How Florida Law Affects Your Home
Florida is an equitable distribution state. Under Florida Statute 61.075, courts begin with a presumption that marital assets and liabilities should be divided equally — but that presumption can be overcome based on factors like each spouse's economic circumstances, contributions to the marriage, the desirability of keeping the marital home for children, and intentional dissipation of assets.
Florida is also a no-fault state. The legal threshold for divorce is simply that the marriage is "irretrievably broken," which keeps the focus of the proceeding on financial division rather than blame.
Key Florida Considerations
- Marital vs. non-marital property. Assets owned before marriage, gifts, and inheritances are generally non-marital — but appreciation during marriage and commingling can convert them to marital property.
- Constitutional homestead protection. Florida's homestead is one of the strongest in the country (Article X, Section 4) — protecting unlimited home equity from most creditors and restricting how a homestead can be transferred when a spouse or minor child resides there.
- 2023 alimony reform changed qualifying income. Permanent alimony was eliminated. Lenders now look at durational alimony differently, which affects what income counts toward qualifying for a refinance.
- Decrees should specify refinance deadlines. Vague language ("must refinance promptly") creates problems with lenders — and Florida judges expect specifics.
What This Means For Your Mortgage
Most divorcing Floridians focus on splitting the equity in the home — and miss the bigger financial question: who keeps the Save Our Homes tax savings, and how is it preserved when one or both spouses move? That decision can be worth tens of thousands of dollars over the next several years.
Florida lenders also handle divorce-related refinances with specific documentation requirements around the final judgment, alimony orders, and homestead status. Getting the structure right before signing the decree is far easier than fixing it after.
Common Florida Scenarios We Handle
- Refinances that fund equity buyouts while preserving Save Our Homes portability
- Removing a spouse from the deed and the note (deed transfer + refinance)
- Qualifying using post-2023 durational alimony or child support income
- Restructuring debt loads after the marital estate is divided
- Loan assumptions on FHA and VA loans where the original loan stays in place
- Homestead exemption preservation for the spouse who keeps the home
Save Our Homes Portability — Why It Matters in a Florida Divorce
Florida's Save Our Homes amendment caps annual increases on a homestead's assessed value at 3% — meaning long-time owners often pay property taxes on an assessed value far below market. When you sell or move, you can transfer up to $500,000 of that accrued tax savings to a new Florida home (Section 193.155, F.S.). In a divorce, that benefit becomes a marital asset that can be split between both spouses if both establish new Florida homesteads within the statutory window (generally three tax years). Most divorcing Floridians never split portability — they let the spouse who keeps the home retain all of it by default. Done wrong, the leaving spouse loses tens of thousands in future tax savings. Done right, both spouses benefit. Like everything else in a decree, this needs to be planned before the judgment is signed.
