiring extra examination.

Passing the home at death. Floridians who quitclaim the home to the children now, to avoid probate later, make a completed gift with four consequences: the children own the home immediately and can encumber or lose it to their own creditors and divorces; the transfer starts the five-year Medicaid look-back and creates a penalty period if the parent later needs nursing home Medicaid (2025); the children take the parent's original tax basis and can face a large capital gains bill instead of the stepped-up basis an inheritance provides; and the homestead exemption and Save Our Homes cap may be lost. Florida has no transfer on death deed statute, but it does recognize the lady bird deed, an enhanced life estate deed that keeps full lifetime control, avoids probate, and is not a completed gift. That deed, not a quitclaim, is the right instrument for passing a Florida home, and our guide to the transfers Medicaid's five-year look-back penalizes explains why the distinction matters so much.

Fixing a deceased owner's title. Heirs sometimes quitclaim to each other after a parent dies without probate, believing they can deed the house among themselves. The decedent cannot sign, the heirs have nothing of record to convey, and the chain of title stays broken until a probate, a summary administration, or a determination of homestead establishes who owns what. Our guide to moving a deceased owner's Florida title correctly walks through those routes.

Removing someone from a mortgage. The deed changes ownership, never the loan. A departing spouse who quitclaims remains liable on the note until the lender releases them.

The deed is recorded with the clerk of the circuit court in the county where the property is located, in person, by mail, or through e-recording. Under Section 28.24 the recording fee is 10 dollars for the first page and 8.50 dollars for each additional page, plus 1 dollar for each name over four that must be indexed, as of 2025. Documentary stamp tax is paid at the same time. Most counties require the deed to be on letter or legal paper with a 3-inch top margin on the first page and 1-inch margins elsewhere, and many now ask for the parcel identification number on the face of the deed.

After recording, the clerk returns the original to the address stated on the deed, and the property appraiser updates the ownership record for the next tax roll. A new owner who will live in the home applies for the homestead exemption by March 1 of the following year; the exemption does not transfer automatically.

• One witness, or a witness who was not present. The deed fails under Section 689.01, often discovered only when the property is sold years later.
• Missing witness addresses. The 2024 amendment to Section 695.26 makes the deed unrecordable without them.
• Underpaying documentary stamp tax. Forgetting that the mortgage balance is consideration on a gift deed leads to rejection or a later assessment with penalties.
• Homestead deed without spousal joinder. Void as to the spouse, and a permanent cloud on title.
• Using the street address as the legal description. The deed must repeat the legal description from the prior recorded deed.
• Quitclaiming to the children to avoid probate. A completed gift with Medicaid, capital gains, creditor, and homestead consequences; a lady bird deed does the job without them.
• Assuming the deed removed a name from the mortgage. It did not.
• Recording nothing. An unrecorded deed leaves the grantee exposed to the grantor's later creditors and purchasers under Section 695.01.

Public estimates for an attorney-prepared Florida quitclaim deed generally run from roughly 250 to 500 dollars as of 2025, plus documentary stamp tax and recording fees. The value of a drafted deed is in the details that make it record and hold up: the legal description pulled from the current deed, the witness and notary blocks in the form the clerk accepts, the correct documentary stamp calculation with the exemption cited when one applies, spousal joinder on homestead, and a recording package for your county. If your goal is to pass the home at death, we will tell you before you pay that a lady bird deed built for Florida homesteads is the better instrument.