Florida · TitleFlorida transfer fee covenants: void if recorded on or after July 1, 2008

Florida's legislature declared that transfer fee covenants impair the marketability of real property and are an unreasonable restraint on alienation, whatever their duration or amount. A transfer fee covenant recorded in Florida on or after July 1, 2008, doesn't run with the title and isn't binding on or enforceable against any later owner, purchaser or mortgagee, and any lien that purports to secure the fee is void; the statute doesn't make covenants recorded before that date presumptively valid either. A transfer fee is a fee required by such a covenant and payable on a transfer, or for the right to make or accept one, whether fixed or a percentage of value or price. The statute lists what isn't a transfer fee, including the purchase price, a broker's commission, lender charges such as assumption and estoppel fees, lease charges, payments for waiving an option or right of first refusal, government charges, and fees payable to a homeowners', condominium, cooperative, mobile home or property owners' association under its declaration, including estoppel fees (Fla. Stat. §689.28).