The Married Default
Married couples in Florida commonly take title as tenants by the entireties, a form available only to spouses. The property passes automatically to the surviving spouse without probate, and Florida law treats entireties property differently from individually owned property when a creditor pursues one spouse alone. The details of that treatment are exactly the kind of question a Florida attorney should answer for your situation. Unmarried co-buyers choose between joint tenancy with right of survivorship, which also passes automatically, and tenancy in common, where each share passes through each owner's own estate.
The Revocable Trust
The revocable living trust is the workhorse of the luxury market. The buyer's trust takes title, the buyer keeps full control as trustee, and at death the property passes under the trust's terms without probate. For owners with homes in more than one state, avoiding a separate Florida probate is often the entire argument. A properly drafted trust can also preserve the homestead exemption, which is a drafting question for counsel rather than an automatic result. The trade is privacy at purchase. The deed and the trust's name are public record from day one, so buyers seeking anonymity usually name the trust something other than the family name.
The LLC Question
Buyers arriving from other markets often assume an LLC is the default for an expensive home. In Florida the choice is less automatic. An LLC separates the property from the owner's name and can make sense for a pure investment house or a rental. It also carries real costs on a primary residence. A home owned by an LLC does not qualify for the homestead exemption or the Save Our Homes cap, and lenders treat LLC purchases differently. Moving a mortgaged property into an LLC later can trigger documentary stamp tax. Florida's public filings also list the company's managers, so the privacy is thinner than buyers expect. The structure fits some situations well, and counsel should pressure test whether yours is one of them.
The Lady Bird Deed
Florida is one of a handful of states that recognize the enhanced life estate deed, known everywhere as the lady bird deed. The owner keeps complete control for life, including the right to sell or mortgage without anyone's consent, and at death the property passes directly to the named beneficiaries without probate. The homestead exemption and the Save Our Homes cap stay intact during the owner's life because the owner still holds the property. Estate planners reach for it most often for a family home an owner wants to pass to children simply, without the cost of a full trust. Its limits are real, beneficiary changes require a new deed and complex family situations outgrow it quickly, so it is a tool for clean cases.
Source: established Florida practice. Confirm against your facts with a Florida attorney.
Source: established Florida practice. Confirm every entry against your own facts with a Florida attorney
The Homestead Consequences
The structure decision is also a property tax decision. The Save Our Homes cap limits assessment growth on a primary residence to three percent a year. Both it and the homestead exemption require the home to be owned in a form that qualifies. Natural persons qualify, properly drafted trusts can, and LLCs do not. On a repriced eight figure house the cap compounds into one of the largest recurring numbers in the ownership ledger. Our county property tax guide works the arithmetic, and the time to read it is before the deed is drawn.
Choosing Before Closing
The practical failure we see is sequence. Buyers negotiate for months, then decide title in the final week, when changing the vesting on the contract is friction nobody wants. The cleaner order is to settle the structure with your attorney and accountant when the search begins, so the offer is written in the right name from the start. Privacy minded buyers should settle it even earlier, because the deed is public the day it records. Our quiet listing playbook covers the discretion side, and our pricing cushion study covers the negotiation itself. The deed question belongs on the same early checklist.
Bottom Line
Five structures cover nearly every Florida purchase, and each trades among the same four things: probate, privacy, the homestead cap and control. The expensive mistakes are the LLC that silently forfeits the tax cap and the title decided in the closing week. Settle the deed with counsel before the offer is written.
Before you write an offer: Tell us the structure your advisors have chosen and we will write the offer in the right name from the first draft. It is a small discipline that saves real friction at closing.
Deed vesting is not a field in MLS data, so no share of the market is presented as measured. This guide describes established Florida practice at a general level. Nothing here is legal, tax or estate planning advice. Structures carry consequences that depend on individual facts, and every choice described here belongs with a Florida attorney and your tax advisors. As real estate agents we coordinate with your counsel and write the contract in the name your advisors direct.
Homestead and Save Our Homes rules are summarized from Florida's published property tax framework and are covered in detail in our county property tax guide.
Florida's published homestead and documentary stamp framework.
Palm Beach Luxury, the county property tax guide and the pricing cushion study.
