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A Florida land trust is a title-holding arrangement under Fla. Stat. § 689.071 in which a trustee holds record title to real estate and the owners, called beneficiaries, are named only in a private, unrecorded agreement. It keeps the owner’s name out of the county records, lets ownership change by a signed assignment instead of a new deed, and passes the property to a named successor without probate.
It is not asset protection and it does nothing for Medicaid. Zoecklein Law, P.A. forms land trusts for investors, families, and auction buyers throughout Florida and explains plainly when a different tool fits better. Call 877-206-0022 for a free consultation.
How a land trust coordinates with a revocable trust, a Lady Bird deed, and the rest of your plan.
A Florida land trust is a title-holding arrangement created under section 689.071, Florida Statutes, the Florida Land Trust Act. A trustee takes record title to a parcel of real estate. The people who actually own the economics of the property, the beneficiaries, appear nowhere in the public records. The deed shows the trustee. The agreement that names the beneficiaries is never recorded. Nearly everything a land trust can do, and nearly everything it cannot do, follows from one classification in the statute: the trustee holds both legal and equitable title, and the beneficiary’s interest is personal property rather than real estate.
This guide explains how a Florida land trust works under the current statute, the three documents that make one, the reasons investors, families, and auction buyers use them, the honest limits (a land trust is not asset protection and does not help with Medicaid), how homestead, mortgages, documentary stamp tax, and federal reporting interact with the structure, and how Zoecklein Law, P.A. drafts and records one. Every statute and court decision cited here was read from its primary source on September 2, 2026. We form land trusts for property throughout Florida from our office in Brandon, and the consultation is free at 877-206-0022.
The short version
The Florida Land Trust Act defines a land trust as a written arrangement under which title to real property is vested in a trustee “by a recorded instrument that confers on the trustee the power and authority prescribed in s. 689.073(1),” and under which the trustee has no duties beyond a short statutory list: to convey, sell, lease, mortgage, or otherwise deal with the property as directed by the beneficiaries or the holder of the power of direction; to sell or dispose of the property when the trust ends; and to perform ministerial and administrative functions delegated in the trust agreement. Fla. Stat. § 689.071(2)(c). The trustee is a title holder who acts on instruction. The beneficiaries make the decisions.
Once the deed is recorded, the statute vests “both legal and equitable title, and full rights of ownership” in the trustee, whether or not the deed mentions the beneficiaries or the unrecorded agreement. § 689.071(3). Two old doctrines that could otherwise collapse the arrangement are switched off by the statute itself: the statute of uses does not execute a land trust and vest the property in the beneficiaries, § 689.071(4), and the doctrine of merger does not extinguish the trust even when the trustee is the sole beneficiary, § 689.071(5). The Second District explained the history in Taylor v. Richmond’s New Approach Ass’n, 351 So. 2d 1094 (Fla. 2d DCA 1977): before 1963 it was feared an Illinois-style land trust “might fail in Florida because of the statute of uses,” and the Legislature enacted what is now section 689.071 to guarantee its validity and to let third parties “deal with the trustee without having to inquire into his authority.”
The feature that matters most is subsection (6). When the recorded deed or the trust agreement declares the beneficiaries’ interests to be personal property only, “such provision is controlling for all purposes.” If the designation is missing, the beneficial interests are real property. § 689.071(6). Every practical benefit of the structure, from assignment without a deed to succession without probate, depends on getting that sentence into the documents. The Fifth District applied the rule in Goldman v. Mandell, 403 So. 2d 511 (Fla. 5th DCA 1981), holding that because the deed in trust declared the interests personal property, “both the legal and equitable title are vested in the trustee,” the beneficiary “has no interest in either,” and the beneficial interest “is transferable by a simple assignment” that did not require the two witnesses a deed of real estate needs.
A land trust is also not a trust in the Florida Trust Code sense. Section 689.071(12) provides that, except where the Act says otherwise, chapter 736 “does not apply to a land trust governed by this section.” For a trust created on or after June 28, 2013, the arrangement is a land trust only if the trustee’s duties under the agreement are no greater than the limited statutory duties. § 689.071(12)(c). Give the trustee real management discretion and the arrangement becomes an ordinary trust under chapter 736, with everything that entails.
A properly formed Florida land trust consists of three instruments. Only one of them is recorded.
| Document | Recorded? | What it does |
|---|---|---|
| Deed in Trust | Yes, in the county where the property sits | Conveys title to the trustee and grants the trustee the statutory powers on its face. This is the document that makes the arrangement a statutory land trust. |
| Land Trust Agreement | No, never | Sets the private terms: who the beneficiaries are and in what percentages, who holds the power of direction, who the successor trustee and successor beneficiaries are, how the trust ends. This is where the privacy lives. |
| Certificate or Assignment of Beneficial Interest | No, never | Evidences and transfers the beneficial interest. Ownership changes by assignment, not by deed. |
The deed is where land trusts most often go wrong. Section 689.073(1) vests full power in a trustee only when the recorded instrument “confers on the trustee the power and authority to protect, to conserve, to sell, to lease, to encumber, or otherwise to manage and dispose of the real property described in the recorded instrument.” Putting that language only in the trust agreement does not work, because the agreement is never recorded and no third party ever sees it. In Brigham v. Brigham, 11 So. 3d 374 (Fla. 3d DCA 2009), a lawyer-trustee argued that the trust code’s court-approval rule for self-dealing did not apply to his land trust. The Third District looked at the deed, found it “failed to contain language that conferred on Dana, the trustee, the power and authority either to protect, conserve and to sell, or to lease, or to encumber, or otherwise to manage and dispose of the real property,” and held that the arrangement was not a statutory land trust at all but an ordinary trust regulated by the trust code. His transfer of the property to himself was voided. Before any deed in trust is recorded, we read the granting clause and confirm the power language is there.
The opposite mistake is just as costly. Section 689.07(1) provides that a deed to a grantee described merely as “trustee,” with no beneficiaries named, no trust purpose stated, and no trust identified by title or date, conveys “a fee simple estate” to the grantee personally unless a declaration of trust is already of record. In Giller v. Giller, 190 So. 3d 666 (Fla. 3d DCA 2016), six parcels had been deeded to “Norman Giller, Trustee” with no trust named. After his death the personal representatives sued to declare the parcels estate assets, and the Third District held the complaint stated a claim under section 689.07(1): a deed that only adds the word “trustee” is deemed to have granted fee simple title to the grantee. The properties a family thought were held in trust were headed for probate. A deed in trust must identify the trust agreement by name and date and confer the statutory powers, and the Land Trust Act itself does not apply to an instrument governed by section 689.07. § 689.071(15).
The trust agreement names one or more persons who hold the power of direction: the authority “to direct the trustee of a land trust to convey property or interests, execute a lease or mortgage, distribute proceeds of a sale or financing, and execute documents incidental to the administration of a land trust.” § 689.071(2)(d). Unless the agreement says otherwise, the power of direction follows the percentage of beneficial ownership, and the holders of the power “are presumed to act in a fiduciary capacity for the benefit of all holders of any beneficial interest.” § 689.071(8)(f). A beneficial interest is “indefeasible,” and the power of direction cannot be used to alter, revoke, or defeat another beneficiary’s enjoyment of it. Id. When the property is sold, the beneficiaries direct the trustee in writing and the trustee signs the deed.
A buyer, lender, or tenant who deals with the trustee “is not obligated to inquire into the identification or status of any named or unnamed beneficiaries,” into the trustee’s authority to act, or into the terms of the unrecorded agreement, § 689.073(2), and takes the interest “free and clear of the claims of all the named or unnamed beneficiaries.” § 689.073(3). The Land Trust Act repeats the point: “Parties dealing with the trustee of a land trust are not required to inquire into the terms of the unrecorded trust agreement.” § 689.071(8)(e). This is what makes a land trust workable at a closing table. The title company sees a trustee with recorded power to convey, and the beneficiaries never have to be identified in the chain of title.
A lien, judgment, or mortgage against the trustee’s title “does not attach to the beneficial interest of any beneficiary,” and a lien or judgment against a beneficiary “does not attach to the legal or equitable title of the trustee to the trust property,” unless by its terms or by operation of other law it reaches both. § 689.071(8)(d). Beneficiaries are not liable for the trust’s debts merely by being beneficiaries. § 689.071(8)(a). The trustee, in turn, has the protection of sections 736.08125 and 736.1013, § 689.071(7), so a trustee who discloses the fiduciary capacity in a contract is not personally liable on it, and is personally liable for torts or obligations arising from ownership of the property “only if the trustee is personally at fault.” § 736.1013(1), (2). Older decisions such as Taylor had held land trustees personally liable to third parties; the Legislature later extended the trust code’s liability shield to land trustees by statute.
If the trustee dies, resigns, dissolves, or cannot serve, section 689.071(9) supplies the mechanics. Where the trust agreement provides for a successor, the successor records a declaration of appointment in the county’s public records containing the legal description, the names and addresses of the former and successor trustees, and the required statements. § 689.071(9)(b). Where both the deed and the agreement are silent, the holders of the power of direction may appoint a successor by the same kind of recorded declaration. § 689.071(9)(a). A successor trustee takes all the powers of the predecessor and is not liable for the predecessor’s acts. § 689.071(9)(d). No petition, no hearing. This is why the agreement should always name a successor trustee, and why we name one on every file.
The trustee’s name is on the deed and on the property appraiser’s roll. The beneficiary’s name is not on the deed, not in the clerk’s official records, and not on the tax bill. A land trust does not fail because the beneficiaries are not named in the recorded instrument. § 689.071(8)(g). If the trustee is a limited liability company the client formed for the purpose, the company appears on the Division of Corporations’ records, which is why we use a commercial registered agent and a neutral company name so that the client’s home address does not appear there either. Landlords who do not want tenants looking up where they live, professionals whose names draw attention, and buyers assembling several parcels from different sellers are the typical users.
Because the beneficial interest is personal property, it moves by a written assignment delivered to the trustee. There is no new deed, no recording, and no break in the chain of title. Goldman, 403 So. 2d at 512. A parent can assign a percentage to a child. Two partners can adjust their split. The trust agreement can also control how assignments happen; in Brigham the agreement required a written assignment signed by the beneficiary and delivered to the trustee, and the court enforced that requirement to void a transfer made without one. 11 So. 3d at 385. The formality protects everyone, and we build it into every agreement.
The trust agreement names a successor beneficiary for each beneficial interest. Because the interest is personal property governed by the agreement, it passes at the beneficiary’s death to the named successor without a probate administration, exactly as a properly funded revocable trust passes its assets. If no successor is named, the interest falls into the beneficiary’s estate and the main estate-planning benefit is lost, which is why the successor-beneficiary field is never left blank on our worksheet. Families with a revocable living trust already in place often name that trust as the beneficiary of the land trust, so the parcel stays private during life and passes under the family’s existing plan at death. Our guide to how to avoid probate in Florida compares the other tools.
Section 689.071(8)(b) allows beneficiaries to own “specified proportions or percentages of the beneficial interest,” to hold interests as tenants in common, joint tenants with right of survivorship, or tenants by the entireties, and even to allocate particular parcels within one trust to particular beneficiaries. Percentage interests are far easier to adjust than tenancy-in-common deeds, and the agreement can require unanimous or majority direction before a sale. Co-owners who hold record title as tenants in common can be forced into a partition action by any one of them; beneficiaries of a land trust hold personal property and contract with each other about exit rights instead.
A buyer at a foreclosure sale or a tax deed sale can take title directly in the name of the trustee, so the buyer’s name never enters the record for that parcel. The trust agreement is signed before the sale, the trustee is the bidder of record, and the certificate of title or tax deed issues to the trustee. Buyers who later need to clear title after a tax deed should read our guide to quiet title actions after a tax deed; the trustee is the plaintiff in that action.
A beneficiary can borrow against the beneficial interest itself. When the interest is personal property, chapter 679 (Florida’s Uniform Commercial Code, Article 9) governs perfection of a security interest in it, § 689.071(8)(c), and the lender’s lien on the beneficial interest does not encumber the trustee’s title or the trustee’s authority. Id. The statute also permits the trustee to be a creditor of the trust or of a beneficiary without breaching any duty. § 689.071(10).
We say this to every client, and we put it in the engagement letter: a land trust keeps your name off the public records and makes transfers easier. It does not protect the property from your own creditors, and it does not make you judgment-proof.
The beneficial interest is personal property owned by the beneficiary. A creditor with a judgment against the beneficiary can reach that personal property just as it can reach a brokerage account. Section 689.071(8)(d) keeps a judgment against the beneficiary from clouding the trustee’s title, which protects buyers and lenders; it does not say the beneficiary’s interest is exempt. A land trust is not a substitute for a limited liability company, whose members are shielded from the company’s liabilities, and it is not a substitute for an irrevocable trust with spendthrift terms. Moving property into a trust while a claim is pending, or with the purpose of hindering a known creditor, can be attacked as a fraudulent transfer, and a client who opens the conversation with “so they can’t get it” needs a different conversation.
A tenant injured on the premises sues the owner. The trustee holds title, but the beneficiaries direct everything, collect the rent, and pay the bills, and the plaintiff’s lawyer will ask the trustee who they are. Privacy is not immunity. Rental property owners who want liability separation put the property in a limited liability company, sometimes with that company as the beneficiary of a land trust so that both privacy and separation are present. Liability insurance is the first line of defense either way, and the policy must name the trustee.
Federal Medicaid law looks through trusts the applicant created with the applicant’s own assets. For a revocable trust, “the corpus of the trust shall be considered resources available to the individual.” 42 U.S.C. § 1396p(d)(3)(A). A land trust the client funds with the client’s own property, controls through the power of direction, and can unwind at will is countable in full. Assigning the beneficial interest to the children is a transfer for less than fair market value that starts the five-year look-back like any other gift. A client who is on Medicaid or planning for long-term care needs the tools on our Florida Medicaid planning page, not a land trust.
The trust agreement can be subpoenaed. A litigant can serve discovery on the trustee. A title underwriter at a sale or refinance will often ask for a copy of the agreement or a trustee’s affidavit, though that disclosure stays with the underwriter and is not recorded. Federal reporting rules, discussed below, have at times required disclosure of a trust’s beneficial owners at a closing. We never promise a client that no one will ever find out; we promise that the county’s public records will not say.
“Can I put my home in a land trust?” is the most common question we hear, and it is actually three questions. The homestead tax exemption, the constitutional protection from forced sale, and the constitutional restrictions on devise and transfer are separate rules with separate answers.
The Land Trust Act answers this one directly: “The principal residence of a beneficiary shall be entitled to the homestead tax exemption even if the homestead is held by a trustee in a land trust, provided the beneficiary qualifies for the homestead exemption under chapter 196.” § 689.071(8)(h). Chapter 196 in turn treats a person whose possessory right rests on “an instrument granting to him or her a beneficial interest for life” as holding “equitable title to real estate” for exemption purposes. § 196.041(2). Florida courts have long accepted beneficial title as enough; the Third District allowed the exemption to homeowners living in a residence they had placed in a qualified personal residence trust because they “indisputably hold equitable title in the home.” Robbins v. Welbaum, 664 So. 2d 1, 2 (Fla. 3d DCA 1995). The practical requirements: the deed in trust reserves to the beneficiary the right to reside in the property for life, the beneficiary files the exemption application with the county property appraiser, and we confirm that county’s current practice before promising anything. The exemption is not automatic, and the “Save Our Homes” assessment cap that travels with it is worth too much to risk on an assumption.
Article X, section 4(a) of the Florida Constitution exempts from forced sale “the following property owned by a natural person”: a homestead of up to one-half acre inside a municipality or 160 contiguous acres outside one. The constitution “does not designate how title to the property is to be held.” In Callava v. Feinberg, 864 So. 2d 429 (Fla. 3d DCA 2003), a judgment creditor tried to foreclose an equitable lien on a home whose legal title was held by “Jorge Gaviria, as Trustee,” arguing the debtor could not claim homestead because the title was not in her name. The Third District reversed: “even if Callava owns only a beneficial interest in the property, she is entitled to claim a homestead exemption to the forced sale of the property.” Id. at 431. The First District reached a similar result for the beneficiary of a spendthrift trust in HCA Gulf Coast Hospital v. Estate of Downing, 594 So. 2d 774, 776 (Fla. 1st DCA 1991), noting the constitution “does not mandate the technique by which the qualified person must receive title,” while cautioning that the result depended on the trustee holding “nothing more than a supervisory interest.” A land trust beneficiary who lives in the home, holds the power of direction, and reserves the right to reside is well positioned under these decisions. The forced-sale protection is still narrower than a client may assume: it never applies to the mortgage, property taxes, or contractor liens on the home itself. Art. X, § 4(a). Our article on whether you lose homestead protections by putting property in a trust covers the revocable trust version of the same question.
Article X, section 4(c) provides that the homestead “shall not be subject to devise if the owner is survived by spouse or minor child,” except to the spouse when there is no minor child, and that the owner, “joined by the spouse if married, may alienate the homestead by mortgage, sale or gift.” A married owner’s deed of the homestead into a land trust needs the spouse’s joinder, and the succession provisions inside the trust agreement cannot do what a will cannot do. A land trust that names an adult child as successor beneficiary of the homestead while a spouse survives invites the very litigation it was meant to avoid. We route every married-owner homestead file through an attorney review of these restrictions before drafting, and our guide to Florida homestead rights in probate explains what happens when they are ignored.
Nearly every mortgage lets the lender call the loan if the property is transferred. Federal law limits that right for a loan secured by residential property with fewer than five dwelling units. The lender may not exercise a due-on-sale option upon “a transfer into an inter vivos trust in which the borrower is and remains a beneficiary and which does not relate to a transfer of rights of occupancy in the property.” 12 U.S.C. § 1701j-3(d)(8). A homeowner who deeds an occupied residence into a land trust, stays the beneficiary, and keeps living there fits within that language. An investor moving a rental into a trust with different beneficiaries, or any commercial property, does not have the same protection. We review the loan documents on every file, advise the client of the risk in writing, and where the exemption does not clearly apply we recommend obtaining the lender’s consent before recording.
Florida taxes deeds at 70 cents per $100 of consideration, and “consideration includes, but is not limited to, the money paid or agreed to be paid; the discharge of an obligation; and the amount of any mortgage, purchase money mortgage lien, or other encumbrance, whether or not the underlying indebtedness is assumed.” Fla. Stat. § 201.02(1)(a). The Florida Supreme Court has held that a transfer that is “merely a change in the form of ownership” with no exchange of value has no consideration and no purchaser and is not taxed. Crescent Miami Center, LLC v. Florida Department of Revenue, 903 So. 2d 913, 919 (Fla. 2005). An owner who deeds unencumbered property to a trustee for the owner’s own benefit is the paradigm of that situation. Two things change the analysis. First, a mortgage on the property is consideration by statute, so the amount of the loan can be taxed even when no money changes hands. Second, the Legislature responded to Crescent with section 201.02(1)(b), which taxes later transfers of interests in a “conduit entity” that received property without full consideration and directs that the paragraph “be construed liberally” to tax “the transfer for consideration of a beneficial interest in real property.” § 201.02(1)(b)6. An assignment of a beneficial interest that is really a sale of the property is analyzed as one. The doc stamp question is decided on every file by the attorney, with the answer documented, before anything is recorded.
In the usual arrangement the beneficiaries report the property’s income and deductions on their own returns and the trust files nothing separately, and a single-member limited liability company serving as trustee is typically disregarded. The client’s accountant confirms the reporting position for the client’s facts; we coordinate with the accountant and do not give tax advice from the front desk.
Two federal regimes have touched land trusts in the last three years, and both have changed. Under the Corporate Transparency Act, a trustee limited liability company would once have had to report its owners to the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN). FinCEN’s interim final rule of March 2025 exempted all companies formed in the United States, and a final rule effective August 14, 2026, made the exemption permanent; only foreign companies registered to do business here still report. Separately, FinCEN’s Residential Real Estate Rule would have required the closing agent to report certain non-financed transfers of residential property to a trust or entity, with an exemption for a transfer “made for no consideration by an individual, either alone or with their spouse, to a trust of which that individual, their spouse, or both of them, are the settlor or grantor.” That rule was postponed to March 1, 2026, and on March 19, 2026, the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Texas vacated it; FinCEN has appealed, and while the vacatur stands reporting persons are not required to file. Because this area moves, we confirm the status on every closing and put in writing who is responsible for any filing.
Clients often arrive asking for a land trust when a different tool fits better, or when two tools together are the right answer. The comparison below is general; the choice depends on the property, the owner’s goals, and the rest of the estate plan.
| Goal | Land trust | Revocable living trust | Limited liability company | Lady Bird deed |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Owner’s name off the public record | Yes; trustee on the deed | Partly; the settlor is usually the trustee and named on the deed | Partly; members and managers appear on state filings | No; owner and remaindermen are on the deed |
| Avoids probate | Yes, with a named successor beneficiary | Yes, for every asset funded into it | Only if the membership interest itself is planned for | Yes, for that parcel |
| Protection from the owner’s creditors | No | No | Separates company debts from the member; not the reverse | No |
| Homestead exemption preserved | Yes, if drafted with a right to reside; county confirms | Yes, with the right to reside | Generally lost; the company is not a natural person | Yes; the owner keeps a life estate |
| Medicaid treatment | Countable; no help | Countable; no help | Membership interest is countable | Home stays exempt during life and avoids estate recovery at death |
| Transfer of ownership | Assignment of beneficial interest, unrecorded | Amendment of the trust, unrecorded | Assignment of membership interest, unrecorded | New deed, recorded |
| Best fit | Privacy, auction purchases, multi-owner parcels | The whole estate plan | Rental and business property needing liability separation | The homestead of an owner planning for long-term care |
The combinations are common. A limited liability company as beneficiary of a land trust gives a rental property both privacy and liability separation. A revocable living trust as beneficiary keeps a parcel private during life and folds it into the family’s plan at death. Our pages on trust-based estate planning and the Florida Lady Bird deed cover the alternatives in depth.
Each rental goes into its own land trust with the owner’s limited liability company as beneficiary. Tenants, contractors, and anyone searching the clerk’s records see a trustee and a trust name. A parcel can be sold, refinanced, or moved between family members by assignment, and a judgment against one property’s trust does not cloud the others. Insurance is updated to name each trustee.
The trust is formed before the foreclosure or tax deed sale, and the trustee is the successful bidder of record. The buyer’s name is never associated with the parcel. Because tax deed titles usually need a quiet title action before they are insurable, the trustee brings that action, and the beneficiary stays out of the caption.
Three unrelated investors buy a parcel together. Rather than take title as tenants in common, where any one of them could file for partition, they hold percentage beneficial interests under one agreement that fixes the power of direction, the exit price, and what happens if one dies or wants out. Multi-beneficiary trusts raise deadlock and, in some cases, securities questions, so this is never a template engagement; the agreement is drafted for the deal.
Judges, law enforcement officers, physicians, public figures, and people leaving a difficult relationship often want their residence address untraceable through the property records. A land trust with a neutral name and a professional or entity trustee accomplishes that, subject to the homestead analysis above and the reminder that a subpoena can still reach the agreement.
A family already has a revocable living trust but wants one property, often a vacation home or a lot held for a child, to stay off the public record. The land trust names the revocable trust as beneficiary. Nothing about the family’s plan changes, and the parcel passes under it at death.
An owner who lives elsewhere avoids a Florida ancillary probate for the parcel by naming a successor beneficiary, and gets a Florida trustee who can sign at a closing without the owner traveling. Foreign owners should expect the federal reporting questions discussed above to be asked at every closing.
These are the situations in which a land trust either does not do what the client believes it does or does real damage. Each one stops the file until an attorney has looked at it.
The trustee’s name is the one that appears in the public records, so the choice determines how much privacy the client actually gets.
| Trustee | Anonymity | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| A new limited liability company the client owns, with a generic name | High | Our default for privacy engagements. A commercial registered agent keeps the client’s address off the state’s records. The client owns the company; the firm does not. |
| A trusted individual (family member, friend) | Medium | No cost, but the person must be reachable and willing to sign on direction for years. A successor is named at formation. |
| A professional or corporate trustee | Highest | Arms-length, with annual fees and per-transaction charges. |
| The beneficiary personally | None | Defeats the purpose. The statute permits it, § 689.071(2)(b), but the owner’s name is back on the deed. |
The process begins with a free consultation in which we identify why the client wants the trust, because the reason drives the structure. Privacy, an auction purchase, a co-investment, and single-parcel probate avoidance each call for different terms; a primary residence or a mention of creditors calls for the attorney conversation described above before anything is drafted. We pull the vesting deed or title commitment for the legal description (never the tax roll), check for a mortgage and review its due-on-sale clause, confirm whether the property is homesteaded, and settle the trustee: the client’s own limited liability company, a trusted individual, or a professional trustee.
We then draft the three documents. The land trust agreement names the beneficiaries and their percentages (totaling exactly 100 percent), the holder of the power of direction, the successor trustee, and a successor beneficiary for every interest. The deed in trust recites the trustee under the named agreement and its date, contains the statutory power language in the granting clause, reserves the right to reside for life where the property is a homestead, states the consideration correctly for documentary stamp purposes, and is executed before two witnesses and a notary, with the trustee signing “as Trustee and not individually.” Certificates of beneficial interest issue to each beneficiary. A second person proofreads the legal description character by character against the source.
After signing, the deed in trust is recorded in the correct county and the recording information is saved to the file. The agreement and its schedules are never recorded. The insurance carrier is instructed to name the trustee. If the property is a homestead, the exemption application is filed with the property appraiser and the confirmation is kept. Federal reporting responsibility is confirmed in writing. The client receives a closing letter explaining how to direct the trustee, how to assign an interest, what to do when a beneficiary or trustee dies, and when to call us. Every file receives a final attorney review before anything is recorded or sent.
Talk to a Florida land trust attorney
Zoecklein Law, P.A. forms land trusts for investors, families, and auction buyers across Florida, and tells clients plainly when a different tool is the better fit. The consultation is free.
A Florida land trust is an arrangement under section 689.071, Florida Statutes, in which a trustee holds record title to real estate by a recorded deed that grants the trustee the statutory powers, while the beneficiaries, who are named only in an unrecorded trust agreement, keep the right to direct the trustee and to receive the proceeds. The beneficiaries’ interests are personal property, and the trustee holds both legal and equitable title.
Not in the property records. The deed shows the trustee, and the trust agreement that names you is never recorded. If the trustee is a limited liability company you formed, the company appears on the Division of Corporations’ records, which is why we use a commercial registered agent and a neutral company name. A subpoena or discovery request in litigation can still reach the agreement.
No. Your beneficial interest is personal property you own, and a creditor with a judgment against you can reach it. The statute keeps a judgment against you from clouding the trustee’s title, which protects buyers and lenders, but it does not exempt your interest. Liability separation comes from a limited liability company; protection from your own creditors, to the extent Florida law allows it, comes from other tools.
Often yes. Section 689.071(8)(h) entitles a beneficiary’s principal residence to the homestead tax exemption if the beneficiary otherwise qualifies under chapter 196, and section 196.041(2) treats a beneficial interest for life as equitable title. The deed must be drafted to reserve your right to reside, you must still file the application, and the property appraiser must accept the structure. We confirm the county’s practice before promising the exemption.
For a residence with fewer than five units, federal law bars the lender from calling the loan on a transfer into a living trust in which you remain a beneficiary and which does not change who occupies the property. 12 U.S.C. § 1701j-3(d)(8). Rental and commercial properties do not have the same protection, and we recommend lender consent where the exemption does not clearly apply.
A deed of unencumbered property to a trustee for your own benefit is a change in the form of ownership without consideration, which the Florida Supreme Court held is not taxed in Crescent Miami Center v. Department of Revenue. A mortgage on the property is consideration by statute, and a later assignment of the beneficial interest that is really a sale can be taxed under section 201.02(1)(b). The analysis is done on every file before recording.
No. The corpus of a revocable trust you funded with your own assets is a resource available to you under 42 U.S.C. § 1396p(d)(3)(A), and your beneficial interest remains countable. Assigning the interest to family is a transfer subject to the five-year look-back. Medicaid planning uses different tools.
If the trust agreement names a successor beneficiary, your beneficial interest passes to that person outside probate. If no successor is named, the interest falls into your estate and must be administered. For a homestead, the constitution’s restrictions on devise when a spouse or minor child survives still control.
The trustee acts only on the written direction of the holder of the power of direction, and the agreement should say so. Third parties are not required to look behind the trustee’s recorded authority, however, so the choice of trustee and the successor-trustee provisions matter. In Brigham v. Brigham, a trustee who deeded property to himself without the written direction the agreement required had the transfer voided.
Yes. You direct the trustee in writing and the trustee signs the deed. Some title underwriters ask for a copy of the agreement or a trustee’s affidavit at closing; that disclosure goes to the underwriter and is not recorded.
Fees depend on whether a trustee company must be formed, whether the property is homestead or mortgaged, how many beneficiaries are involved, and whether the trust is being formed for an auction purchase on a deadline. Recording fees and any documentary stamp tax are separate. We quote a flat fee after the free consultation once the structure is known.
Authorities cited in this guide were verified against their primary sources on September 2, 2026, including the 2026 Florida Statutes and Florida Constitution (Online Sunshine), the United States Code (Cornell LII), FinCEN’s published rule notices, and reported decisions read in full. This guide is for informational purposes only and does not constitute legal advice; every property and owner is different, and no attorney-client relationship is formed by reading it.