Highlands County Enhanced Life Estate Warranty Deed Form

A Florida enhanced life estate warranty deed, the instrument most people know as a lady bird deed, conveys a remainder to a named grantee today while the grantor keeps a life estate and the power to undo the arrangement at will. This form prepares that deed for one or two Florida owners signing in their own right, with the full warranty covenant of a Florida warranty deed.

A remainder the grantor can still take back

An ordinary life estate deed gives the remainder away for good: the life tenant cannot sell or mortgage the fee without the remainderman joining. Section 7 of this deed reverses that. It reserves to the grantor, for life, possession and the rents, together with full power to sell, convey, mortgage, encumber, lease, gift, or otherwise dispose of the property, with or without consideration, without the grantee's joinder or consent, keeping all proceeds and without liability for waste, and the power to revoke the deed or change the grantee by a later recorded instrument. Whatever the grantor has not disposed of at death vests in the grantee in fee simple absolute, outside probate. No Florida statute creates the instrument; it rests on common-law property principles, on appellate recognition such as the Third District's 2023 description of the enhanced life estate as carrying the exclusive power to mortgage without the remainder person, and on the Florida Bar's Uniform Title Standards.

Warranty covenants on the remainder

This is the warranty flavor of the lady bird deed. Section 6 conveys with the granting words of Section 689.02, Florida Statutes, and Section 8 carries the statutory covenant verbatim: the grantor does hereby fully warrant the title to said land, and will defend the same against the lawful claims of all persons whomsoever, which Section 689.03 gives the effect of full common-law covenants. The covenant runs subject to the matters listed in Section 5 and to the reserved life estate.

One or two grantors, free-form parties

The form is the general configuration of its suite. It recites one or two grantors who are natural persons signing in their own right, in a grantor block that carries names and post-office addresses with no printed statement of marital status or of how title is held; the grantee block carries the remainder beneficiaries and, when two or more are named, the co-ownership words the grantor chooses, which the guide explains form by form under Section 689.15. A sole owner leaves the SECOND GRANTOR block blank. A married couple holding by the entirety, two co-owners, and a sole owner whose spouse joins because the property is homestead each present the two-grantor pattern the form recites. A trustee, entity, or attorney-in-fact grantor takes a representative-capacity acknowledgment this form does not print, and three or more grantors exceed its two blocks.

Homestead, the spouse, and the Florida Constitution

Article X, section 4(c) of the Florida Constitution lets the owner of homestead real estate, joined by the spouse if married, alienate the homestead by mortgage, sale, or gift. In Clemons v. Thornton, 993 So. 2d 1054 (Fla. 1st DCA 2008), a deed that reserved a life estate and conveyed the remainder in a homestead to a daughter failed as to the remainder because the owner's wife never signed. On this form a joining spouse is named in Section 1 and signs the SECOND GRANTOR block. The same section restricts devise of the homestead where a spouse or minor child survives, and Florida title practice reads that restriction against the remainder at the life tenant's death; the guide describes both rules.

Execution and recording in Florida

Section 689.01 requires each grantor to sign before two subscribing witnesses, and since January 1, 2024, Section 695.26 makes every witness's printed name and post-office address recording data, so the form carries two witness blocks with address lines per grantor signature. Each grantor acknowledges on a Section 695.25(1) short form certificate. The Department of Revenue concluded in a 2020 letter ruling that an enhanced life estate deed of unencumbered property transfers no present beneficial interest and is not subject to documentary stamp tax regardless of consideration, while county offices commonly collect the 70 cent minimum; the guide explains the ruling's limits.

The package includes the fillable enhanced life estate warranty deed form, a completed example filled in for a Hillsborough County fact pattern, and the guide that walks through every section, signing, and recording. This description and the guide describe the form and Florida law in general terms; they are not legal advice.