In Florida, a Lady Bird Deed is a way to transfer real property upon death and avoid having to probate it. This device can be used for homestead property and/or for non-homestead property. The Lady Bird Deed transfers the property outside of probate and outside of a person’s estate upon death, effectively protecting it from creditors of the probate estate.

Using a Lady Bird Deed is not appropriate in every circumstance and each case must be analyzed individually. A Florida Lady Bird deed, also known as an Enhanced Life Estate Deed, is designed to allow property owners in Florida to transfer property to others automatically upon their death while maintaining use, control, and ownership
of the property while they are still alive.

With a Lady Bird deed, a person takes an enhanced “life estate” interest in real property while transferring the “remainder” interest to someone else after they pass away. The person who holds the “life estate” maintains ongoing control over the property during their lifetime which allows them to sell, use and otherwise do with the property as they choose without the involvement of the remainder beneficiaries.

The remainder beneficiaries have no rights to the subject property and their consents are not required to sell the property during the lifetime of the life estate holder. Assuming the Lady Bird deed remains valid, and the life estate holder did not otherwise transfer the property during their lifetime, the property automatically passes to the
remainder beneficiaries upon the death of the life estate holder without the need for the property to be administered through the probate court. In fact, this is the main benefit of having a Lady Bird deed rather than a
regular life estate deed.

Most commonly, Lady Bird deeds are used by the owner of a property to grant his/herself a life estate in the property while naming remaindermen to inherit the property upon their death.
Two examples are:
(1) married couple executes an enhanced life estate deed in which a joint life estate is reserved and upon the death
of the surviving spouse, the property transfers to the named remaindermen, or
(2) widowed or single individuals often execute enhanced life estate deeds in their homestead properties naming their children or others as remaindermen.

It is important to note that Florida Statute 732.401 prohibits a person from devising homestead property to anyone else when there is a surviving spouse and/or minor children.

If you think you might want a Lady Bird Deed, please discuss it with a qualified attorney to be sure that it is a proper tool to use to accomplish your estate planning goals.

Diana Mangsen focuses her practice as an elder law attorney in Clearwater, Palm Harbor, Largo, Dunedin and the Tampa Bay area.

For more information, visit our website at
https://www.mangsenlaw.com/
or call (727) 888-6282.