TL;DR: A Florida deed must be signed by the person transferring the property in front of two subscribing witnesses, and notarized. To be recorded, it also needs the printed name and post office address of every signer, every witness, the notary, the grantee, and the person who prepared it. Missing any one of those is the most common reason the Clerk sends a deed back. We prepare deeds so those fields are already there, and you can start with our request form.
Almost nobody gets a deed wrong on the legal substance. They get it wrong at the kitchen table, in the ninety seconds of signing. One witness instead of two. A witness who signs but never prints their name. No address under a signature. Every one of those sends the document back, and by then the parties have often scattered.
This is the checklist version, with the statutes it comes from, written for people in Lee County who are about to sign something.
Lee County Document Preparation, Inc. is a non-attorney document preparation service and has prepared and recorded real estate documents from Fort Myers since 1997. We prepare the document. We do not give legal advice. Nothing here is a legal opinion about your specific deed.
How many witnesses does a Florida deed need?
A Florida deed needs two subscribing witnesses. Section 689.01 of the Florida Statutes requires that an interest in land be transferred by a written instrument signed in the presence of two subscribing witnesses by the party making the transfer. The notary does not count as one of the two. That is three signatures beyond the owner’s on a typical deed.
The word “subscribing” is doing real work. A subscribing witness is someone who was actually present when the owner signed, and who then signs the document themselves to attest to it. You cannot have someone sign as a witness afterward, in another room, or based on your word that the signing happened. The witness attests to what they saw.
This is where Florida differs from many states, and it is the single most common failure we see in DIY deeds. People correctly get the document notarized, assume that is the formality, and hand in a deed with one witness or none. The notarization was fine. The conveyance itself is defective.
Can a family member witness a deed in Florida?
Florida’s statute does not prohibit a family member from serving as a subscribing witness on a deed. It requires only that the witness be present when the owner signs and that they sign in attestation. In practice, though, using a spouse, a co-owner, or the person receiving the property is a poor idea, because an interested witness gives anyone who later wants to challenge the deed an easy line of attack.
The safe rule of thumb: use two adults who are not parties to the transaction and have nothing to gain from it. Neighbors, coworkers, a friend. Not the grantee, not their spouse, and ideally not someone who stands to inherit.
Also note that the two witnesses and the notary can all be present at the same time, and the notary can be one of the people watching, they just cannot serve double duty as one of the two witnesses. If you are having a warranty deed or a Lady Bird deed signed, this applies identically. A Lady Bird deed carries the added consideration that it is often signed by an older owner, where a disinterested witness matters even more.
What has to be printed on the page for the Clerk to record it
Signatures alone are not enough. Florida has a separate statute governing what must appear on the page before a Clerk of Court will accept the instrument for recording, and it is stricter than most people expect.
Section 695.26 of the Florida Statutes provides that an instrument conveying an interest in real property shall not be recorded unless the name of each person who executed the instrument is legibly printed, typewritten, or stamped immediately beneath their signature, along with their post office address. The same section extends that to each witness, to the notary or other official, to each grantee, and to the natural person who prepared the instrument or under whose supervision it was prepared.
Read as a checklist, that means every one of the following has to be on the deed:
- Printed name and post office address of each person signing to convey
- Printed name and post office address of each witness, beneath their signature
- Name of the notary public taking the acknowledgment
- Printed name and post office address of each grantee, the person receiving
- Printed name and post office address of the person who prepared the deed
That last one is worth pausing on. Florida requires the preparer to be named and addressed on the face of the deed. When we prepare a deed, that is our name and our Fort Myers address on the document. When someone downloads a blank form and fills it in themselves, that line is theirs, and it is often left blank, which is a recording defect in itself.
The statute does give the Clerk some latitude. Where a name or address appears somewhere other than the required position, the Clerk may accept the instrument if the connection between the signature and the name or address is apparent. That is discretion, not entitlement, and it is not something to plan around.
The five reasons deeds actually come back
Ranked by how often we see them, not by how serious they are.
- Only one witness signed. Or two people signed but only one was actually present.
- A witness signed but did not print their name and address. The most common single defect, and it is invisible to someone who does not know to look for it.
- The grantee’s address is missing. People fill in the property address and think that covers it.
- The preparer line is blank. Required by s. 695.26 and almost always overlooked on a downloaded form.
- The notary block is incomplete. Missing the county, the date, the type of identification relied on, or the notary’s commission details.
None of these is exotic. All five are the kind of thing you only notice if you have handed hundreds of documents across the counter at a Clerk of Court, which is a reasonable argument for not doing your first one alone. Our take on where a preparer helps and where you genuinely need a lawyer instead is in do I need a lawyer to file a deed in Florida.
Does a Florida deed have to be notarized?
Yes. A Florida deed is acknowledged before a notary public or other authorized officer, and the notary’s name must appear on the instrument for it to be recorded. The notary’s role is separate from the witnesses’: the notary verifies the identity of the signer and takes their acknowledgment, while the witnesses attest that they watched the signing.
Because the two roles are separate, you need both. We are asked often whether a bank branch notary is sufficient, and for the notarization itself, yes, a commissioned Florida notary is a commissioned Florida notary. What a bank branch generally will not do is supply two disinterested witnesses, keep them in the room for the whole signing, and make sure every printed name and address field is completed. Arrange the witnesses before you go.
Our three step process sends you the prepared deed, and you arrange the signing, witnesses, and notarization. Our fee schedule also lists an online notarization option at $150 for situations where getting everyone in one room is not practical.
Can witnesses sign electronically or remotely in Florida?
Yes. Florida law allows the two subscribing witness requirement to be satisfied by witnesses who are present and signing electronically by means of audio-video communication technology. A witness may be in the signer’s physical presence, or present through audio-video technology, at the time the signer affixes their electronic signature.
That provision appears in the same section 689.01 that sets the two witness rule. It matters for a service area like ours, where a large share of owners are seasonal residents, out of state heirs, or snowbirds who own a Fort Myers or Sanibel property but are in Ohio for half the year. The traditional alternative is mailing paper for wet signatures, which adds days at each end.
Remote and electronic signing has its own procedural requirements and its own vendors, and it is not automatically available for every document or every party. Ask us before you assume your transfer can be handled that way. If you are transferring a timeshare interest, which is often held by out of state owners, see our timeshare deed page.
Get the signing right the first time
We have prepared deeds in Lee County since 1997, and every deed we send out already has the printed name, address, witness, grantee, and preparer fields laid out, so the signing is a matter of getting the right people in the room. We work across Fort Myers, Cape Coral, Bonita Springs, Estero, Naples, and Marco Island from 11595 Kelly Rd #215, Fort Myers.
Start with the quit claim request form, review the fee schedule, or call 239-482-7900. If you are adding or removing a co-owner, read how to add a name to a deed in Florida or how to remove someone from a deed in Florida first, and see what a deed transfer really costs for the numbers. You can also reach us through our contact page.
Frequently asked questions
Does the notary count as one of the two witnesses in Florida? No. The notary takes your acknowledgment, which is a different function from attesting to the signing. You need two subscribing witnesses in addition to the notary. A notary can also serve as a witness only if they sign in both capacities and the document reflects it, which is not how we prepare deeds.
What happens if a deed is signed with only one witness? The Clerk can refuse to record it, and even if it were recorded, the defect gives anyone challenging the transfer an argument that the conveyance did not comply with s. 689.01. The practical fix is re-executing the deed properly, which means getting the signer back to the table.
Do the witnesses need to know what they are signing? They are attesting that they watched the person sign, not vouching for the contents. They do not need to read the deed. They do need to actually be present.
Can I witness a deed for my own parent? Nothing in the statute stops you, but if you are also the person receiving the property, or you stand to inherit it, do not do it. Use two disinterested adults instead. An interested witness is the easiest thing to attack later.
Is an unrecorded but properly signed deed valid? Signing and delivery can transfer the interest between the parties, but until the deed is recorded, the county’s official records do not reflect it, and third parties such as buyers, lenders, and title companies act on the record. Recording is how you protect the transfer, which is why we record every deed we prepare.