Highlands County Quitclaim Deed Form

A quitclaim deed promises nothing, so everything about its value turns on the record it enters. Section 695.11, Florida Statutes, fixes that moment precisely: an instrument is deemed recorded when the clerk affixes the official register number, and the order of those numbers settles priority, the lower number taking precedence. This fillable form prepares the instrument Florida prescribes for that filing, the statutory quitclaim deed of section 689.025, for natural persons conveying in their own right.

A deed measured by the record, not by a covenant

The statutory operative words are remise, release, and quitclaim. They pass to the second party all the right, title, interest, claim, and demand the first party holds in the described parcel, together with its improvements and appurtenances, and they stop there. Whatever the first party owns at delivery is what moves: an entire fee, an undivided share, or nothing at all. Mortgages, judgment liens, unpaid taxes, easements, and plat restrictions stay attached to the land, and the deed's express no-warranty line means no covenant of title stands behind the transfer. Florida then adds a twist that surprises readers who know quit claim deed practice in other states: under section 695.01(2), a grantee taking by quitclaim is deemed a bona fide purchaser without notice for recording act purposes, so the deed carries the recording act's full protection despite promising nothing.

One or two names on either side

This is the base configuration of the Florida quitclaim deed, and its party architecture is deliberately open. Section 2 receives one or two individuals as first party; section 3 receives one or two individuals as second party. Four count patterns therefore print without alteration, from one signer and one recipient through two of each. Nothing about marital status, capacity, or co-ownership is preprinted: the names, any status words, and any vesting designation for two grantees are entries the filler supplies. The guide covers what each blank can carry, including Florida's rule in section 689.15 that survivorship among co-owners arises only where the instrument expressly provides it, apart from the estate by the entirety between spouses. The execution architecture matches the party blocks. Two signature blocks, four subscribing witness blocks, and two acknowledgment certificates print on every copy, and a one-grantor conveyance simply leaves the second signature block, its witnesses, and its certificate blank. A married owner conveying constitutional homestead uses that second block for the spouse's joinder under article X, section 4(c) of the Florida Constitution. What the form is not set up to recite is a company or trustee as titleholder, an agent signing under a power of attorney, or three or more owners on either side.

Two witnesses, with an address for each

Florida deeds carry a signing ceremony many states dropped. Section 689.01 requires the instrument to be signed before two subscribing witnesses, and since January 1, 2024, section 695.26 has made the witness data recording data: a printed name under each witness signature and a post office address for each witness, somewhere on the face of the deed. The form draws labeled lines for all of it, two witness blocks per grantor signature. Each certificate then records what section 117.05 asks a Florida notary to state, the exact date, the person acknowledging, the identification method, and whether the appearance was by physical presence or online notarization, the remote option section 117.265 opens to a Florida online notary.

At the recording counter

The deed is recorded with the clerk of the circuit court in the county where the land lies. Its first page keeps the top right three inch square clear for the clerk, names the natural person who prepared it, and states the grantee's post office address, all recording data section 695.26 lists. Documentary stamp tax falls due at recording, 70 cents per 100 dollars of consideration in every county but Miami-Dade, which runs its own rate and surtax. Consideration is measured by chapter 201 rather than by the deed, and it counts a mortgage riding on the property even where no money changes hands, which is what makes a family transfer of financed property taxable.

The download holds the blank deed as a fillable PDF with a removable instructions page, a completed example built on a Pinellas County transfer between relatives, and a plain language guide covering every numbered entry, the vesting choices open to two grantees, the signing ceremony, and recording. The materials are informational and are not legal advice.