How do I know whether I own a condominium or a cooperative?
Look at what you were given at closing. If you received a deed in your own name, recorded in the Broward County Official Records against a folio number, you own a condominium unit. If you received a stock certificate, membership certificate or certificate of beneficial interest together with an occupancy agreement or proprietary lease, you live in a cooperative. Another quick check: pull up the property on the Broward County Property Appraiser site. A condominium unit generally shows the individual owner's name on its own folio; in a cooperative, the corporation or association typically appears as titleholder, which is exactly how the Florida Cooperative Act describes the arrangement.
Can I use a Lady Bird Deed on a Florida cooperative apartment?
Usually not, and the reason is structural rather than technical. Under the Florida Cooperative Act, a cooperative is a form of ownership in which legal title is vested in a corporation or other entity, and the resident's beneficial use is evidenced by an ownership interest in the association together with a lease or other muniment of title. You cannot record a deed conveying title you do not hold. What you hold is a cooperative parcel: shares or other evidence of ownership plus the lease. Transferring that interest is governed by chapter 719 and by your cooperative documents, which very commonly require association approval of whoever would take it.
So how does a cooperative unit pass at death?
It depends heavily on the cooperative documents, which is why they have to be read rather than assumed. Some cooperatives permit a member to designate who succeeds to the interest, subject to approval. Some require the interest to be sold back or offered to the association. Where the documents allow it, a revocable trust holding the cooperative interest is often the cleanest route, because the trustee simply continues after death rather than a transfer having to occur. What almost never works is assuming a form downloaded for a house will do the job.
Is a cooperative interest real property or personal property in Florida?
The Florida Cooperative Act states directly that an interest in a unit is an interest in real property, which resolves a question that trips up people arriving from states treating co-op shares purely as personal property. That does not mean you can convey the unit by deed, because legal title to the cooperative property remains with the association. How that characterization interacts with Florida's constitutional homestead protections has been litigated in Florida and is not a question to resolve from a website. If you live in a cooperative, that analysis should be done on your documents, with counsel.
Does the condominium association have to approve my Lady Bird Deed?
For a condominium, generally no as to the recording itself: you are not selling or leasing, and nothing changes in occupancy or ownership while you are alive. What your declaration may address is what happens at your death, and some declarations contain approval or right-of-first-refusal provisions applying to transfers. Read them, and tell the association who the eventual owners will be so the transition is administrative rather than adversarial.
My daughter is 44. Can she inherit my unit in a 55-and-over community?
Almost certainly she can own it. Whether she can live in it is a separate question governed by the community's rules. Communities qualifying for the housing-for-older-persons exemption typically require a percentage of occupied units to have at least one resident aged 55 or older, and many impose stricter requirements of their own. The practical consequence is that a beneficiary may inherit a unit they can only rent out or sell. Read the community's rules before assuming, not after.
Where do I record a Lady Bird Deed for Deerfield Beach property?
With the Broward County Records, Taxes & Treasury Division, at 115 South Andrews Avenue, Room 114, Fort Lauderdale. This surprises people because in most Florida counties the Clerk of the Circuit Court handles recording; in Broward it is a county division. Recording fees are $10.00 for the first page and $8.50 for each additional page, plus $1.00 for each name over four that has to be indexed.
Will a Deerfield Beach Lady Bird Deed affect my homestead exemption?
No. You remain the owner for every practical and legal purpose during your lifetime, so your homestead exemption and your accumulated Save Our Homes cap both continue undisturbed. Neither transfers to your beneficiaries at your death; a beneficiary who moves in must apply in their own name with the Broward County Property Appraiser, and the assessment resets to market value.
What do my beneficiaries inherit along with the unit?
Everything attached to it: monthly assessments, any special assessment already levied, the unit's share of reserve obligations, and the mortgage if there is one. In older Deerfield Beach buildings, structural inspection and reserve funding obligations can produce assessments that are substantial relative to the value of a modest unit. A beneficiary who cannot carry those costs is a beneficiary who will have to sell quickly, a conversation far better had while you are alive.
Does a Deerfield Beach Lady Bird Deed protect the home from Medicaid estate recovery?
In practice it usually does, because Florida limits estate recovery to the probate estate. Property passing by a properly drafted enhanced life estate deed is not part of the probate estate, so there is nothing for the state to recover against. Florida also does not treat the deed as a disqualifying transfer for eligibility, since you keep full control during your life. This is a technical area governed by 42 U.S.C. § 1396p and Fla. Stat. §§ 409.910 and 409.9101, and it should be reviewed against your own facts.
Do my beneficiaries get a stepped-up basis?
Yes. Because the transfer takes effect at your death rather than during your life, your beneficiaries take the property with a basis equal to its fair market value on the date of death. On a Deerfield Beach unit bought decades ago, that step-up can erase a substantial capital gain that an outright lifetime gift would have handed straight to your children.
Can a Deerfield Beach Lady Bird Deed be changed or revoked later?
Yes. That is the defining feature of the enhanced life estate deed and the reason it suits people who are not ready to give anything away. Because you reserve the power to sell, convey, mortgage, lease and revoke without anyone's consent, you can record a new deed that revokes or replaces the old one at any time while you are competent. Your named beneficiaries have no vote and no veto, and they cannot place a lien on the property, because they hold nothing until you die.
