How Do I Transfer Property to a Family Member in Florida?

The Short Answer

You can move Florida property to a family member four ways. You can deed it to them now as a gift, add them to your deed as a co-owner, sell it to them, or use a deed that waits and transfers only at your death. If your real goal is what most parents mean ("the kids get the house when I am gone, without a court case"), the fourth route usually wins, because it is the only one that keeps your control, keeps the tax step-up for your children, and stays clear of Medicaid’s five-year look-back. The other three each give something up, and the rest of this page shows you exactly what.

Route 1: Deed the House to Them Now

The mechanics are easy. You sign a quitclaim deed (or a warranty deed) naming your child, record it with the county, and the house is theirs. That ease is the trap. Recording that deed is a completed gift, and a completed gift does four things at once.

• It hands your child your old tax basis. Say you bought the home for $50,000 and it is worth $400,000 today. Gift it now, and your child’s basis is $50,000; when they sell, they owe capital-gains tax on $350,000 of growth. Let them inherit it instead, and the basis resets to $400,000 at your death, so a sale soon after owes essentially nothing. That reset is the step-up in basis, and giving the house away during life throws it away.
• It starts Medicaid trouble. Florida’s nursing-home Medicaid program reviews five years of transfers when you apply. A gifted house is a large uncompensated transfer, and it can cost you months of coverage exactly when the nursing-home bill is arriving.
• It ends your control. The house belongs to your child now. You cannot sell, refinance, or change your mind without their signature, and the home is exposed to their creditors, a divorce, or a bankruptcy.
• It can owe stamp tax. A pure gift with no mortgage owes only Florida’s $0.70 documentary-stamp minimum. But if the home is mortgaged and your child takes it subject to the loan, the stamp tax is figured on the unpaid balance.

Here is the honest verdict. For an appreciated home, an outright gift is almost never the right route. The goal is usually right; the timing is wrong.

Route 2: Add a Child to Your Deed

This one feels safer, because you keep your name on the title. It is really Route 1 in half measure, plus a surprise of its own. Adding your child makes a gift of the share they receive, with the same carryover basis and the same Medicaid look-back exposure on that share. From the day you record it, you need their signature to sell or refinance, and their half is reachable by their creditors and divorces.

The surprise is what happens at your death. Under Florida’s default rule, co-owners hold as tenants in common with no right of survivorship unless the deed expressly says otherwise. Most homemade "add the kids" deeds never say it. So your share still goes through probate, which was the one thing the deed was supposed to prevent. You gave up control and the step-up, and did not even skip the courthouse.

Route 3: Sell to a Family Member

A genuine sale at market price is a perfectly clean way to transfer property to family. Your child pays what the home is worth, takes a fresh basis equal to what they paid, and the closing looks like any other, usually with a warranty deed and title insurance. Florida’s documentary stamp tax applies to the price, the way it does in any sale.

The trouble starts when the price is a wink. Selling the house to your daughter for $1, or for "what I owe on it," does not dodge the gift rules; federal gift-tax law treats everything above the price as a gift, so a $1 sale of a $400,000 house is a $399,999 gift with all of Route 1’s basis problems attached. Medicaid draws the same conclusion from its own direction. A sale for less than fair value is an uncompensated transfer, counted in the five-year look-back just like a gift. If you want to sell, sell for real. If you want to give, there is a better way to give.

Route 4: The Deed That Waits

Florida has a deed built for exactly the goal behind this whole question, the lady bird deed (legally, an enhanced life estate deed). You record it now, but it transfers nothing until you die. In the meantime you keep complete ownership. You can sell, refinance, rent the home, or cancel the deed entirely, without asking anyone. At your death the home passes automatically to the family members you named, with no probate.

Because nothing leaves your hands during life, the deed avoids every trap in Routes 1 and 2.

• No lost step-up. The home passes at death, so your children take the date-of-death basis and the growth is never taxed.
• No gift. Signing it is not a completed gift, so there is no gift-tax return and none of your exclusion is used.
• No look-back penalty. Florida’s Medicaid manual treats a properly drafted lady bird deed as no transfer at all, so there is nothing for the five-year look-back to penalize.
• No estate recovery. After a Medicaid recipient dies, Florida can seek repayment only from the probate estate, and a home that passes by this deed never enters probate. The full picture is on our lady bird deed and Medicaid planning page.

It is not the answer for everything. Out-of-state property, a minor child, a blended family, or beneficiaries who should not receive the home outright all point toward a revocable living trust doing the waiting instead, which we sort out at the consult. But for the common case, one Florida home headed to adult children, the deed that waits is the route the other three are trying and failing to be.

Is Any of This Really Tax Free?

Here is the honest answer to the question everyone types. On gift tax, nearly everything is already free. In 2026 you can give $19,000 to each person, every year, with no tax and nothing to file; a married couple splitting gifts can give $38,000 per recipient. Above that you file IRS Form 709, but no tax is actually owed until you exhaust a $15 million lifetime exemption, which very few families ever touch. Florida charges no gift tax, no estate tax, and no inheritance tax. Run your own numbers on the gift tax calculator →

So the gift-tax answer is yes. The catch is that tax free to give is not tax smart to receive. The tax that actually costs Florida families money is the capital-gains tax your child pays later because a lifetime gift carried over your old basis, the $350,000 problem from Route 1. And Medicaid runs a rulebook of its own. A gift the IRS waves through can still cost you months of nursing-home coverage under the five-year look-back. When someone promises you a "tax-free transfer," ask which tax, and ask what it does to the basis and to Medicaid. Those two answers are where the real money is.

Which Route Fits Your Family?

One question sorts most families. Does the ownership actually need to change now, or is "when I die" the real goal?

• The goal is at your death. Use the deed that waits. A lady bird deed keeps your control, the step-up, and your Medicaid options, and skips probate.
• Your child is genuinely buying the home. Do a real sale at market price, with a warranty deed and a normal closing.
• Title needs to move now for a clean reason (a divorce, adding or removing a spouse, funding your own trust). A quitclaim deed is the right tool for those jobs.
• Adding a child to the deed. Almost never. It collects the costs of gifting without reliably avoiding probate.

Not sure where you land? The deed selector finds the right deed in four questions →

What Each Route Costs

Every fee is flat, posted, and honored for 90 days; recording fees and any documentary stamp tax are government costs passed through at cost, with no markup. The consult where we tell you which route fits is free, including when the answer is "do not transfer anything." See the full price list →

Frequently Asked Questions

Common Situations

The gift that taxed the growth. A Venice father deeds his paid-off home, bought decades ago for $50,000, to his daughter "to keep things simple." After his death she sells it for $400,000 and owes capital-gains tax on $350,000 of growth, because she took his old basis. A lady bird deed would have passed her the home with a $400,000 basis and essentially no tax, for the same $399.

The added son. A Clearwater widow adds her son to her deed to "skip probate." The deed never mentions survivorship, so under Florida’s default rule her share would still pass through probate. Two years later she wants to downsize and discovers she cannot sell without his signature. Unwinding it takes a second deed and a tax conversation nobody enjoyed; a lady bird deed from the start would have avoided both.

The dollar sale. A Fort Myers mother sells her condo to her son for $100, sure that a sale cannot be a gift. Three years later she needs nursing care, and Florida’s look-back counts the below-value sale as an uncompensated transfer, costing her months of Medicaid coverage. A free consult before the deed would have caught it.

Sources of Law

• IRC §1014 (stepped-up basis for property acquired from a decedent); §1015 (carryover basis for lifetime gifts); §1012 (cost basis for purchased property). (retrieved 2026-08-11)
• IRC §2503(b) (2026 annual gift-tax exclusion, $19,000 per recipient) and §2010 (lifetime gift/estate exemption, $15,000,000, made permanent by the One Big Beautiful Bill Act); IRC §2512 (a transfer for less than full consideration is a gift to the extent of the difference). Florida imposes no state gift, estate, or inheritance tax.
• Fla. Stat. §201.02: documentary stamp tax on deeds, measured by consideration (including mortgage balances taken subject to). flsenate.gov (retrieved 2026-08-11)
• Fla. Stat. §689.01: execution of deeds; §689.15: no right of survivorship between co-owners unless the instrument expressly provides it. flsenate.gov (retrieved 2026-08-11)
• Medicaid transfer-of-asset rules: 42 U.S.C. §1396p(c) (5-year look-back); Florida DCF ESS Policy Manual §1640.0613.01 (a lady bird deed is treated as no transfer). (retrieved 2026-08-11)
• Fla. Stat. §409.9101: Medicaid estate recovery, limited to the probate estate. (retrieved 2026-08-11)

Updated on August 11, 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 federal and Florida law and our posted fees, not legal or tax advice, and no attorney-client relationship is created. The right route depends on your specific facts, which we confirm at a free consult.