Updated October 1, 2026. Quick answer: A Florida Lady Bird deed is an enhanced life estate deed: the owner deeds the home to a beneficiary but keeps a life estate and the power to sell, convey and mortgage it without the beneficiary joining in. Florida has no statute for it. The Florida Bar’s title lawyers say so themselves, and their Uniform Title Standards 6.10 to 6.12 are a consensus view, not law. The catch is homestead: if the owner dies married or with a minor child, the constitutional limit on leaving homestead by devise can defeat the deed. A spouse who joins the deed with the waiver language from section 732.7025 removes the spouse’s side of that limit, but the waiver speaks only to the spouse, so a minor child is a separate problem it does not solve.
What a Lady Bird deed is
Florida lawyers call the instrument an enhanced life estate. In the Florida Bar’s standards the owner conveys the remainder to a beneficiary while reserving “full power and authority in himself to sell, convey, mortgage or otherwise manage and dispose of the property in fee simple”, and the standards answer that a later sale by the owner, without the remainderman joining, passes good title. The same standards note that this kind of conveyance is commonly referred to as a “Lady Bird Deed”, and give one reason owners use it: “among which is the avoidance of probate”. The beneficiary, called the remainderman, holds a remainder that the owner can divest during life.
What Florida law says, and what it does not
There is no Florida statute that creates the Lady Bird deed. The Florida Bar’s Real Property, Probate and Trust Law Section says so in each of the three standards: “there is no Florida Statute governing such conveyances and scant judicial authority supporting the practice”. Each standard ends by telling practitioners that it and its guidance “represent the consensus view of the Real Property, Probate, and Trust Law Section of the Florida Bar”. That is the Section’s view of how the deed works, not a statute a court has to follow.
The standards lean on an older case, Oglesby v. Lee, 73 Fla. 39 (1917), where a conveyance from a father to his daughter that reserved the right to sell and place the proceeds of the sale in lieu of the property resulted, on a sale, in divestment of the daughter’s interest, and on the homestead and creditor statutes named below. They advise that the vesting deed should have the life tenant retain the power to divest the remainderman, and that any later conveyance meant to divest should say so clearly.
The three standards, in plain words
| Standard | Property | What it says |
|---|---|---|
| 6.10 | Property that is not homestead | A life tenant with the power to sell, convey and mortgage can convey or encumber the whole fee without the remainderman. |
| 6.11 | Homestead, while the owner is alive | The same power works for homestead, but a conveyance of a homestead residence by the life tenant is subject to the spousal joinder requirements of Article X, section 4(c) of the Florida Constitution. |
| 6.12 | Homestead, at the owner’s death | The remainderman gets fee simple title only when that is not in violation of the constitutional restriction on devise of homestead. |
The deed is only part of a Florida estate plan
A Lady Bird deed covers one asset. What a Florida estate does still need is a will for everything the deed does not reach. LawDepot builds a state-specific last will and testament.
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Homestead is where Lady Bird deeds fail
The limit is in the Florida Constitution, Article X, section 4(c): “The homestead shall not be subject to devise if the owner is survived by spouse or minor child, except the homestead may be devised to the owner’s spouse if there be no minor child”. Section 732.4015 repeats it in statute form, saying “the homestead shall not be subject to devise if the owner is survived by a spouse or a minor child or minor children, except that the homestead may be devised to the owner’s spouse if there is no minor child or minor children”. What counts as homestead is also limited by size: the Constitution protects a homestead “one hundred sixty acres of contiguous land and improvements thereon” (160 acres) outside a municipality and “one-half acre of contiguous land” (0.5 acre) inside one. Standard 6.12 treats a Lady Bird deed as subject to the devise restriction, so a deed that works perfectly for land that is not homestead can fail for the family home.
Section 732.7025 supplies the fix for the spouse’s side. A spouse waives the devise restriction if “By executing or joining this deed, I intend to waive homestead rights that would otherwise prevent my spouse from devising the homestead property described in this deed to someone other than me” or substantially similar language is in the deed. Two limits, from the same section: the language “may not be considered a waiver of the protection against the owner’s creditor claims during the owner’s lifetime and after death”, and it is not a waiver of the rule that a homestead cannot be sold, mortgaged or given away without the spouse’s joinder.
| Fact pattern (homestead) | Answer in Standard 6.12 |
|---|---|
| Owner was single and left no minor child | Fee simple title vests in the beneficiary |
| Owner was married at death and the deed has no waiver | Title does not vest in the beneficiary |
| Spouse joined in a deed signed on or after July 1, 2018 with the waiver sentence, and there was no minor child | Title vests in the beneficiary |
| The beneficiary is the owner’s spouse, who joined in the deed, and there was no minor child | The conveyance is valid |
Creditors, liens and the beneficiary
Because the beneficiary holds a remainder the owner can divest, the Standards say a judgment against the beneficiary can be divested too while the owner lives. But “upon the death of the life tenant, the lien of the judgment against the remainderman would attach to the property”. Going the other way, a judgment against the owner that was never levied on does not follow the home to the beneficiary: the Standards cite section 733.706 for the rule that a judgment against a decedent is not enforceable against real property owned at death but is filed as a claim in the estate.
Florida has no transfer on death deed
People search for a Florida transfer on death deed and land on the Lady Bird deed, because it is the instrument Florida lawyers use for the same job. That Florida has no TOD statute, and what the statute behind a widely repeated claim actually covers, is set out on the Florida transfer on death deed page. The comparison of the two instruments is on Lady Bird deed versus TOD deed. How a Lady Bird deed is treated for Medicaid is on the Lady Bird deed and Medicaid page, and is not decided here.
Common mistakes
- Assuming a statute governs the deed. Florida has none; the Florida Bar standards are a consensus view.
- Using a Lady Bird deed on a homestead without thinking about a surviving spouse or a minor child.
- Leaving out the spouse’s waiver sentence from section 732.7025 when the owner is married.
- Treating the waiver sentence as protection from creditors. The statute says it is not.
- Naming a beneficiary who has a judgment against them without asking what happens at the owner’s death.
Related on this site: why Florida has no transfer on death deed, how a Lady Bird deed differs from a TOD deed and Lady Bird deeds and Medicaid.
Sources
- The Florida Bar, Real Property, Probate and Trust Law Section, The Uniform Title Standards, Standards 6.10 to 6.12 (June 2019): https://rpptl.org/Uploads/Media/UTS%20Updated%202024.09.04.pdf
- Fla. Stat. 732.4015, devise of homestead (2025 Florida Statutes, Florida Senate): https://www.flsenate.gov/Laws/Statutes/2025/732.4015
- Fla. Stat. 732.7025, waiver of homestead rights through deed (2025 Florida Statutes, Florida Senate): https://www.flsenate.gov/Laws/Statutes/2025/732.7025
- Florida Constitution, Article X, section 4, Homestead; exemptions (Florida Senate): https://www.flsenate.gov/Laws/Constitution
Sources: the primary documents linked above, read on October 1, 2026. General information, not legal or tax advice. Your own facts decide the outcome, and a Florida, Texas or Vermont real-property lawyer, or a tax preparer, is the right place to confirm anything consequential.