How Much Does It Cost to Transfer a Deed in Florida?

How Much Does It Cost to Transfer a Deed in Florida?

A Florida deed transfer costs the county’s recording fee of $10 for the first page and $8.50 for each page after, documentary stamp tax of 70 cents per $100 when the deed carries a price or a mortgage, and a lawyer’s fee if you use one. A family gift of a home with no mortgage usually costs under $20 in government fees, and this firm’s fee for the deed is a flat $399.

How Much Does a Lawyer Charge to Transfer a Deed?

This firm charges a flat $399 to draft and record a quitclaim, warranty or life estate deed, and the fee is quoted before any work starts. Florida lawyers price deed work either as a flat fee or by the hour, so the question to ask any lawyer is the total, including recording and stamp tax.

• Quitclaim, warranty or life estate deed. $399 plus recording.
• Lady bird deed. $399 for one owner and $449 for a couple, plus recording.
• Deed into a trust that already exists. $550 plus recording, because the work includes reading the trust for the correct trustees and the powers the deed has to carry.
• Revoking or correcting a deed already on record. $250 plus recording.

The flat fee covers reading the last recorded deed, copying the legal description, checking whether a spouse has to sign, running the signing with two witnesses and a notary, and recording. You do not need a lawyer to transfer a Florida deed, and when a lawyer earns the fee is set out on its own page.

What Does the County Charge to Record a Deed?

The clerk charges $10 for the first page of a deed and $8.50 for each page after, and Florida law sets the same fee in all 67 counties. A two-page deed records for $18.50, and a deed that indexes more than four names adds $1 for each extra name. Most typical family deeds record for $18 to $30.

The deed is recorded in the county where the property sits. A son in Jacksonville recording a deed to his mother’s condominium in Broward County pays the Broward fee, which is the same fee.

When Does Documentary Stamp Tax Apply?

Documentary stamp tax applies when a deed transfers property for consideration, at 70 cents per $100, or 60 cents in Miami-Dade County with a surtax on property other than a single-family home. Florida counts as consideration the money paid and also the balance of any mortgage on the property, whether or not the new owner takes over the loan. A gift of a mortgaged home is taxed on the unpaid balance.

The mortgage rule is the one that surprises families. Adding a child to the title of a mortgaged home is a gift, and Florida still taxes it on the share of the loan balance that passes. The rules for each kind of deed are on Florida documentary stamp tax.

Do You Need a Title Search to Transfer a Deed?

A sale to a buyer needs a title search, and a family transfer usually does not. When you buy from a stranger, a title company searches the public records for liens, judgments and gaps in the chain of ownership and issues title insurance. The title company sets those charges.

A transfer within a family or into your own trust needs something narrower. Somebody has to read the last recorded deed to confirm who holds title and how, and that reading is part of this firm’s flat fee. The mistake I see most often here is an owner signing a deed for a house already moved into a revocable trust years earlier, so the new deed conveys nothing.

How Much Does a Quitclaim Deed Cost?

A Florida quitclaim deed costs $399 flat at this firm to draft and record, plus recording and any stamp tax. Done yourself, a quitclaim costs the recording fee, any stamp tax and a notary, and the steps are on how to get a quitclaim deed in Florida.

The deed is the cheap part. A quitclaim to a child gives away the house that day and passes your old tax basis, so a home bought for $90,000 and sold by the child at $400,000 leaves $310,000 of taxable gain. A lady bird deed costs the same $399, keeps the house in your hands, and gives the child a basis equal to the home’s value at your death.

What Does It Cost to Fix a Bad Deed?

Fixing a bad Florida deed costs $250 plus recording at this firm when everyone who signed the first deed can sign a corrective one, and a corrective deed owes only the minimum stamp tax if the tax was paid on the original. The cost climbs when a signer has died, cannot be found or will not sign.

• A single error in the legal description of a deed, such as a transposed lot and block, can be cured by a short statutory procedure. That procedure excludes quitclaim deeds.
• Any other defect, or any defect in a quitclaim once a signer is gone, is fixed in court by a suit to reform the deed or to quiet title. Litigation is quoted per matter, and what a quiet title action costs is set out on its own page.

Practice pointer. Read the recorded deed the week it comes back from the clerk, while everyone who signed it is alive and reachable. A corrective deed signed that month costs a few hundred dollars, and the same correction ten years later can cost a lawsuit.

Deed Transfer Costs by Type of Deed

Frequently Asked Questions

Common Situations

The gift that owed $630. A father in Lee County adds his daughter as a half owner of his home, which carries a $180,000 mortgage. Nobody pays anything, and the deed still owes $630 in stamp tax on the $90,000 share of the loan that passes to her. A lady bird deed naming her as the beneficiary would have owed none and kept the house in his name.

The deed that came back wrong. A widow in Volusia County notices that the deed she recorded gives the wrong unit number for her condominium. Her son, the grantee, is alive and signs a corrective deed the same month. The fix costs $250 plus recording and the minimum stamp tax.

Sources of Law

• Fla. Stat. §28.24 (clerk recording charges, $10 for the first page, $8.50 for each additional page, $1 for each name indexed over four).
• Fla. Stat. §201.02(1)(a) (70 cents per $100 of consideration; consideration includes the amount of any mortgage or other encumbrance, whether or not the underlying indebtedness is assumed; 60 cents in Miami-Dade County as recited by the Department of Revenue) and (7)(b) (homestead between spouses where the only consideration is the mortgage). (retrieved 2026-10-01)
• Fla. Admin. Code R. 12B-4.013(18) (gift of mortgaged realty taxable on the unpaid balance) and the revocable trust paragraph of R. 12B-4.013 (a deed to the trustee of the grantor’s revocable trust is not a transfer subject to the tax); R. 12B-4.014(2)(a) (gift of unencumbered realty not taxable), (3) (corrective deed, minimum tax only) and (4) (personal representative’s deed under a will not taxable).
• Florida Department of Revenue, Technical Assistance Advisements 20B4-003 and 20B4-004 (Oct. 16, 2020), and DOR FAQ 1696 (a lady bird deed is generally not subject to documentary stamp tax), retrieved 2026-09-07.
• Fla. Stat. §689.041(1)(a) and (c) (curative procedure for a single scrivener’s error in a deed’s legal description; "erroneous deed" means any deed other than a quitclaim deed).
• IRC §1015 (basis of property acquired by gift) and §1014 (basis at death).
• Mayer v. Cianciolo, 463 So. 2d 1219 (Fla. 3d DCA 1985), read in full from the local case corpus, 2026-10-01 (a son’s quitclaim of his joint interest to his mother, made to ease a sale, was held in constructive trust for him after she died before the sale with a will leaving half the property elsewhere). Other parties’ case, not a matter handled by this firm.
• Advertised fees are honored for 90 days from the posted date. Government costs (recording, documentary stamp tax, certified copies) are additional and passed through at cost. Title company charges are set by the title company. Litigation is quoted per matter.

What a Cheap Deed Can Cost Later

I have watched families spend more on litigating a deed than the deed would have cost to do correctly. In 14 years of law practice, the expensive deeds I see are quick ones signed to make something else easier.

A 1985 case from the Third District is the clearest example I know. In late 1947 or early 1948, a young veteran used his veteran’s benefits and the proceeds of another home to build a house for himself and his mother. Decades later she owned a home in Key Largo, bought with money from that first house, and after her divorce in 1979 she deeded it to herself and her son as joint owners with a right of survivorship. In 1981 she was ill and wanted to sell and move near him in Fort Lauderdale. To make the sale easier, he quitclaimed his half to her. The mother died in 1982 before the house sold, and the son then learned she had signed a will leaving half the property to a religious organization. The son had to sue his mother’s estate. The trial court first ruled for him and then vacated that ruling on rehearing, and the son won only on appeal, three years after her death.

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

The first is that a quitclaim signed for convenience is still a transfer. The son’s deed said nothing about a sale, so on paper his mother owned the whole house, and her will could reach it. Everything he recovered depended on proving an understanding that was never written down.

The second is that there was a cheaper way to do the same job. A sale needs every owner’s signature at closing, and an owner who cannot attend can sign a power of attorney limited to that sale. Either route keeps the owner’s interest intact until the buyer pays. Avoid deeding your share to a family member to make a closing easier.

Practice pointer. Before anyone signs a deed that moves a share to a relative for a practical reason, I ask what happens if the relative dies before the reason is accomplished. If the answer is that the share goes wherever the relative’s will sends it, the deed is the wrong tool.

The honest limit is that the son won, and the opinion does not say what the trial, the rehearing and the appeal cost him, so I will not guess. The paperwork that would have avoided all three is ordinary closing practice.

Kevin D. Klagge, Esq., admitted in Florida since 2012. The case described above is a published decision of a Florida court rather than a matter handled by this firm. Past results do not guarantee a similar outcome.

Updated on October 1, 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 and our posted fees, not legal advice, and no attorney-client relationship is created. Do not send confidential information until we have agreed to represent you.