Sarasota County Special Warranty Deed (LLC Grantor) Form

When a Florida limited liability company sells real estate, the deed at closing is often a special warranty deed: a conveyance carrying a real covenant of title, but one measured by the company's own period of ownership. The grantor promises to warrant and defend the title against the lawful claims of all persons claiming by, through, or under the grantor, but against none other. Whatever happened in the chain of title before the company took ownership stays outside the promise.

A covenant with a start date

Florida writes no statutory form for this deed. Section 689.02, Florida Statutes, prescribes a statutory warranty deed, and section 689.03 attaches the full common-law covenants to a conveyance substantially in that form, a warranty reaching the whole chain of title. The statutory quitclaim deed of section 689.025 sits at the other end, conveying whatever interest exists with no covenants. The special warranty deed lives between them and exists only through its express language. This form states the limited covenant in exact terms and states that the full covenants of section 689.03 do not attach, so the deed reads the way a Florida title examiner expects.

Built around an entity signature

A company that held a property for a few years can stand behind its own tenure; it has less basis for warranting what an owner three transfers back did. That match between covenant and record is why special warranty deeds appear throughout Florida commercial sales, investor and builder closings, and bank-owned transfers. The company signs by a member, manager, officer, or agent, a capacity recital states that the signer makes no personal covenant, and the notary block is the Florida statutory short-form acknowledgment for a limited liability company under section 695.25(4), with the physical presence or online notarization alternatives current law requires. Under section 605.04074(3), a member of a member-managed company or a manager of a manager-managed company may sign an instrument transferring the company's real property interest unless a recorded certified statement of authority limits that authority.

Ready for the recording counter

Florida deeds are signed before two subscribing witnesses along with the notary, and since January 1, 2024, section 695.26 requires each witness's printed name immediately beneath the signature and a post-office address for each witness. The form carries both witness blocks with those lines, printed-name and address lines for the company's signer, a preparer block naming a natural person, the grantee's name and post-office address, a parcel identification number line, and a first page that keeps the statutory 3 inch by 3 inch top-right space blank for the clerk. Documentary stamp tax under Chapter 201 is computed on the consideration and collected when the clerk of the circuit court records the deed; the guide walks through the statewide rate and the Miami-Dade surtax structure.

What comes in the package

The download includes the blank deed as a fillable PDF, a completed example showing an Orange County transfer from a Florida LLC filled in through the notary block, and a plain-language guide treating every section of the form, the witness and acknowledgment formalities, the signing-authority rules of Chapter 605, and the recording steps. The materials describe Florida law in general terms and are not legal advice; a Florida attorney can address how these rules operate in a specific transaction.