A quitclaim deed is the simplest deed Florida recognizes. The grantor conveys whatever interest he or she happens to own in the property and makes no promises about what that interest is. If the grantor owns the property outright, the quitclaim passes full ownership. If the grantor owns half, it passes half. If the grantor owns nothing, the grantee receives exactly that and has no one to sue about it. That is the defining difference between a quitclaim deed and a warranty deed, which carries covenants of title that survive the closing.
Often misspelled “quick claim deed,” the correct legal term is quitclaim deed, usually written as one word.
Described that way, a quitclaim sounds like a bad bargain. So why are thousands of them recorded in Florida every month? Because most transfers of real estate are not sales between strangers. They are rearrangements of title among people who already know each other, and in those situations warranties add nothing.
The examples I see most often in my practice are familiar ones. Spouses add one another to title after a marriage or remove one another after a divorce, usually because a marital settlement agreement requires it. Parents transfer property to children. Owners move property into a revocable living trust or a limited liability company they control. Family members clean up title left over from an informal arrangement made decades earlier. In each of these cases the grantee already knows the condition of the title, or is in at least as good a position as the grantor to investigate it.
Quitclaim deeds also fix problems. When a title examiner finds a stray interest, perhaps an old co-owner, a misspelled name, or a spouse who never joined in a prior conveyance, the cure is usually a quitclaim deed from whoever holds the stray interest. It clears the cloud without forcing anyone to warrant a title they never claimed to own in the first place.
What a quitclaim deed does not do is just as important. It does not take the grantor off the mortgage. Lenders are not parties to deeds, and the promissory note survives the transfer no matter what the deed says. The transfer can also trigger the due-on-sale clause in the mortgage, although federal law exempts many transfers to relatives and living trusts. Documentary stamp taxes under section 201.02, Florida Statutes, may be owed on the outstanding mortgage balance even when no money changes hands, which surprises many families. And under Florida's recording statute, section 695.01, an unrecorded deed can lose out to a later purchaser who records first, so a quitclaim deed should go to the clerk promptly, not into a drawer.
My rule of thumb is this. A quitclaim deed is the right tool when the transfer itself is the point and the title is already understood by everyone involved. When you are paying real value for property, you want a warranty deed, a title search, and a title insurance policy standing behind it. The deed costs about the same either way. What you are choosing is who bears the risk that the title is not what everyone thinks it is.
This article is provided for general information only and is not legal advice. Reading it does not create an attorney-client relationship. Every situation is different, and you should consult a Florida attorney about your specific circumstances.
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