Getting Married or Divorced? No More Taxes on your Marital Home!

By Dane Leitner

In its last spring session the Florida Legislature revised a law for inter-spousal transfers of homestead property.  Section 201.02, Florida Statutes imposes documentary stamp tax on most conveyances between spouses if there is an underlying mortgage.  So, in Florida, when you get married and want to transfer property (add your spouse’s name to your home), a documentary stamp tax or “real estate transfer fee” is applied to the unpaid balance of the mortgage.  The Florida documentary stamp tax rate is $0.70 per $100 paid for the property, in all counties except Miami-Dade.

For example, if the husband owned the property prior to the marriage, then added his wife once married, and there was a mortgage balance of $400,000.00, the Department of Revenue would collect documentary stamp tax on half of the mortgage balance.  In this example the taxes would be around $2,800.00.

Previously, there was an exemption for the conveyance of the marital home when the parties divorced and the property was transferred.  However, there was no such exception if you wanted to add your spouse once married.  In 2018, the Florida Legislature amended the statute providing an exception for inter-spousal conveyance of homestead property if the conveyance was completed within one year of marriage.  While this was a good change, it only applied to parties that were getting married in the future, and as long as they conveyed the property within one year of the marriage.