Why You Do Not Need an Attorney Near You
People search for a lady bird deed attorney near them because that is how you look for a dentist. A deed works differently. It is recorded in the office of the county where the property sits, and that office does not care what address is printed on the lawyer’s letterhead. What it cares about is that the document is drafted correctly under Florida law, signed in front of two witnesses and a notary, and filed in the right county with the right legal description.
All of that happens by email and video. We work with owners in all 67 Florida counties from a Miami office, and the closest you come to an appointment is a half hour on Zoom. If you would rather have someone in your own town, that is a fair preference and plenty of good lawyers will do this work. It is simply not a requirement, and for most people it narrows the field for no reason.
What the $399 Actually Covers
The fee is $399 for an individual deed and $449 for a joint deed, quoted before any work starts. There is no hourly billing and no charge for the consult. What that covers is the work of getting the deed right, which is the review of how the property is currently titled, the correct legal description pulled from the county record, the drafting itself, arranging the witnesses and notary, and recording the finished deed.
Two costs are not ours and never go to us. County recording generally runs about $10 for the first page and $8.50 for each page after that. Florida documentary stamp tax is normally $0.70 per $100 of consideration, and the Department of Revenue has ruled that a lady bird deed is not subject to it at all, mortgage or no mortgage, so the deed records with a nominal $0.70. We confirm both figures for your county before you pay anything, so the number you hear is the number you pay. How the stamp tax works on a deed →
Want to know if a lady bird deed is right for your house?
Book a free 30-minute consult. We will look at how the property is titled, whether a spouse or minor child changes the answer, and what it costs in your county.
Book your free consultWhat Goes Wrong When Nobody Checks the Deed
A deed is the one estate document nobody rereads. A will gets looked at again when circumstances change. A deed gets signed, recorded, and filed away, and the next person to read it closely is a title examiner after the owner has died, when the one person who could explain what was intended is gone.
Florida’s Third District Court of Appeal heard a case that turned on a single word. The deed said grantor where it should have said grantee, and the family had to litigate it up to the appellate court to get the document reformed. We wrote about that case in detail, because it is the clearest illustration of what a cheap form costs when it goes wrong. The problem is never the price of the form. It is that the error surfaces at the worst possible moment and costs many multiples of the fee to fix. None of which means everyone needs a lawyer for this, and we set out honestly when doing it yourself works fine on its own page.
The Two Checks That Void a Homestead Deed
Two facts about your household can defeat a lady bird deed on Florida homestead entirely, and no online form asks about either one.
- A spouse who does not sign. If the property is your homestead and you are married, your spouse has to join in the deed even when the spouse is not on the title. Florida’s constitution protects a surviving spouse’s interest in the homestead, and a deed that skips that signature can fail.
- A minor child living in the home. If you are survived by a minor child, Florida’s constitution does not let you leave the homestead by deed or by will at all. It passes by law instead, and a lady bird deed cannot override that.
Both are simple questions to ask and neither is obvious from the property record. They are the first two things we check, and they are the most common reason we tell someone a lady bird deed is not the right answer for their situation.
How the Remote Process Works
The whole thing usually takes about a week.
- A free 30-minute consult, where we look at how the property is titled and who you want it to go to.
- We pull the current legal description from the county record so the new deed matches what is already there.
- We draft the deed and send it for review.
- You sign in front of two witnesses and a notary. We arrange a remote online notarization by video, or a mobile notary who comes to you.
- We record it in the county where the property sits and send you the recorded copy.
Recording is often same day or next day electronically, though some counties are slower than others. If you are working against a deadline, say so at the consult and we will tell you honestly whether it is achievable.
If You Live Out of State and Own Florida Property
A large share of this work is for owners who live somewhere else. A New Yorker with a condo in Naples, a family in Ohio that inherited a house in Ocala, a Canadian with a place on the Gulf. None of them travel for this.
Florida accepts an out-of-state notarization on a deed conveying Florida property, so you sign where you are, in front of two witnesses and a notary there. Remote online notarization works too. Nothing about the fee changes because you are out of state, and the recorded deed comes back to you electronically. If the property came to you through a death and has not been retitled yet, that is a different problem and we should talk about whether a Florida probate is needed first.
When a Lady Bird Deed Is the Wrong Tool
We turn this work away regularly, and it is worth knowing the situations where the answer is something else.
- Several beneficiaries who do not get along. The deed hands them the house as co-owners with no mechanism to break a tie, and the result is often a partition lawsuit. Naming more than one person needs thought.
- A beneficiary receiving public benefits. An inherited half interest in a house can cost someone their eligibility, and the fix is usually a special needs trust rather than a deed.
- More than one property, or a business. At that point a revocable trust generally does more for the money than a stack of separate deeds.
If your situation is any of these, we will tell you at the consult rather than after you have paid for a deed you did not need.
What It Costs, and What the County Adds
These fees are posted as of September 2026 and are honored for 90 days from that date. The full cost breakdown by county is here, and all of our posted fees are on the pricing page.
Frequently Asked Questions
Do I Need a Lady Bird Deed Attorney Near Me?
No, and this is the part that surprises people. A lady bird deed is recorded in the county where the property sits, not where your lawyer sits. The county recorder does not care what address is on the attorney’s letterhead. The deed has to be drafted correctly for Florida law, signed in front of two witnesses and a notary, and recorded in the right county. We handle all of that from Miami for property anywhere in Florida, and the signing happens by video with a remote notary or with a mobile notary who comes to you.
How Much Does a Lady Bird Deed Attorney Cost in Florida?
We charge $399 flat for an individual deed and $449 for a joint deed, plus the county recording cost. That is the whole fee, quoted before we start, with no hourly billing. County recording generally runs about $10 for the first page and $8.50 for each additional page, and it is paid to the county rather than to us. Florida documentary stamp tax is normally $0.70 per $100 of consideration, and a lady bird deed to family for no consideration usually carries the minimum. We confirm the numbers for your county before you pay anything.
Can I Just Use an Online Form Instead?
You can, and people do. The risk is that a deed is a one-shot document that nobody reads carefully until the owner has died and cannot fix it. Florida’s Third District Court of Appeal heard a case where one word was typed wrong, "grantor" where "grantee" belonged, and the family spent an appeal getting it corrected. A form cannot check whether your spouse has to sign, whether a minor child blocks the transfer entirely, or whether the legal description matches what the county has on record. Those three checks are most of what you are paying for. There are situations where preparing it yourself is genuinely fine, and we would rather tell you that than pretend otherwise.
How Long Does the Whole Thing Take?
Usually about a week from the consult to a recorded deed. We confirm the legal description and the title situation, draft the deed, send it for signature with the witnesses and notary arranged, and then record it in the county. Recording itself is often same day or next day electronically, though some counties run slower. If you are working against a deadline, tell us at the consult and we will tell you honestly whether it is achievable.
What If I Am Out of State and Own Florida Property?
This is a large share of the work we do. You never have to come to Florida. The deed is signed wherever you are, in front of two witnesses and a notary, and Florida accepts an out-of-state notarization on a deed to Florida property. Remote online notarization is also available. We coordinate the whole thing by email and video, and the recorded deed comes back to you electronically.
Can You Change or Revoke It Later?
Yes, and that is the main advantage of this deed over a gift. You keep full control while you are alive. You can sell the property, mortgage it, or record a new deed that revokes or replaces the old one, and you do not need the beneficiary’s permission or signature for any of it. We charge $250 plus recording for a revocation or an amendment. People most often change one after a divorce, a death in the family, or a falling out with a named beneficiary.
Do Both Spouses Have to Sign?
If the property is your Florida homestead and you are married, yes. Your spouse must join in the deed even when the spouse is not on the title, because Florida’s constitution protects a surviving spouse’s interest in the homestead. Missing that signature is one of the two defects that can void a homestead deed outright. The other is a minor child living in the home, which under Florida’s constitution blocks leaving the homestead by deed or will at all. We check both before drafting.
Common Situations
The daughter in Atlanta. A widow in Port Charlotte wants the house to go to her only daughter without probate. The daughter handles the call, her mother signs by video with a remote notary the following week, and the deed records in Charlotte County four days later. Nobody flies anywhere.
The second marriage. A man in Boca wants his house to go to his two sons from his first marriage. He is remarried and the house is his homestead, so his wife has to join in the deed. That conversation is the whole engagement, and it happens before anything gets drafted rather than after he has died.
What I Actually Check Before You Sign
In 14 years of law practice, I see flawed deeds recorded on a daily basis, and the flaws cluster in a small number of places.
The legal description is the one I find most often. People copy it off the annual tax notice or the property appraiser’s website, and those carry a shortened, unofficial version rather than the platted description in the recorded deed. I see cases where a description error was not discovered until a sale years later, and by then correcting it means a new instrument at best and a court action at worst.
Marital status is the second thing I check. Where the property is homestead and the owner is married, the spouse has to join in the deed, and a form has no way of knowing that you remarried in March. Title is the third, and I pull your last recorded deed to confirm it. More than once I have looked at a deed signed by somebody who no longer held title individually, because the house had been moved into a revocable trust years earlier and everyone had forgotten about it.
None of those defects is visible on the face of the document, which is why I read the county record rather than the deed you were handed. A deed with the wrong legal description records without objection, and so does a deed signed by the wrong grantor. Nobody at the county is checking whether it works.
Avoid measuring this decision by the price of the document. What you are paying for is somebody pulling your last recorded deed, reading how title is actually held, and asking the two or three questions about your household that decide whether the deed does anything at all.
Kevin D. Klagge, Esq., admitted in Florida since 2012. Any case described above is a decision of a Florida court rather than a matter handled by this firm. Past results do not guarantee a similar outcome.
Sources of Law
- Deed execution and recording: Fla. Stat. §689.01 (conveyance of land, two subscribing witnesses); §695.01 (recording); §695.03 (acknowledgment, including before an out-of-state notary). Documentary stamp tax on deeds: Fla. Stat. §201.02.
- Homestead limits on transfer: Fla. Const. Art. X §4(c) (homestead not devisable if the owner is survived by a spouse or minor child; spousal joinder for an inter vivos transfer). See also Fla. Stat. §732.401 (descent of homestead).
- The enhanced life estate ("lady bird") deed is a common-law instrument in Florida rather than a creature of statute, and Florida has almost no appellate law construing it. A search of the Florida state courts returns only four opinions using the phrase "enhanced life estate" (searched 2026-08-30).
- Reformation of a deed for a drafting error, discussed on the blog page linked above: Hirschenson v. Compu-Link Corp. (Fla. 3d DCA 2023), a slip opinion. Quoted there, not cited to a reporter page it does not have.
- Fee schedule per the firm's posted rates, September 2026. Recording charges and documentary stamp tax are set by the county and the state and are passed through at cost. (retrieved 2026-08-30)
Updated on August 30, 2026. Reviewed by Kevin D. Klagge, Esq., Fla. Bar No. 99502. Attorney Kevin Klagge represents families, businesses, and international clients in estate and tax planning, business structuring, and international law, with a focus on Florida legal tools. He litigates estate and business issues in court. General information about Florida law, not legal advice, and no attorney-client relationship is created. Whether a lady bird deed fits depends on your facts, and no result is guaranteed. Do not send confidential information until we have agreed to represent you.
More Guides on Florida Lady Bird Deeds and Deeds
- Florida Lady Bird Deed Online
- Florida Enhanced Life Estate Deed
- What Is a Life Estate in Florida?
- What States Allow Lady Bird Deeds?
- Florida Lady Bird Trust
- Florida Lady Bird Deed Form
- Florida Lady Bird Deed Pros and Cons
Try the Florida Deed Selector.