Melbourne Lady Bird Deed Attorney

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

Melbourne Lady Bird Deed Attorney

A Melbourne Lady Bird Deed, known formally as a Florida enhanced life estate deed, lets your Brevard County home pass directly to the beneficiaries you name at your death, with no probate case for that property. Nothing changes while you are alive: you stay on title, you keep your homestead exemption, and you can live in the home, rent it, refinance it, sell it, or revoke the deed entirely.

The Space Coast has deep military roots. Patrick Space Force Base is a short drive north, and veterans and military retirees are a familiar part of Brevard County neighborhoods. Their estate planning questions are specific, and generic articles rarely answer them: Will a Lady Bird Deed cause a problem with my VA loan? Will I lose my disabled veteran exemption? What happens to that exemption for my wife or husband after I am gone?

The short answers are: it should not, no, and it depends on how the deed is drafted. That last answer is the reason this page exists.

What Is a Melbourne Lady Bird Deed?

A Melbourne Lady Bird Deed is the common name for a Florida enhanced life estate deed recorded on property in Brevard 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 enhancement is what makes the deed compatible with a mortgage and a tax exemption. Under a traditional life estate deed you could not sell or mortgage without every named beneficiary signing. An enhanced life estate deed reserves the power to sell, convey, mortgage, lease and revoke without their consent. You remain, in every practical sense, the owner.

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

Your VA Loan and the Lady Bird Deed

Most mortgages, VA-guaranteed loans included, contain a due-on-sale clause: if the property is sold or transferred, the lender may demand payment in full. Veterans reasonably worry that recording a new deed counts as a transfer.

What federal law says

The Garn-St Germain Act limits when a lender may enforce a due-on-sale clause on a home with fewer than five dwelling units. Its list of protected transfers includes a transfer where the borrower’s spouse or children become an owner, and a transfer to a relative resulting from the borrower’s death. The federal regulation implementing it applies those protections to loans on homes the borrower occupies, and conditions the family transfers on the relative occupying or planning to occupy the home.

A Lady Bird Deed is generally treated as consistent with that framework, though the statute does not name it. You remain on title, in possession, and liable on the note. Your beneficiaries receive nothing they can use, sell or borrow against while you are alive. The deed does not hand anyone the loan.

Recording the deed is not a VA assumption

VA loans carry their own assumption rules. For loans committed on or after March 1, 1988, the security instrument must state that the loan is not assumable without the approval of the Department of Veterans Affairs or its authorized agent. An assumption means someone else taking over the debt. A Lady Bird Deed does not do that: you are still the borrower, and your VA entitlement stays with the loan as it always has.

Lenders and title companies in Florida see these deeds routinely. We still read your mortgage before drafting, and if you refinance later, the reserved power to mortgage without your beneficiaries’ consent is what keeps that simple. Our guide to selling or refinancing with a Lady Bird Deed covers the title side.

After your death

Your beneficiaries take the home subject to the mortgage; the deed does not pay it off. Federal mortgage servicing rules require the servicer to communicate with a confirmed successor in interest, which gives heirs a way to get loan information and keep payments current while they decide what to do. Heirs who will sell benefit from the stepped-up basis discussed below.

Sources: 12 U.S.C. § 1701j-3(d) (Garn-St Germain Depository Institutions Act of 1982); 12 C.F.R. § 191.5(b); 38 U.S.C. § 3714 (assumption of VA-guaranteed loans); 12 C.F.R. § 1024.38 (successor in interest servicing requirements).

Disabled Veteran Exemptions: Do They Survive the Deed?

Florida offers several property tax benefits to veterans with service-connected disabilities, administered in Brevard by the Brevard County Property Appraiser:

During your lifetime: yes

A properly drafted Melbourne Lady Bird Deed leaves these benefits in place. You keep the enhanced life estate and continue to live in the home, and Florida’s exemption statutes treat a person holding a beneficial interest for life who meets the residence requirement as eligible for homestead. The Property Appraiser continues to treat you as the owner, and the exemption stays on your tax bill along with your Save Our Homes cap.

After your death: not to your children

These exemptions are personal. They belong to the qualifying veteran and, in defined cases, to a surviving spouse. A son or daughter who inherits the home receives it without the exemption unless they independently qualify, and the assessment resets on the change of ownership. Families who are used to a near-zero tax bill should know that in advance: it affects whether a child can afford to keep the house.

Sources: Fla. Stat. §§ 196.041, 196.081, 196.082, 196.091, 196.24.

The Surviving Spouse of a Veteran

This is where drafting matters most. Florida carries the total and permanent disability exemption over to the surviving spouse of a qualifying veteran, but only on conditions written into the statute. The spouse must:

• Hold legal or beneficial title to the homestead

• Permanently reside on it

• Not remarry

The exemption then continues until the spouse remarries or sells or otherwise disposes of the property. If the spouse sells, they may transfer an exemption up to the amount on the most recent tax roll to a new primary residence, as long as they have not remarried. Florida separately exempts the homestead of a surviving spouse of a veteran who died from service-connected causes while on active duty, on similar conditions. For the wheelchair-bound veteran exemption, the benefit continues to a spouse who held the property with the veteran as tenants by the entirety.

The drafting point

Read the first condition again: the spouse must hold title. A deed that names the children to take the moment the veteran dies, leaving the spouse with no interest, can end the exemption the spouse would otherwise keep, and may leave the spouse without the home. Florida homestead law requires the spouse to join a deed of homestead property anyway, but joining is not the same as being protected by it.

The usual structure for a married veteran is a deed in which both spouses reserve the enhanced life estate. The survivor keeps title and full control, keeps any exemption the statute carries over, and the children or other beneficiaries take only after the second death.

Wills From a Military Legal Office or a Prior Duty Station

Many veterans signed their wills before a deployment, at a base legal assistance office. Federal law treats a military testamentary instrument as exempt from state requirements of form and formality and gives it the same legal effect as a will executed under the law of the state where it is presented for probate. A will signed at a prior duty station in another state is also generally valid in Florida if it was valid where it was signed.

So the will is probably fine. The point many families miss is that every will, military or civilian, works only through probate. A valid will from the base legal office still sends a Melbourne home through a Brevard County court case. A Lady Bird Deed takes the home out of that process.

Two other details are worth checking on an older military will. Florida limits who may serve as personal representative from out of state to certain relatives, which matters when children are scattered across the country. And a will signed decades ago may not reflect a later marriage, which Florida homestead law will not ignore. Our FAQ page covers the general rules.

Sources: 10 U.S.C. § 1044d; Fla. Stat. §§ 732.502(2), 733.304; Art. X, § 4, Fla. Const.

Homestead, Spousal Rights and the Stepped-Up Basis

Article X, Section 4 of the Florida Constitution provides that a married owner cannot convey homestead without the spouse joining in the deed, and that homestead cannot be devised away from a surviving spouse or a minor child. The joinder requirement applies when the deed is signed; the limit on devising homestead is applied based on the property and the family at death. A married Melbourne couple normally signs the Lady Bird Deed together, naming the beneficiaries who take after the second death.

Because you keep the enhanced powers, the property remains in your gross estate at death, which normally produces a stepped-up cost basis for your beneficiaries: their basis becomes the date-of-death value rather than what you paid. For heirs who will sell, whether because they live elsewhere or because the tax bill rises once the veteran exemption ends, the step-up can eliminate most of the capital gain. Deeding the home to them during your lifetime typically forfeits it. See our capital gains guide.

Medicaid and Estate Recovery

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. Everything turns on how estate is defined, and Florida defines it narrowly: recovery reaches assets passing through the probate estate. Florida 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 estate recovery exposure on a Florida homestead, and Florida’s constitutional homestead protection points the same way when the homestead passes to heirs.

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

Sources: 42 U.S.C. § 1396p; Fla. Stat. §§ 409.910 and 409.9101; Art. X, § 4, Fla. Const.

Recording a Melbourne Lady Bird Deed

Deeds in Brevard County are recorded in the county’s Official Records, kept by the Brevard County Clerk of the Court & Comptroller.

The Clerk accepts deeds by e-recording around the clock through approved vendors. The Clerk also maintains several offices around the county, including in Viera, Titusville and Melbourne (51 Nieman Avenue), generally open 8:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. weekdays. If you plan to record in person, confirm with the Clerk’s Recording Division which location accepts recordings.

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 signed at a hospital or care facility without proper witnessing fail this test regularly, and the failure surfaces at death when it can no longer be corrected.

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. Brevard County applies the standard statewide documentary stamp rate of $0.70 per $100 of consideration on taxable deeds.

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. Our flat fee is on the pricing page.

Sources: Brevard County Clerk of the Court & Comptroller, Official Records and eRecording; 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

1. Order certified death certificates

   Several copies. Institutions want originals, not photocopies.

2. Record one against the property

   Recorded in the Brevard County Official Records, this establishes that the life estate has ended. For a married couple, this happens at each death.

3. Contact the Property Appraiser

   A surviving spouse applies to continue any exemption the statute carries over. Where children inherit, the veteran exemption ends and the assessment resets.

4. Contact the mortgage servicer

   Ask to be confirmed as successor in interest and keep payments current while the family decides.

5. Provide an affidavit if a title company asks

   On a sale or refinance, a title underwriter commonly wants an affidavit confirming identity, continuous marital status, and that the deed was never revoked.

6. Notify the insurer

   The property insurer needs to know who owns and occupies the home.

What is not on that list: a probate case, a personal representative, or publication of notice to creditors for that property. Our after-death guide covers each step.

How a Melbourne Lady Bird Deed Compares to the Alternatives

Our full breakdown is on the Florida Lady Bird Deed comparison page.

How to Get a Melbourne Lady Bird Deed

1. Gather your exemption and loan paperwork

   Bring your most recent tax bill showing any veteran exemptions, and your mortgage statement. We confirm which exemptions you hold and who the loan servicer is.

2. Confirm the deed fits your goals

   How the property is titled, who you want to receive it, whether you are married, and whether there is a minor child.

3. Protect the surviving spouse

   For a married veteran, the deed reserves the enhanced life estate to both spouses, so the survivor keeps title and any exemption that can carry over.

4. Pull the vesting deed and parcel number

   The exact legal description from the last recorded deed in the Brevard County Official Records, plus the parcel identification from the Brevard County Property Appraiser.

5. Draft the enhanced life estate reservation

   Reserving your power to sell, convey, mortgage, lease and revoke without the beneficiaries’ consent.

6. Sign with two witnesses and a notary

   Both witnesses present and signing. A married owner’s spouse joins the deed on homestead property.

7. Record with the Brevard County Clerk

   In the Brevard County Official Records, in person or by e-recording, for $10.00 for the first page and $8.50 per additional page.

Plain-English Glossary

Melbourne Communities We Serve

We prepare Lady Bird Deeds for property throughout Melbourne and Brevard County, including:

• Downtown Melbourne
• Eau Gallie Arts District
• Lake Washington
• Suntree
• Baytree
• Viera
• Del Webb at Viera
• Melbourne Village
• West Melbourne
• Melbourne Beach
• Indialantic
• Satellite Beach
• Palm Bay
• Barefoot Bay
• Rockledge
• Merritt Island
• Cocoa Beach

Nearby Areas We Serve

• Orlando: unmarried co-owners, and why Florida gives no right of survivorship unless the deed says so.

• Daytona Beach: sell during life or pass the home at death, and the two tax outcomes.

• Palm Coast: transplants with a will from another state, and establishing Florida domicile.

• West Palm Beach: rental and investment property, and the probate threshold.

• Delray Beach: 55+ condominium associations and what heirs face after a death.

We prepare Lady Bird Deeds for homeowners throughout Brevard County and across Florida. Browse every market on our areas we serve page.