Three problems, one section
For most Florida couples the home is the largest asset and the one surrounded by the most protective law. Moving it into any trust risks three separate things, governed by three separate bodies of law, and this section deals with each in turn.
First, constitutional homestead status.
Property that is transferred to or acquired subject to a community property trust may continue to qualify or may initially qualify as the settlor spouses’ homestead within the meaning of s. 4(a)(1), Art. X of the State Constitution and for all purposes of general law, provided that the property would qualify as the settlor spouses’ homestead if title was held in one or both of the settlor spouses’ individual names.
Section 736.151(1), Florida Statutes.
Note the condition at the end. The section does not create homestead status; it preserves it. The test is whether the property would qualify if the spouses held title individually. If it would not, putting it in the trust does not help.
Note also may initially qualify. Property acquired subject to the trust, never held in the spouses’ own names at all, can qualify from the outset.
The tax exemption
The settlor spouses shall be deemed to have beneficial title in equity to the homestead property held subject to a community property trust for all purposes, including for purposes of s. 196.031.
Section 736.151(2), Florida Statutes.
The homestead tax exemption turns on holding legal or beneficial title in equity. When a home goes into a trust, whether the occupants still hold such title is exactly the kind of question that produces arguments with a property appraiser.
This subsection removes the argument by deeming it, and it does so for all purposes, not merely for the tax exemption. The reference to section 196.031 is given as an example rather than a limit.
Save Our Homes
A transfer of homestead property by one or both of the settlor spouses to a community property trust will not be treated as a change of ownership for purposes of reassessing the property and instead qualifies as a change or transfer of legal or equitable title between spouses as described in s. 193.155(3)(a)2.
Section 736.151(3), Florida Statutes.
This is the one with the largest number attached to it for a long time owner. Florida caps annual increases in the assessed value of homestead property, so a house held for decades can carry an assessed value far below its market value. A change of ownership resets that, and the tax consequence of an accidental reset can be severe.
The subsection prevents it twice over. The transfer is not a change of ownership, and it is a transfer between spouses of the kind the reassessment statute already excepts.
Why all three were needed
These are not three ways of saying the same thing. They come from the constitution, from the tax exemption statute, and from the assessment cap statute, and a transfer could have failed under any one of them independently.
Without subsection (1) the family could lose creditor protection and the restrictions on devising homestead. Without (2) they could lose the exemption. Without (3) they could lose the assessment cap. Any one of those would make a community property trust a bad idea for a couple whose principal asset is the house, which is most couples. This section is what makes the Act usable at all.
Read it with section 736.1506, which opens by excepting section 4 of Article X from its rules on satisfying obligations, so the homestead exemption from creditors is preserved against that section too. And with section 736.1109, which handles homestead in revocable and testamentary trusts generally and is the section to read if the trust is not a community property trust.
The 2025 amendment reaches backwards
This section was amended in 2025, and the amending act carried an instruction printed with the statute.
Section 7, ch. 2025-159, provides that “[t]he amendments made by this act to ss. 736.04117, 736.1502, and 736.151, Florida Statutes, are remedial and apply to trusts created before, on, or after the effective date of this act.”
Note printed with section 736.151, Florida Statutes.
Remedial is the word carrying the retroactivity, and it is the same technique used in section 736.1109(5). So a couple whose community property trust dates from 2021 or 2022 gets the current version.
Two notes for anyone researching this section
The number has three digits. This is section 736.151, sitting between 736.1509 and 736.1511, and there is no section 736.1510. Part XIV has the same feature at section 736.141. A search built around four digit section numbers misses both.
The Florida Supreme Court’s own materials use the three digit form. The section appears in the statutory cross-reference tables attached to the probate rules, alongside section 736.1109, in rules amendment orders from 2021 and 2024. Those are the only documents in which this section number genuinely appears, and they are index entries. The court is promulgating rules, not construing the statute.
The second note is a caution. A nationwide search returns thirteen documents, and most contain nothing of the kind. In one, a decision of a federal court of appeals, the match is a street address in counsel’s contact block, a unit number followed by a highway number on the next line. A short section number attracts a great deal of noise, and the only way to tell is to open the document.