Kendall Lady Bird Deed Attorney

Q: I want to leave the house to three children. Is that a problem?

It is allowed and it is common, but think it through. They receive the property as co-owners, and if they later disagree about whether to sell, any one of them can generally file a partition action to force a sale. In Kendall the recurring version of this is one child who lived at home and cared for a parent, and two who did not. Naming all three equally can turn a house into a lawsuit. Some families name one child and equalize elsewhere, or use a trust with clearer instructions.

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

A Kendall Lady Bird Deed, known formally as a Florida enhanced life estate deed, lets your home pass directly to the children or family members you name at your death, with no Miami-Dade probate case. Nothing changes while you are alive: you stay on title, you keep your homestead exemption, and you can live in the house, rent it, refinance it, sell it, or revoke the deed entirely.

Kendall is the closest thing on this site to a textbook Lady Bird Deed market, and the census numbers show why. 62.2% of housing units are owner-occupied, 20.6% of residents are 65 or older, and the median owner-occupied home is worth $567,900, among the highest in Miami-Dade. That is a large population of established, long-tenured owners in valuable single-family homes, most of whom want one straightforward thing: the house to reach their adult children without a court case.

There is also a structural fact worth knowing, because it surprises people: Kendall is not a city. It is a census-designated place in unincorporated Miami-Dade County. That changes who you deal with, and in this case it simplifies things.

Kendall Lady Bird Deed: the short version

What it does: names the people who receive your home automatically at death, outside of probate.
What you keep: full control for life, with the freedom to sell, rent, refinance, or revoke without anyone's permission.
Unincorporated: there is no City of Kendall. Everything runs through Miami-Dade County directly.
The big one for long-tenured owners: the stepped-up basis on a home bought decades ago is usually worth more than the probate savings.
What it will not do: pass your low Save Our Homes assessment to your children. That resets at death regardless.
Multiple children: allowed, but think about what happens if they later disagree about selling.

What Is a Kendall Lady Bird Deed?

A Kendall Lady Bird Deed is the common name for a Florida enhanced life estate deed recorded on property in Miami-Dade County. It names the beneficiaries, called remaindermen, who receive the property automatically at your death, while reserving to you an enhanced life estate that leaves you in complete control while you are alive.

The practical difference from simply adding your children to the deed is the whole point. If you add a child as a co-owner today, that child owns part of your house today. You cannot sell or refinance without their signature. If they are sued, divorce, or file bankruptcy, your home is exposed to it. And you cannot undo it without their cooperation.

A Lady Bird Deed reserves the power to sell, convey, mortgage, lease and revoke without the beneficiaries’ consent. They receive nothing until you die. Until then the house is entirely yours, and you can change your mind for any reason.

For a broader comparison, see our guide to Lady Bird Deeds versus wills, trusts and quitclaim deeds.

Kendall Lady Bird Deed attorney helping Miami-Dade homeowners avoid probate

What “Unincorporated Kendall” Actually Means

Kendall has a name, a postal address, schools, shopping and a strong sense of identity, but it is not an incorporated municipality. It is a census-designated place in unincorporated Miami-Dade County. There is no City of Kendall, no Kendall mayor, no Kendall city hall and no Kendall building department.

For most purposes that is invisible. For anything involving your property, it determines who you deal with:

Who handles what for a Kendall property. In an incorporated city, several of these would be city departments.
What you need	Who handles it
Recording your deed	Miami-Dade County Clerk of the Court and Comptroller, Official Records
Homestead exemption and assessed value	Miami-Dade County Property Appraiser
Folio number and parcel data	Miami-Dade County Property Appraiser
Permits, inspections and code enforcement	Miami-Dade County (Regulatory and Economic Resources)
Property tax bills and payment	Miami-Dade County Tax Collector
Probate, if it becomes necessary	Miami-Dade Circuit Court, Probate Division, 73 West Flagler Street
Neighborhood restrictions	Your HOA or recorded declaration of restrictive covenants, if the subdivision has one

The upshot: for a Kendall Lady Bird Deed there is one layer of government, not two. Nearby Pinecrest, Palmetto Bay and Cutler Bay are incorporated, so owners there deal with a municipality for permits and code matters, though the deed still records with the county and the Property Appraiser still handles homestead. If you are unsure which side of a boundary you are on, the Property Appraiser record for your folio will tell you.

Kendall Estate Planning Snapshot

Kendall was built out largely between the 1960s and the 1980s, and a great many of its original buyers, or their children, are still there.

20.6% of Kendall residents are age 65+
62.2% of housing units are owner-occupied
$567,900 median value of owner-occupied housing
$87,325 median household income
42.8% of Kendall residents are foreign-born
67.6% speak a language other than English at home

Owner-occupancy of 62.2% is more than double Miami’s 30.8%, and the median value of $567,900 is the highest in our Miami-Dade group. This is settled, single-family, owner-occupied Florida, the profile a Lady Bird Deed was practically designed for.

One in five residents is over 65, which means a large cohort of owners who bought in the 1970s or 1980s and never left. Their homes have appreciated enormously and their property tax assessments have not, because of Save Our Homes. Both of those facts have consequences at death, and they pull in opposite directions.

At 42.8% foreign-born and 67.6% speaking another language at home, many Kendall families also have relatives in other countries, which makes avoiding a Florida probate case worth more than it might appear on paper.

Demographic figures: U.S. Census Bureau QuickFacts, Kendall CDP, Florida (most recent American Community Survey five-year estimates available at publication).

Chart of the Kendall median home price trend over the past decade, used for Miami-Dade estate planning and Kendall Lady Bird Deed research — **Kendall median home price trend (past decade)**
This curve is why the stepped-up basis, not the probate savings, is usually the biggest number.

SCHEDULE A CONSULTATION

The Stepped-Up Basis Is Usually the Biggest Number

Most articles about Lady Bird Deeds lead with probate avoidance. For a long-tenured Kendall owner, the tax consequence is often worth substantially more.

Here is the mechanism. Your cost basis in the house is roughly what you paid for it plus improvements. If you bought in Kendall in 1978, that basis may be a small fraction of what the property is worth now. Sell during your lifetime and the difference is a taxable capital gain.

But because a Lady Bird Deed reserves enhanced powers to you, the transfer is incomplete for federal tax purposes. The property stays in your gross estate at death. That inclusion is what triggers a stepped-up basis: your beneficiaries take the property with a basis equal to its date-of-death value. If they sell shortly afterward, much or all of the gain accumulated over four decades simply disappears for tax purposes.

Now compare the alternative most families consider first. Deed the house to the children during your lifetime and you make a completed gift. There is no step-up. Your children inherit your old basis, and when they sell they may owe capital gains tax on decades of appreciation you never realized. On a Kendall home that difference can dwarf every other consideration in the plan.

This is the strongest single argument against the well-meaning advice to “just put the kids on the deed.” Confirm the specifics with a tax advisor, but understand the direction: the Lady Bird Deed preserves something valuable that a lifetime transfer gives away.

Kendall Lady Bird Deed lawyer explaining stepped-up basis to a long-tenured homeowner

Save Our Homes: What Your Children Do Not Inherit

This is the most common misunderstanding we hear from long-tenured Kendall owners, and it is worth being direct about.

The Save Our Homes cap limits annual increases in the assessed value of homestead property to 3% or the change in the Consumer Price Index, whichever is lower. An owner who has held a Kendall home since the 1980s may have an assessed value dramatically below market value, and a property tax bill to match. It is genuinely one of the most valuable things about owning a Florida homestead long-term.

The part people get wrong

The cap belongs to you, not to the house. It resets to market value on the change of ownership at your death, whether the home passes by Lady Bird Deed, through probate, or out of a trust. Your children will be assessed at market value going forward, and their tax bill will reflect that.

No deed structure changes this. If someone tells you a particular way of titling the property will let your children keep your assessment, they are describing something Florida law does not provide.

What Florida does allow is portability: an owner who sells a Florida homestead and buys another Florida homestead can transfer accumulated Save Our Homes benefit to the new property. That is a benefit you carry with you while you are alive, not something your children inherit.

A properly drafted Lady Bird Deed does not disturb your exemption or your cap during your lifetime. It simply cannot extend either past your death, and no honest plan will promise otherwise.

Naming More Than One Child

A Lady Bird Deed can name several beneficiaries, and in Kendall most do. It is worth thinking a step further than the deed.

Your beneficiaries receive the property as co-owners. If they later disagree about whether to sell, any one of them can generally file a partition action asking a court to force a sale and divide the proceeds. That is a lawsuit between your children, over your house, paid for out of your estate.

The recurring Kendall version of this is specific: one adult child stayed in the family home and cared for a parent for years; the others live elsewhere, sometimes in another country. At death all three become equal co-owners. The one living there wants to stay. The others want their share. Nobody behaved badly, and the situation is still painful.

Options worth discussing

Name all children equally: simplest, and appropriate where they get along and no one lives in the house.
Name the child who lives there, and equalize the others with different assets or life insurance.
Use a trust where you want to give one child the right to remain for a period, or set terms for a sale.
Talk to them now. The cheapest fix is a conversation while you are alive.

There is no single right answer. There is a wrong one, which is not thinking about it at all.

Homestead Exemption and Spousal Rights

A properly drafted Kendall Lady Bird Deed should not disturb your homestead exemption during your lifetime. You retain the enhanced life estate, you remain in possession, and the Miami-Dade Property Appraiser continues to treat you as the owner of record.

The constitutional side matters more for the drafting. Article X, Section 4 of the Florida Constitution provides that a married owner cannot convey homestead property without the spouse joining in the deed, and that homestead cannot be devised away from a surviving spouse or a minor child. These restrictions are generally tested at death rather than at signing, which is why a defective deed can sit quietly for years and then fail exactly when the family is relying on it.

A married Kendall couple normally signs the Lady Bird Deed together, naming the beneficiaries who take after the second death. Where there is a minor child, a Lady Bird Deed naming anyone else is a genuine problem that needs a different plan, not a different form. Second marriages deserve particular care, since a surviving spouse has homestead rights a deed cannot simply write around.

Medicaid and Estate Recovery

With one in five Kendall residents over 65, long-term care planning is a live issue for many of these families. Florida’s Medicaid program is required by federal law to seek reimbursement from the estates of recipients aged 55 and over who received long-term care benefits, and everything turns on how estate is defined.

Florida defines it narrowly: recovery reaches assets passing through the probate estate. Florida has not adopted the expanded definition some states use. Property that never enters probate is generally beyond a recovery claim, and Florida’s constitutional homestead protection points the same way when the homestead passes to heirs.

That is the mechanism behind using a Lady Bird Deed here. The home passes to your named beneficiaries outside probate, so it is not part of the estate the state can look to.

The limits

The deed does not qualify anyone for Medicaid. Eligibility is a separate analysis.
The five-year look-back still applies to transfers of non-homestead assets.
Protection depends on the home keeping homestead status and passing to heirs; a will directing a sale undoes it.

Our full write-up is on the Florida Lady Bird Deed and Medicaid page.

Sources: 42 U.S.C. § 1396p (federal estate recovery mandate); Fla. Stat. §§ 409.910 and 409.9101; Art. X, § 4, Fla. Const.

Recording a Kendall Lady Bird Deed

Kendall property records in the Miami-Dade County Official Records, maintained by the Clerk of the Court and Comptroller. The recording counter is at Courthouse East, 22 NW First Street, first floor, Miami, and deeds may also be submitted by mail or through an approved e-recording provider.

Execution requirements

Florida requires a deed conveying an interest in real property to be signed in the presence of two subscribing witnesses and acknowledged before a notary public (Fla. Stat. §§ 689.01 and 695.03). Both witnesses must be present and must sign. Deeds prepared informally by family members, or signed at a hospital or care facility without proper witnessing, fail this test regularly, and the failure surfaces at death, when it cannot be corrected.

Legal descriptions on Kendall plats

Kendall’s subdivisions were platted largely between the 1960s and 1980s, and legal descriptions are lot-and-block references to recorded plats. The Lady Bird Deed must carry the legal description forward exactly as it appears in the last recorded deed. Retyping it, abbreviating it, or copying it from a tax bill is a reliable way to create a title defect your children discover at closing.

Recording fees and documentary stamp tax

Recording charges are $10.00 for the first page, $8.50 for each additional page, and $1.00 per name indexed beyond four names.

Miami-Dade is the only Florida county with its own documentary stamp rate: $0.60 per $100 of consideration rather than the $0.70 used statewide, plus a $0.45 per $100 surtax on transfers of property other than a single-family residence.

Whether the tax applies to this deed at all was addressed in Technical Assistance Advisement 20B4-004 (October 16, 2020), in which the Florida Department of Revenue concluded that an enhanced life estate deed is not subject to documentary stamp tax, because no present beneficial interest transfers when the deed is signed. A Technical Assistance Advisement binds the Department only as to the taxpayer and facts presented.

Sources: Miami-Dade County Clerk of the Court and Comptroller, Official Records; Florida Department of Revenue Technical Assistance Advisement 20B4-004 (Oct. 16, 2020); Fla. Stat. ch. 201; Fla. Stat. § 28.24(13) (statutory service charges); Fla. Stat. §§ 689.01, 695.03.

After a Death: What Your Family Actually Does

Order certified death certificates
Several copies. Institutions want originals, not photocopies.
Record one against the property
Recorded in the Miami-Dade Official Records, this publicly establishes that the life estate has ended and the named beneficiaries hold title.
Provide an affidavit if a title company asks
On a later sale or refinance, a title underwriter commonly wants an affidavit confirming identity, continuous marital status, and that the deed was never revoked.
Notify the insurer, the HOA and any mortgage servicer
The insurer needs to know who owns and occupies the home. If the subdivision has an association, it needs updated owner records.
Expect a new assessed value
The Property Appraiser will reassess at market value for the following tax year, and any beneficiary making the home their permanent residence applies for their own homestead exemption.

What is not on that list: a probate case, a personal representative, publication of notice to creditors, a creditor claim period, or probate costs coming out of the value of the house.

What a Lady Bird Deed Does Not Do

Common misconceptions about what an enhanced life estate deed accomplishes.
People assume it…	Reality
Passes your low tax assessment to the kids	No. Save Our Homes resets to market value on the change of ownership at death.
Covers the whole estate	Only the real property described in the deed. Accounts, vehicles and belongings are untouched.
Replaces a will	No. You still want a will for everything the deed does not cover.
Prevents disagreements between your children	No. Co-owners who cannot agree can end up in a partition action.
Pays off the mortgage or HELOC	No. Beneficiaries inherit the house and the debt together.
Qualifies you for Medicaid	No. It may reduce estate recovery exposure on a homestead, but it does not create eligibility.
Works if the house is in an LLC	No. The LLC owns the property, which requires a different approach.

How a Kendall Lady Bird Deed Compares to the Alternatives

General comparison for a Florida homestead. Results depend on how the property is titled and your family circumstances.
Option	Avoids probate?	Preserves stepped-up basis?	Typical Kendall drawback
Lady Bird Deed	Yes, for that property	Yes	Covers only the property described in the deed.
Deed the house to the kids now	Yes	No	The costly mistake here. You lose control, expose the home to their creditors and divorces, and give away decades of basis step-up.
Will only	No	Yes	A will is the instruction manual for probate. It guarantees the case rather than avoiding it.
Revocable living trust	Yes, if funded	Yes	Higher cost, but better where you want conditions on a sale or to manage conflict between children.
Adding a child as joint owner	Partially	Partially lost	Creates a present co-owner with veto power, gift tax reporting and creditor exposure.

For a Kendall owner the second row is the one to study. It is the advice families most often receive from someone who means well, and on a home held since the 1970s it can be the most expensive thing in the entire plan. Our breakdown is on the Florida Lady Bird Deed comparison page.

How to Get a Kendall Lady Bird Deed

Confirm the deed fits your goals
How the property is titled, who you want to receive it, whether you are married, whether there is a minor child, and whether long-term care is on the horizon.
Pull the vesting deed and folio number
The exact legal description from the last recorded deed in the Miami-Dade Official Records, plus the folio from the Property Appraiser.
Check for an HOA or recorded restrictions
Many Kendall subdivisions have recorded declarations. Transfer notice requirements and recorded assessments are worth knowing about first.
Draft the enhanced life estate reservation
Reserving your power to sell, convey, mortgage, lease and revoke without the beneficiaries’ consent.
Sign with two witnesses and a notary
Both witnesses present and signing. A married owner’s spouse joins the deed on homestead property.
Record in the Miami-Dade Official Records
At Courthouse East, by mail, or by e-recording, for $10.00 for the first page and $8.50 per additional page.

START WITH A CONSULTATION

Plain-English Glossary

Enhanced life estate deed	The formal name for a Lady Bird Deed. You keep a life estate plus the power to sell, mortgage or revoke without anyone’s consent.
Census-designated place	A named, recognized community that is not an incorporated city. Kendall is one; services come from the county rather than a municipality.
Remainderman	A person named in the deed to receive the property at your death. They hold no present interest while you are alive.
Cost basis	Roughly what you paid for the property plus improvements. It determines capital gains tax on a sale.
Stepped-up basis	The reset of cost basis to date-of-death value, which can eliminate decades of capital gain for your beneficiaries.
Save Our Homes	The constitutional cap limiting annual increases in assessed value of homestead property to 3% or CPI, whichever is lower. It resets at death.
Portability	The ability to carry accumulated Save Our Homes benefit to a new Florida homestead. A benefit for the owner, not an inheritance.
Partition action	A lawsuit any co-owner can generally file to force the sale of jointly owned property when the owners cannot agree.
Folio number	Miami-Dade’s parcel identification number, assigned by the Property Appraiser.
Due-on-sale clause	A mortgage provision letting the lender demand full payment on transfer. A Lady Bird Deed generally does not trigger it.

Kendall Neighborhoods and Nearby Communities We Serve

We prepare Lady Bird Deeds for property throughout Kendall and Miami-Dade County, including:

Kendall West
East Kendall
Kendall Lakes
The Hammocks
Country Walk
Three Lakes
Snapper Creek
Sunset
Glenvar Heights
Olympia Heights
Westchester
Pinecrest
Palmetto Bay
Cutler Bay
Richmond Heights
South Miami
Coral Reef
Devon Aire
Calusa
Continental Park

Work With a Kendall Lady Bird Deed Attorney

Yanitza Schoonover focuses her practice on probate administration and estate planning for Florida families. She helps Kendall and unincorporated Miami-Dade homeowners with:

Kendall Lady Bird Deed drafting, execution and recording
Summary administration to clear an older title problem
Formal probate administration
Estate planning coordination for Florida homesteads

If you have owned the same Kendall home for thirty or forty years, there is more at stake than probate: the basis step-up alone can be worth more than everything else in the plan. Schedule a consultation and we will walk through it plainly. Se habla español.

Schedule Your Consultation

Yanitza Schoonover

Kendall Lady Bird Deed Frequently Asked Questions

Kendall is not a city. Does that change how a Lady Bird Deed works?

Not the deed itself, but it changes who you deal with. Kendall is a census-designated place in unincorporated Miami-Dade County, not an incorporated municipality. There is no City of Kendall, no Kendall city hall and no Kendall building department. Everything runs directly through Miami-Dade County: the Property Appraiser assesses the property, the county handles permits and code enforcement, and the Clerk of the Court and Comptroller records the deed. For a Lady Bird Deed that is simplifying, because there is one less layer of government involved.

My parents have lived in the same Kendall house since the 1970s. What should we be thinking about?

Three things, in this order. First, decades of Save Our Homes benefit have built up, so the assessed value is likely far below market value, valuable while they are living, but it resets at death. Second, a home bought in the 1970s has an enormous unrealized capital gain, which makes the stepped-up basis at death worth more than almost anything else in the plan. Third, if either parent has already died and no probate was opened, the title may need clearing before any new deed can be recorded.

Does my Kendall HOA need to approve a Lady Bird Deed?

It depends on the community. Many Kendall subdivisions have recorded declarations of restrictive covenants with a homeowner association, and some require notice or approval when record title changes. A Lady Bird Deed is a present recorded conveyance even though the beneficiaries take nothing until death, so the governing documents are worth reading before drafting. Any recorded assessment or lien follows the property to whoever inherits it.

Will a Kendall Lady Bird Deed affect my homestead exemption or Save Our Homes cap?

A properly drafted deed should not affect either one during your lifetime. You retain an enhanced life estate, you remain in possession, and the Miami-Dade Property Appraiser continues to treat you as the owner of record. The Save Our Homes cap generally resets at your death on the change of ownership, which happens with or without the deed.

Can my children keep my low property tax assessment?

No, and this is the single most common misunderstanding among long-tenured Kendall owners. The Save Our Homes cap belongs to the homestead owner, not to the property. It resets to market value on the change of ownership at death, whether the home passes by Lady Bird Deed, through probate, or from a trust. Florida does allow portability when a homestead owner moves to a new Florida homestead, but that is a benefit the owner carries during life, not something children inherit.

I want to leave the house to three children. Is that a problem?

It is allowed and common, but think it through. They receive the property as co-owners, and if they later disagree about selling, any one of them can generally file a partition action to force a sale. In Kendall the recurring version is one child who lived at home and cared for a parent, and two who did not. Naming all three equally can turn a house into a lawsuit. Some families name one child and equalize elsewhere, or use a trust with clearer instructions.

Does a Kendall Lady Bird Deed protect the home from Medicaid estate recovery?

Florida limits Medicaid estate recovery to assets that pass through the probate estate, and has not adopted the expanded definition some states use. Because a Lady Bird Deed moves the home outside probate, it is one of the standard tools for reducing exposure on a Florida homestead. It does not qualify anyone for Medicaid, the five-year look-back still applies to other transfers, and the protection depends on the home keeping homestead status and passing to heirs. See our Medicaid guide.

Can I use a Lady Bird Deed if I still owe a mortgage or have a HELOC?

Yes. A Lady Bird Deed does not pay off or accelerate a mortgage or home equity line, and because you keep full control and possession during your lifetime it generally does not trigger a due-on-sale clause. Your beneficiaries take the property subject to the existing debt, meaning they inherit the house and the loan together.

Is the documentary stamp tax different in Miami-Dade County?

Yes. Miami-Dade is the only Florida county with its own rate: $0.60 per $100 of consideration rather than the $0.70 used in the other 66 counties, plus a $0.45 per $100 surtax on transfers of property other than a single-family residence. Separately, the Florida Department of Revenue concluded in Technical Assistance Advisement 20B4-004 that an enhanced life estate deed is not subject to documentary stamp tax at all.

Do my children get a stepped-up basis?

Generally yes. Because you keep the enhanced powers, the transfer is treated as incomplete for federal tax purposes and the property remains in your gross estate at death, which normally produces a stepped-up cost basis. On a Kendall home bought in the 1970s or 1980s, that step-up is frequently the largest single financial benefit in the entire estate plan. Deeding the house to your children during your lifetime typically forfeits it.

Can a Kendall Lady Bird Deed be changed or revoked later?

Yes. You can sell the property, refinance it, lease it, add or remove beneficiaries, or revoke the deed entirely without the consent of the people named to receive it. A new deed is prepared and recorded to make the change effective. That flexibility is what distinguishes a Lady Bird Deed from adding your children to the title.

More general questions are answered on our Florida Lady Bird Deed FAQ page.

We also assist homeowners in nearby Miami-Dade markets including Miami, Homestead, Hialeah, Doral, Miami Beach, and Miramar. Browse every market on our areas we serve page.

Florida Lady Bird Deed Attorney Serves Homeowners Across Florida

We help homeowners throughout Florida with Lady Bird Deeds and probate avoidance planning. Below are many of the primary Florida markets we serve, but we're not limited to these locations. You can also browse the full Florida Lady Bird Deed city and county directory.

• Boca Raton • Boynton Beach • Cape Coral • Clearwater • Coral Springs • Davie • Daytona Beach • Deerfield Beach • Doral • Fort Lauderdale • Hallandale Beach • Hialeah • Hollywood • Homestead • Jacksonville • Kendall • Lauderdale Lakes • Miami • Miami Beach • Miramar • Orlando • Parkland • Pembroke Pines • Pine Hills • Plantation • Pompano Beach • Port Saint Lucie • Saint Petersburg • Sunrise • Tallahassee • Tampa • West Palm Beach • Weston

Kendall Lady Bird Deed Attorney

A Kendall Lady Bird Deed passes a long-held suburban home to your adult children without a Miami-Dade probate case.