TL;DR: A Florida divorce judgment does not change your deed. If your marital settlement agreement says one spouse keeps the house, someone still has to prepare and record a deed transferring the other spouse’s interest, and that is usually a quit claim deed. Two things to know: Florida law exempts most marital home transfers between spouses or former spouses in a divorce from documentary stamp tax, and signing the deed does not release you from the mortgage.
Divorce paperwork is exhausting by the time you get to the deed, and it is usually the last item on the list. It is also the one that quietly stays broken for years if nobody handles it. We see people come to us five or ten years after a divorce, trying to sell a Fort Myers house, only to find their ex spouse is still on the title and has to be tracked down and asked to sign.
This page covers what actually needs to happen, the timing question that matters most, and the tax rule that saves marital home transfers real money.
Lee County Document Preparation, Inc. is a non-attorney document preparation service, preparing and recording real estate documents from Fort Myers since 1997. We prepare the deed your settlement agreement or final judgment calls for. We do not give legal advice, we do not tell you whether to sign, and we are not a substitute for your divorce attorney. Do not sign anything transferring your interest in a property during a divorce without your own attorney reviewing it first. Where a preparer’s role ends is explained in do I need a lawyer to file a deed in Florida.
How do you remove an ex spouse from a deed in Florida?
You remove an ex spouse from a Florida deed by having them sign a new deed, usually a quit claim deed, conveying their interest to the spouse keeping the property, and then recording it with the Clerk of Court in the county where the property sits. The divorce judgment alone does not transfer title. The deed does, and only once it is recorded.
This trips people up because a final judgment feels final. It settles the obligation between the two of you, but the county’s official records do not update themselves. Until a deed is recorded, the Lee County Clerk of Court, the Property Appraiser, any title company, and any future buyer all still see two owners. The mechanics are the same as any other removal, which we cover in general in how to remove someone from a deed in Florida.
One exception worth knowing: in some cases the final judgment itself contains language that operates as a conveyance, or the court appoints a clerk or a special magistrate to execute a deed if a party refuses. Whether that applies to your judgment is a question for your attorney, not for us.
Do I need a quit claim deed after divorce, and when should it be signed?
Yes, in almost every Florida divorce where one spouse keeps real property, a deed is needed. Most attorneys have it signed at or immediately after the final hearing, while both parties are present, cooperative, and locatable. Waiting is the single most expensive mistake in this whole process.
The case for signing early is practical rather than legal. A cooperative ex spouse today is not guaranteed to be a cooperative ex spouse in three years, and people move, remarry, lose capacity, and die. If your ex spouse dies before signing, their interest passes into their estate, and you are now negotiating with heirs or waiting on probate to clear the title on a house you were awarded years ago.
The case for waiting is that timing can interact with the tax rules and with a refinance. If the spouse keeping the house needs to refinance to buy out the other’s equity, the lender will often want the transaction sequenced a particular way. Coordinate that with your attorney and your lender before you decide when to sign. Once you know the answer, our three step process is quick.
Which deed do you use for a divorce transfer?
A quit claim deed is standard for divorce transfers, because the spouses already know exactly what the title looks like and neither is in a position to guarantee anything to the other. A warranty deed is occasionally used when a lender or title insurer specifically requires it.
The distinction matters more here than most people realize. A quit claim deed passes whatever interest the signer holds, with no promise it is clean. If your ex spouse quietly took out a personal loan secured by the property, a quit claim gives you no recourse against them for it. That is precisely why a title search before the transfer is worth the money in a divorce, more so than in a friendly family transfer. A warranty deed adds that promise, and the differences are set out in warranty deed versus quit claim deed.
Is a divorce transfer exempt from documentary stamp tax in Florida?
In most cases, yes. Florida law specifically exempts documentary stamp tax on a deed between spouses or former spouses made pursuant to a dissolution of marriage, where the real property is or was their marital home. Unlike almost every other exemption in the statute, this one applies regardless of the consideration involved.
The statutory language is unusually clear for once. Section 201.02 of the Florida Statutes provides that the tax does not apply to a deed, transfer, or conveyance between spouses or former spouses pursuant to an action for dissolution of their marriage wherein the real property is or was their marital home or an interest in it. The same paragraph provides for a refund where the transfer happened within one year before the dissolution, and it states that the exemption applies in spite of any consideration.
Two limits to keep in mind. The exemption is tied to the marital home, so an investment property, a rental in Cape Coral, or raw land the two of you owned together is a different analysis. And the exemption is about documentary stamp tax specifically, not about every cost. You still have the preparation fee and the Clerk’s recording charge. Our fee schedule lists $225 to prepare a deed and $18.50 to record it, plus $8.50 per additional page. How doc stamps work everywhere else is covered in Florida documentary stamp tax and what a deed transfer really costs.
Tell us on the request form that the transfer is pursuant to a dissolution and which property was the marital home, and the deed will be prepared to reflect it. Whether your specific transfer qualifies is a legal and tax question, so confirm it with your attorney or CPA. We prepare, we do not opine.
The mortgage does not follow the deed
This is the most consequential misunderstanding in divorce property transfers, and it is worth its own section. Signing a quit claim deed gives up your ownership. It does nothing at all to the mortgage.
If both names are on the note, both people remain liable to the lender after the deed is recorded, no matter what the divorce judgment says between them. The judgment binds the two of you to each other. It does not bind your lender, which was never a party to your divorce. So the spouse who signed away the house can still be chased for a missed payment, and it still shows on their credit.
There are only three real fixes: the remaining spouse refinances into their own name, the loan is formally assumed with the lender’s written approval, or the property is sold and the loan paid off. A quit claim deed is none of those. If you are the spouse leaving, treat the refinance as the actual finish line and the deed as one step on the way there.
Getting the deed prepared in Lee County
Once your attorney has told you what to sign and when, this part is short. Complete the quit claim request form identifying the property, both spouses, who is keeping it, and that the transfer is pursuant to a dissolution. We prepare the deed and send it out. The spouse conveying their interest signs it in front of two witnesses and a notary, mails us the original, and we record it with the Lee County Clerk of Court.
The execution requirements are strict and a rejected deed in a divorce is worse than in any other context, because getting an ex spouse to a second signing appointment is not always possible. Florida requires two witnesses in addition to the notary, plus printed names and post office addresses on the page. All of it is spelled out in Florida deed witness and notary requirements. Read it before the signing, not after.
We serve Lee County and the surrounding region from 11595 Kelly Rd #215 in Fort Myers, including Cape Coral, Bonita Springs, Estero, Naples, and Marco Island. If a jointly owned timeshare is part of the settlement, that has its own process, covered on our timeshare deed page. If it is a mobile or manufactured home, it moves by certificate of title rather than deed, explained in mobile home title transfer in Florida.
Frequently asked questions
Why would a married couple do a quit claim deed? Several reasons besides divorce. Adding a spouse to a property one of them owned before the marriage, moving a jointly owned property into one spouse’s name for estate planning or asset protection, or transferring into a trust. The adding a name guide covers the opposite direction.
Do I need a lawyer to do a quitclaim deed in Florida? Florida does not require an attorney to prepare or record a deed, so a non-attorney preparer can handle the document itself. In a divorce specifically, you should still have your own attorney advise you before you sign away an interest in real property. Preparing the deed and advising you about it are two different services.
Can my ex refuse to sign the quit claim deed? They can refuse, and then it becomes an enforcement matter for your divorce attorney and the court rather than a paperwork matter. This is another argument for signing at the final hearing.
What if the divorce was years ago and the deed was never recorded? Common, and usually fixable. If your ex spouse will sign, we can prepare and record the deed now. The exemption for marital home transfers is tied to the dissolution action rather than to a deadline, but confirm the current treatment with your CPA given how much time has passed.
Does a quit claim deed affect my homestead exemption? It can, because homestead is tied to ownership and residency. Contact the Lee County Property Appraiser’s office after the transfer to make sure the exemption is correctly on the remaining owner. We cannot predict how they will treat your situation.
Need a divorce deed prepared?
We have been preparing and recording quit claim deeds in Fort Myers and across Lee County since 1997, and divorce transfers are routine work here. Start with the quit claim request form, review the fee schedule, or call 239-482-7900. You can also use our contact page.