After both members of a married couple died, their daughter inherited the couple’s homestead through her father’s will. The couple’s son challenged the devise in court as impermissible under Florida Homestead laws. The couple’s homestead had been conveyed by themselves, to themselves making them both tenants in common. The husband conveyed his interest in the homestead to his wife through a qualified personal residence trust, and the wife signed the deed to make the transfer effective. However, the husband died prior to the term of the QPRT and the property went back to his estate. The husband’s homestead interest was left to his wife and then to his daughter in his will.
In Stone v. Stone, a Florida appellate court held that the transfers were not prohibited transfers of a homestead. The court found that the wife’s signing of the deed, which included boiler plate language, constituted a waiver of her homestead rights, which allowed the daughter to inherit the property via her father’s will.
See Jeffrey Skatoff, Homestead Rights Waived by Deed Boilerplate Language, Clark Skatoff, Dec. 10, 2014.
