Guides › Transfer-on-Death Deeds
Updated July 31, 2026. Quick answer: they solve the same problem with different machinery, and articles constantly conflate them. A TOD deed is a statutory instrument: record it, and the property passes at death; the beneficiary has no interest whatsoever while you live. A Lady Bird deed (enhanced life estate deed) is a common-law workhorse used in a handful of states — most prominently Florida, Texas and Michigan — where you deed the remainder to your beneficiary NOW while retaining a life estate plus the unrestricted power to sell, mortgage or revoke without the beneficiary’s consent.
Why the distinction pays
Where you live decides for you. Lady Bird deeds work in only a few states; TOD deeds are statutory in most-but-not-all. In Florida — which has NO TOD-deed statute for real property — the Lady Bird deed is the tool, which is exactly why Florida content dominates the topic and confuses readers everywhere else.
Medicaid is the Lady Bird deed’s home turf. Because you retain full control, recording one is generally not a completed, countable transfer — relevant to the five-year lookback in ways worth verifying for your state — and in probate-only-recovery states, both instruments move the home outside the recovery estate. This is the most state-sensitive claim in the whole topic; treat any blanket statement (including this one) as a starting point for state-specific advice.
Taxes land the same. Both keep the property in your estate, both preserve the full step-up in basis, neither is a taxable gift when recorded. Both beat adding a child to the deed, which is a gift and forfeits half the step-up.
The right deed depends on your state and your Medicaid horizon.
This is the most state-specific corner of estate planning. The matching service below introduces you to advisers who pay to meet you.
Before you start, what actually happens. The form is run by Kapitalwise, our advisor-matching partner. It asks about nine questions — age, investable assets, location — then your name, email and phone number, and verifies the phone by text.
Kapitalwise sends your details to advisers who pay for the introduction, so expect calls and texts. Clear Money Guide is paid when you submit the form, whether or not you ever hire anyone. Nothing loads and nothing reaches Kapitalwise until you press the button.
Compare fees, scope, conflicts, credentials and fiduciary duty before you hire anyone.
The Kapitalwise form opens here — you stay on this page.
Which instrument your state actually offers: the statute-verified 51-jurisdiction table is at transfer-on-death deed states.