What Is a Florida Warranty Deed?

The Short Answer

A warranty deed transfers property and backs it with the seller’s personal guarantee that the title is good. If a hidden claim ever surfaces, the seller has promised to make it right. That guarantee is exactly what a buyer wants, which is why a warranty deed is the deed used in nearly every Florida purchase and sale. Where it is the wrong tool is estate planning, and we will get to why. Not sure which deed you need? Try the deed selector →

When You Sell a Property in Florida, What Is the Warranty Deed?

A common question I hear is, “When I sell my house in Florida, what is this warranty deed?” The warranty deed is the document you sign at closing that moves the title to the buyer and makes you personally guarantee it. Florida’s statutory form does that in one sentence, in which the seller “does hereby fully warrant the title to said land, and will defend the same against the lawful claims of all persons whomsoever.” Those 21 words mean that if a lien, an old easement, or a claim from a prior owner surfaces after closing, the buyer can come back to you for it, and under Florida law the promise binds you and your heirs. Sellers sign it because buyers and their title insurers expect it, and in an ordinary sale with a clean title search it costs the seller nothing. The exceptions clause (the “subject to” line that names taxes, recorded easements and restrictions) is where a careful seller narrows the promise to what the title search actually found.

The Three Flavors of Warranty Deed

All three make a promise about the title, and they differ in how far that promise reaches.

• General warranty deed. The fullest protection there is. The seller guarantees the title against any defect in the property’s entire history, even from owners long before them, and agrees to defend it.
• Special (or limited) warranty deed. A narrower promise. The seller guarantees only against problems that came up while they owned the property, and makes no promise about anything earlier. You see this when the seller is an estate, a bank, or a company that never lived in the home and cannot vouch for its whole past.
• Statutory warranty deed. A short-form general warranty deed that uses the exact wording Florida law provides, so a few standard words carry the full set of guarantees. It is the everyday form in most Florida closings.

Warranty Deed vs. Quitclaim Deed

The choice most people are really trying to make is between these two. A warranty deed protects a buyer with guarantees; a quitclaim deed makes no promises at all and simply hands over whatever the signer happens to own. Neither is “better,” they are built for different moments.

Why Estate Planning Uses a Lady Bird Deed, Not a Warranty Deed

A warranty deed is designed to move property to a buyer today. That is the opposite of what an estate plan wants, which is to keep your home in your hands for life and pass it to your family only at death, without probate. Deeding your home to your children now with a warranty deed (or any deed) is a completed gift, and it loses the tax step-up and can trigger a Medicaid penalty. The tool built for the planning job is the lady bird deed, which keeps you in full control while you live and passes the home automatically when you die. Use a warranty deed to sell; use a lady bird deed to plan. (Florida has no transfer-on-death deed; the lady bird deed is its equivalent here.)

What It Costs

Our flat fee for a warranty, quitclaim, or life-estate deed is $399, plus county recording and any documentary stamp tax, which on a sale is based on the price paid and on a gift is just the $0.70 minimum. We tell you the exact number before anything is signed, and pass the government cost through with no markup. For a full purchase closing with title insurance, a title company is usually part of the picture, and we will help you line that up. See full pricing →

Frequently Asked Questions

Common Situations

The family sale. A mother sells her Orlando home to her son at a fair price. He wants the same title protection any buyer would, so a general warranty deed, not a quitclaim, is the right choice, even between family. We prepare it and figure the documentary stamp on the price.

The estate selling a house. A personal representative sells a deceased parent’s home. Because the estate cannot vouch for what happened before the parent owned it, a special warranty deed fits, guaranteeing only the estate’s own period of ownership.

The planning mix-up. A father asks for a warranty deed to “put the kids on the house.” We walk him through why that gift would cost the family the tax step-up, and set up a lady bird deed instead, the same goal, without the tax hit or the loss of control.

The spouse who was never on the title. A married man sells the Tampa home he bought years before the wedding, titled in his name alone. At closing, the title company requires his wife to join the deed anyway, because under Florida law a married owner cannot convey homestead without the spouse signing, no matter whose name is on the title. When the couple is on the same page, the signature is a formality; when nobody saw it coming, it stops the closing. We check marital status and homestead on every deed before it goes out.

Sources of Law

• Fla. Stat. §689.02: statutory form of warranty deed. §689.03: effect of the words of the warranty. flsenate.gov (retrieved 2026-06-07)
• Fla. Stat. §689.01: execution of deeds (notary plus two subscribing witnesses). §201.02: documentary stamp tax on deeds and consideration.
• IRC §1014 (step-up in basis at death) and §1012 (carryover basis), cited by section.
• The warranty follows the seller: §689.03 (a deed in the statutory form carries full common-law covenants and binds the grantor and the grantor’s heirs). Case: Raj v. Sutherlin, No. 4D2024-3333 (Fla. 4th DCA Jan. 7, 2026) (a recorded right of first refusal on an adjacent parcel, a later sale that ignored it, and a breach of warranty deed claim against the seller’s estate; summary judgment for lack of separate consideration reversed and remanded). Read in full from the official opinion text (retrieved 2026-09-03).

What a 2026 Florida Case Shows About the Warranty

I learned what a clean instrument looks like by cross-examining people about unclean ones. In 14 years of law practice, I also litigate deeds after they fail, which enhances the practice of drafting deeds.

In my practice, the warranty deed is the document people sign without reading, because the title company hands it across the table at closing and the words look like ceremony. The words are a promise, and a Florida appellate court decided in January 2026 what that promise can pull a seller into. A woman owned two parcels side by side on A1A in Indian River County. In 2005 she sold one of them to a buyer for $6,400,000 (he had offered $6,100,000 and she held out), and in an addendum to that contract she gave him a right of first refusal on the parcel next door, meaning that if she ever accepted an offer for it, he would have ten business days to match it. The two of them signed a notice of that right in May 2005 and recorded it in the public records. Sixteen years later, in 2021, she sold the second parcel to a different buyer for $4,750,000, and the sale contract said nothing about the neighbor’s right. The neighbor came forward. By 2022 both the seller and the new buyer had died, and the fight was between their estates and the neighbor. The buyer’s estate sued the neighbor to clear the title and sued the seller’s estate for breach of the warranty deed, and the neighbor sued for the parcel itself. The trial court threw out the neighbor’s right because he had never paid anything separate for it. In January 2026 the Fourth District reversed, because the $6,400,000 he paid in 2005 could support both the purchase and the right, and sent the case back to be tried. Five years after the sale, a $4,750,000 parcel still has a cloud on it, and the seller’s estate is defending a promise she made in a deed.

In reading that opinion, I have a few take-home points.

The first is that the warranty follows the seller. A Florida warranty deed promises the title against the claims of all persons whomsoever, and under Florida law the promise binds the seller and the seller’s heirs, which is why her estate is a defendant. The claim it had to answer for was one she created herself, sixteen years earlier, in an addendum. Practice pointer. Before a warranty deed goes out, the seller lists everything she ever signed that touches the land, including options, rights of first refusal, leases and easements, and the deed’s exceptions clause names each one, because a claim the deed does not carve out is a claim the deed guarantees against. The step that would have kept her estate out of that lawsuit costs less than the deed. A title search on her own parcel before she listed it would have shown the 2005 notice, and a deed that named the notice in its exceptions, or a written offer to the neighbor under the ten-day clause before she signed the new contract, would have left the buyer nothing to sue her estate over. I draft warranty deeds for a flat fee of $399 plus recording, and the exceptions clause is where that fee does its work.

Second, a warranty is a promise and not a title search, and a buyer should want both. The 2005 notice sat in the public records for sixteen years, so anyone who searched the title in 2021 could have found it. The buyer’s remedy under the warranty is a lawsuit against the seller, and by the time the problem surfaced the seller was an estate. Practice pointer. A buyer relies on the title search and the owner’s title insurance policy first, and treats the seller’s warranty as the backstop it is, because a promise from an estate is worth what the estate still holds.

Third, a right written into an addendum is a claim on the land, and recording it is what made it bite. The neighbor’s right survived sixteen years and two deaths because a one-page notice of it went into the public records in 2005. Practice pointer. Record what you are granted, and search for what others were granted, because the recorded page is the one thing in that case everybody could have read. Avoid signing a warranty deed that says nothing about a right you granted years ago, because the deed promises against every claim on the title, including the ones you created.

The January 2026 decision settled only one question, whether the neighbor had paid for his right. Whether he exercised it in time, and whether the warranty was actually breached, were still undecided when the case went back to the trial court, so nobody can say yet who pays. What the opinion already shows is the shape of the risk, which is a seller’s promise outliving the seller.

Kevin D. Klagge, Esq., admitted in Florida since 2012. Each 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.

Updated on September 3, 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. Do not send confidential information until we have agreed to represent you.