Florida Lady Bird Deeds for Rentals, Condos and LLC Property

Written and reviewed by Yanitza Schoonover, Florida probate and estate planning attorney The Schoonover Law Firm, P.A. · Updated October 2026

Can You Use a Florida Lady Bird Deed on a Rental, Condo or LLC Property?

Most people first hear about a Florida Lady Bird Deed in connection with the family homestead. But many of the owners who call us have more than one property: a condominium unit they rent out, a duplex bought for retirement income, a vacation home on the Gulf, a unit in an older cooperative building, a deeded timeshare week, or a rental house held in a limited liability company on an accountant’s advice.

The question is the same each time: can this property pass to my family with a Lady Bird Deed, the way my house does? The answer turns on one fact people rarely check: who actually holds title. A Lady Bird Deed (formally, an enhanced life estate deed) is a deed. Only the owner of record can sign one, and it only works on an interest in Florida real property. Rentals, condos and second homes you own in your own name usually qualify. Property your LLC owns, a co-op apartment, and many timeshare products do not, for reasons that have nothing to do with drafting skill.

The Rule That Decides Every Case: Who Holds Title

A Lady Bird Deed is a conveyance. The person signing it transfers a remainder interest to the beneficiaries while reserving an enhanced life estate, meaning the power to sell, convey, mortgage, lease and revoke without anyone’s consent. Nobody can convey what they do not own, so the first step on any property is to pull the last recorded deed and read the grantee line.

If that line names you, individually or together with your spouse, a Lady Bird Deed is usually available whatever the property is used for. Florida does not restrict enhanced life estate deeds to homesteads. If the grantee line names a company, a trust, a cooperative association, or a deceased relative whose estate was never administered, the person who wants the deed is not the person who can sign it, and the plan has to start somewhere else.

The second filter is the kind of interest. A Lady Bird Deed passes an interest in Florida real property. Shares of stock, a membership interest, a right-to-use contract and real estate in another state are outside it, even when they feel like “my apartment” or “my week at the beach.”

Homestead adds a third layer (spouse joinder and the constitutional limits on devise), covered on our comparison page and city guides. This page covers everything else.

Property Type at a Glance

Rental and Investment Property

A rental house, townhome, duplex or small apartment building that you own in your own name can take a Lady Bird Deed exactly as a homestead can. The enhanced reservation is, if anything, more valuable on investment property: you keep the power to sign leases, refinance, take out a line of credit, or sell when the market is right, without asking the people you named.

What happens to the tenants

A lease does not end because the landlord dies. When the deed takes effect, your beneficiaries step into ownership subject to the existing leases, and they inherit the landlord’s side of those relationships, including responsibility for the security deposits you are holding. Keep a clean file: current leases, the deposit account, the property manager agreement if there is one, and the insurance declarations. Your beneficiaries will need all of it in the first week.

What is different from a homestead

• No constitutional creditor protection. The homestead exemption from creditors does not apply to a rental. The deed avoids probate; it is not an asset protection device, so ask how creditors of your estate could reach the property before relying on the deed alone.

• No spouse joinder rule, but an elective share. Constitutional spouse joinder applies to homestead, so a married owner can sign a rental deed alone. But Florida’s elective share counts property the decedent could revoke at death, so a surviving spouse may have a claim. A joinder or appropriate waiver avoids the question.

• Property tax reassessment. The non-homestead assessment limitation resets on a change of ownership, which happens at death however the property passes.

• Medicaid. Florida’s estate recovery still reaches only the probate estate, so the deed helps on that side. Eligibility is a separate analysis, and a rental is treated differently from a homestead. See the Medicaid page before using a rental deed as part of long-term care planning.

Why the stepped-up basis matters more on a rental

Because you keep the enhanced powers, the property generally remains in your gross estate at death, which normally gives your beneficiaries a stepped-up cost basis equal to date-of-death value. On a rental, the step-up generally also resets the depreciation history, so beneficiaries who sell soon after inheriting typically face little or no gain. Deeding a rental to your children during life gives them your old, depreciated basis instead. Confirm the treatment with your tax advisor, and read our guide to Lady Bird Deeds and capital gains.

Sources: Art. X, § 4, Fla. Const. (homestead); Fla. Stat. § 732.2035 (property entering into the elective estate, including revocable transfers); Fla. Stat. § 193.1554 (non-homestead residential assessment limitation); Fla. Stat. §§ 409.910 and 409.9101 (Medicaid estate recovery); 26 U.S.C. § 1014 (basis of property acquired from a decedent).

Condominium Units

A Florida condominium unit is deeded real property, so a Lady Bird Deed works on it whether you live there or rent it out. What changes is the surrounding governance. The recorded declaration and the association’s rules bind every owner, including the people who will inherit.

A Lady Bird Deed is a present recorded conveyance, even though the beneficiaries take nothing until death. Before drafting, the condominium documents deserve a read for:

• Transfer approval or notice requirements when record title changes

• Rights of first refusal, which appear in some declarations

• Leasing restrictions: minimum terms, caps on rentals, or waiting periods for new owners

• Age restrictions in 55-and-older buildings

• Recorded assessments and liens, which follow the unit

• Estoppel and transfer fees on a change of ownership

In older buildings, add milestone inspection obligations and structural integrity reserve funding, which can bring large special assessments. Those obligations travel with the unit to your beneficiaries. That is not a reason to avoid the deed, but it is a reason to tell your family what they are receiving.

Second Homes, Vacation Homes and Out-of-State Owners

A Lady Bird Deed works on a Florida vacation home or seasonal residence the same way it works on a rental. There is no homestead exemption on a second home, so there is nothing to protect on the tax side, and the spouse joinder rule tied to homestead does not apply (the elective share point above still does).

The ancillary probate problem

For an owner who lives in another state, the deed can be especially valuable. When a nonresident dies owning Florida real estate in their own name, the property generally cannot pass under their home-state probate alone. Florida requires its own proceeding, called ancillary administration, in the county where the property sits. That means a second court case, a Florida personal representative or attorney, and a second set of costs and delays layered on top of the probate at home.

A recorded Lady Bird Deed sidesteps that: the Florida property passes to the named beneficiaries at death, outside both probates. For the many owners who split the year between Florida and the Northeast or Midwest, that single document often saves their family more than anything else in the plan.

Sources: Fla. Stat. § 734.102 (ancillary administration); Fla. Stat. § 732.2035.

Property Owned by an LLC: Why a Lady Bird Deed Does Not Work

This is the most common mistake we see on investment property. An owner forms a limited liability company, deeds the rental into it for liability protection, and years later downloads a Lady Bird Deed form and signs it personally. The deed is ineffective, because the LLC owns the real estate, not the member. You own a membership interest in the company, which is personal property, and the company owns the land. A member cannot convey the company’s property by signing in their individual name, and the company cannot reserve a life estate measured by a person’s life in any way that solves the problem.

What passes at your death is your membership interest. Without planning, that interest is a probate asset in your estate, and it passes under your will or by intestacy, subject to whatever the operating agreement says about transfers.

The options that do work

The fourth option sounds simplest and causes the most collateral damage. Taking the property out of the LLC undoes the liability reason it went in, conveying a lender’s collateral without consent is usually a loan default, and a deed from an entity can carry documentary stamp tax where there is consideration, including mortgage debt. Florida also reassesses non-homestead property on a change of ownership or control, and a cumulative transfer of more than half of an entity’s ownership can count.

For a single LLC holding one rental, the operating agreement or a revocable trust is usually the cleaner answer. For a portfolio, see our comparison page.

Sources: Fla. Stat. ch. 605 (Florida Revised Limited Liability Company Act); Fla. Stat. ch. 711 (Florida Uniform Transfer-on-Death Security Registration Act), including §§ 711.508 and 711.509; Blechman v. Estate of Blechman, 160 So. 3d 152 (Fla. 4th DCA 2015); Fla. Stat. ch. 201 (documentary stamp tax); Fla. Stat. §§ 193.1554 and 193.1555 (non-homestead assessment limitations; change of ownership or control).

Co-op Units: Shares, Not a Deed

Florida still has a meaningful number of cooperative buildings, particularly older ones along the coasts. Co-op ownership looks like condominium ownership from the hallway, but legally it is different. In a cooperative, the association owns the building. Each resident owns shares (or a membership certificate) in the cooperative association together with a proprietary lease or occupancy agreement for a particular unit. There is no deed to the apartment.

Because there is no deeded parcel in your name, there is nothing for a Lady Bird Deed to operate on. A deed purporting to convey “Unit 4B” in a cooperative building conveys nothing the signer owns. What passes at death is your interest in the shares and lease, and how it passes depends on the cooperative’s documents, which commonly require board approval of any new occupant.

What co-op owners can do instead

• Read the cooperative documents for provisions on transfer at death and approval of heirs.

• Consider a revocable trust, if the documents permit a trust to hold the shares and lease.

• Use a will as the fallback, understanding the interest then passes through probate.

• Do not assume a form labeled for condominiums works for a co-op. The two are governed by different chapters of the Florida Statutes (chapter 718 for condominiums, chapter 719 for cooperatives).

Unsure which you own? A condominium buyer receives a recorded deed; a co-op buyer receives a stock or membership certificate and a proprietary lease.

Timeshares: Check What You Actually Own

Florida’s timeshare statute separates two kinds of interest that are sold under similar marketing. A timeshare estate is a right to occupy coupled with an interest in real property (for example, a deeded week in a condominium). A timeshare license is a right to occupy that is not a real property interest. Points-based and right-to-use products generally fall on the contract side of that line.

A Lady Bird Deed can only operate on the first kind. If you hold a deeded Florida timeshare estate, a Lady Bird Deed is legally possible in principle, but verify three things before spending money on it:

1. What the recorded deed says

   Confirm the interest is a recorded timeshare estate in your name, in a Florida county, with a legal description that identifies the unit and use period.

2. What the plan documents permit

   The managing entity’s rules may impose transfer procedures, fees or restrictions on how ownership changes are recorded and recognized.

3. Whether your family wants it

   A timeshare carries annual maintenance fees and assessments, and many heirs would rather not inherit one. A beneficiary can generally disclaim under Florida’s disclaimer statute, but it is kinder to ask first.

Timeshares at resorts outside Florida are governed by that state’s law, so a Florida Lady Bird Deed is not the tool for them.

Sources: Fla. Stat. § 721.05 (definitions of timeshare estate and timeshare license); Fla. Stat. ch. 739 (Florida Uniform Disclaimer of Property Interests Act).

Owning Several Properties

Each parcel needs its own deed, recorded in the Official Records of the county where it sits. That is manageable for two or three properties. As a portfolio grows, every sale means remembering a new deed on the replacement property, different beneficiaries on different properties rarely stay equal as values move, and rentals passing to several children as tenants in common can turn into partnership disputes (any co-owner can generally seek partition).

At that point a revocable trust holding the individually owned property and any LLC interests under one set of instructions is usually the better architecture. Property already deeded into a funded revocable trust needs no Lady Bird Deed at all: the trustee holds title and the trust already avoids probate. A Lady Bird Deed on the homestead can still sit alongside the trust.

Related Guides

• Lady Bird Deeds and capital gains: how the stepped-up basis works when your beneficiaries sell a rental or second home.

• Selling or refinancing with a Lady Bird Deed: what lenders and title companies ask for while you are alive.

• What heirs do after the owner dies: recording, taxes, tenants and co-owner decisions.

• Florida Lady Bird Deed forms: why a downloaded form fails on LLC, trust and co-op property.

• Lady Bird Deed vs. will, trust or quitclaim: when a trust is the better tool for a portfolio.

• Florida transfer on death deeds: why Florida owners use a Lady Bird Deed instead.

We prepare Lady Bird Deeds for property throughout Florida for a $595 flat fee. Find local recording guidance on our areas we serve page, or keep reading on the guides page.