Highlands County Quitclaim Deed (Married Couple as Grantors) Form

Florida is one of the few states that spells out its quitclaim deed in statute. Section 689.025, added to chapter 689 in 2023 as part of the legislature's property-fraud package, prescribes the form, the operative words, and even a blank for the county parcel identification number. This deed follows that statutory form for a specific and common fact pattern: two spouses, both signing, conveying whatever interest they hold together.

Remise, release, and quitclaim

The statutory form's operative words, "does hereby remise, release, and quitclaim," pass the grantors' right, title, interest, claim, and demand in the described land, together with improvements and appurtenances, and nothing more. Florida courts describe the quitclaim as conveying only the interest the grantor actually has, which may be an entire fee, a fractional share, or nothing at all. No covenant of title travels with it: the grantee takes subject to mortgages, taxes, easements, and restrictions, whether or not the deed mentions them. That bare-bones character is why the form appears so often in transfers between relatives and in title cleanups, where the work is moving an interest rather than guaranteeing one. An unusual Florida wrinkle sits in the recording act itself: Section 695.01(2) deems grantees by quitclaim deed bona fide purchasers without notice, so a recorded Florida quitclaim carries recording-act protection that some states withhold from the form.

What two spousal signatures accomplish

Florida presumes that real property titled in both spouses' names is held as a tenancy by the entirety, a form of ownership the spouses convey together rather than in halves. And where the property is the couple's constitutional homestead, Article X, Section 4(c) of the Florida Constitution permits a married owner to alienate it by sale, gift, or mortgage only with the spouse joined in the instrument. A quitclaim executed by both spouses conveys the entireties title as a whole and carries the homestead joinder on its face, and this form recites the marriage so the record shows both signatures doing that work.

Witnesses, the notary, and the clerk's window

Florida deeds are signed in the presence of two subscribing witnesses, and for instruments executed since January 1, 2024, each witness's printed name and post-office address belong on the instrument as recording requirements. The form provides labeled witness blocks as to each grantor, a separate statutory acknowledgment certificate for each spouse with the physical-presence or online-notarization checkboxes current law calls for, a preparer block naming a natural person, and a first page that keeps the statutory 3-inch square at the top right blank for the Clerk of the Circuit Court. Documentary stamp tax is collected at recording: 70 cents per $100 of consideration in every county but Miami-Dade, with a minimum of 70 cents on a no-consideration transfer of unencumbered property, and with any outstanding mortgage counted as consideration even in a gift between relatives.

Inside the download

The package includes the blank deed as a fillable PDF with a removable instructions page, a plain-language guide keyed to every entry on the form, and a completed example showing a married couple's transfer from start to finish, witness and notary blocks included. The materials describe the statutes and the form; they are informational and are not legal advice.