What Is a Legal Description of Property?
It is the block of text on a deed that identifies the land itself, written precisely enough that a surveyor could walk out and locate the boundaries from it alone.
Three things it is not. It is not your mailing address, which tells the post office where to deliver rather than telling a court what you own. It is not the parcel or folio number your county assigns for assessment. And it is not the short line the property appraiser displays on its website, which is an abbreviation for a tax roll.
Florida does not leave that to practice. Fla. Stat. §689.02(2) requires the warranty deed form to include a blank space for the property appraiser’s parcel identification number, and then says this.
“Such parcel identification number is not a part of the legal description of the property otherwise set forth in the deed and may not be used as a substitute for the legal description of the property being conveyed.”
That sentence exists because people kept trying. The same subsection adds that omitting the number, or including an incorrect one, does not affect the validity of the conveyance or the recordability of the deed. The number is a convenience for the clerk. The description is the deed.
Practice pointer. The first document I ask for when preparing any Florida deed is the last recorded deed, not the tax bill. I have had clients send me a tax statement with a folio number and a one-line abbreviation and ask me to use it, and I cannot, because under §689.02(2) it is not a legal description at all.
The Three Types You Will See in Florida
- Platted lot and block. Most Florida homes in a subdivision. The description points to a recorded plat by book and page, and the plat does the geometric work. These are the shortest and the hardest to get wrong, though the plat book reference is exactly where a typo hides.
- Metes and bounds. A perimeter walked in words, as distances and compass bearings from a described point of beginning, returning to where it started. Common on rural land, waterfront and anything carved out of a larger parcel. Long, technical, and the type where an error is most likely to matter.
- Government survey. Fractions of a section, township and range, from the federal rectangular survey system. Common on agricultural land and large acreage. Compact but unforgiving, because one wrong quarter moves forty acres.
A condominium unit is a fourth shape in practice, describing the unit and building by reference to the recorded declaration of condominium rather than to a plat.
What a Legal Description Actually Looks Like
One of each, so you can recognise which you are holding. These are illustrative rather than descriptions of real parcels.
| Type | How it reads |
|---|---|
| Platted | Lot 14, Block C, SUNSET PINES, according to the plat thereof as recorded in Plat Book 42, Page 18, of the Public Records of Pinellas County, Florida. |
| Metes and bounds | Begin at the Northeast corner of the Southwest quarter of Section 8, Township 29 South, Range 17 East; thence run South 89 degrees 42 minutes West a distance of 210.00 feet; thence South 00 degrees 18 minutes East 150.00 feet; thence North 89 degrees 42 minutes East 210.00 feet; thence North 00 degrees 18 minutes West 150.00 feet to the Point of Beginning. |
| Government survey | The Northwest quarter of the Southeast quarter of Section 12, Township 30 South, Range 16 East, Hernando County, Florida. |
Notice what the platted one depends on. Change "Plat Book 42" to "Plat Book 24" and you have described land in a different subdivision, with a deed that reads perfectly well.
We pull the description so you do not have to
Every deed we prepare starts with your last recorded deed, and the description is copied from it exactly. It is included in the flat fee, not billed as an extra.
How to Find the Legal Description of Your Property
One reliable source. The last deed recorded on the property, in your county clerk’s Official Records. Nearly every Florida county publishes a searchable index online. Search by the owner’s name, open the most recent deed conveying the property to you, and read the description from the instrument. On the statutory warranty deed form at Fla. Stat. §689.02(1) it follows the words "the following described land, to wit". Copy it exactly, including punctuation, abbreviations and the plat book and page reference.
A wrong legal description is one of the two reasons a deed gets rejected or has to be redone, and the other is execution. The lady bird deed form page covers the witnessing and notarization Florida requires, and what a deed costs sets out the recording charges that get paid twice when a description has to be corrected.
Three unreliable ones, and they are the three most people try first.
- The tax bill. Carries the parcel number and an abbreviated description built for assessment. Not a legal description, per §689.02(2).
- The property appraiser’s website. Excellent for finding the parcel and the owner. The description it shows is generally a truncated tax roll entry rather than the full description from the deed.
- A prior title policy or survey. Better than the first two and still second-hand. Use it to check the deed, not to replace it.
Practice pointer. Use the appraiser site to identify the parcel and the clerk site to obtain the description. They are two different databases built for two different jobs, and conflating them is the single most common cause of a defective Florida deed I see.
Which County Do I Search, and What if I Cannot Find It?
Clients are often confused about which office holds the deed, and ask me, "Do I call the property appraiser?" No. The recorded deed lives with the clerk of the circuit court in the county where the land sits, and that is a separate office from the property appraiser. If the online index will not surface it, the usual reasons are a name spelled differently on the old deed, a conveyance predating the county’s digitised records, or a property held in a trust or entity name. I pull records in every Florida county as part of preparing a deed, so this is not something a client has to solve alone.
What if the Legal Description on My Deed Is Wrong?
More common than people expect, and the fix turns entirely on which kind of error it is.
A scrivener’s error is an obvious slip, a transposed digit in a plat book number, a missing lot number, a misspelt subdivision name. The usual remedy is a corrective deed signed by the original parties and recorded, which puts the correct description on the record and refers to the earlier instrument.
A description that identifies genuinely different land is a different problem. The deed may have conveyed something nobody intended, or arguably conveyed nothing. Where the parties no longer agree, or a party has died, correcting it can require a quiet title action rather than a new signature.
Avoid discovering this during a closing. A title company will catch a description that does not match the chain, and the transaction stops while it is resolved. If you have any reason to think your description is wrong, it is far cheaper to fix in a quiet month than under a contract deadline.
Who Can Write a Legal Description?
Two different jobs, and only one of them belongs to a lawyer.
Copying an existing description from a prior recorded deed onto a new instrument is ordinary conveyancing. That is what we do when preparing a lady bird deed, a quitclaim deed or a warranty deed, and it is included rather than billed separately.
Creating a new description, which is what splitting a larger parcel requires, is surveying work. It belongs to a licensed Florida surveyor and mapper who goes to the land and measures it. A description invented at a desk without a survey is a future lawsuit.
One related requirement worth knowing while you are looking at the deed. Fla. Stat. §695.26(1) sets out what the clerk requires before recording, including the printed name and post office address of each person who executed the instrument, the preparer, each witness, and the notary. The witness address requirement arrived with ch. 2023-238, so deeds prepared from older templates frequently fail it and get rejected at the counter.
Frequently Asked Questions
What Is a Legal Description of Property?
It is the written identification of the land itself on a deed, precise enough that a surveyor could locate the exact boundaries from it alone. It is not your mailing address, which identifies where post is delivered rather than what land you own, and it is not the parcel or folio number your county assigns for tax purposes. Fla. Stat. §689.02(2) states that the property appraiser’s parcel identification number is not part of the legal description and may not be used as a substitute for it.
How Do I Find the Legal Description of My Property?
From the last deed recorded on the property, in your county’s Official Records, which nearly every Florida county publishes in a searchable online index. Find the most recent deed conveying the property to you, and the legal description is the block of text following words like "the following described land, to wit". Copy it exactly, including punctuation, abbreviations and any recording references to a plat book and page. That recorded instrument is the source. Everything else is a summary of it.
Can I Use My Parcel Number Instead?
No, and Florida says so in the statute rather than leaving it to practice. Fla. Stat. §689.02(2) requires the warranty deed form to include a blank space for the property appraiser’s parcel identification number, and then provides that the number is not a part of the legal description otherwise set forth in the deed and may not be used as a substitute for the legal description of the property being conveyed. The same subsection adds that leaving the number out, or including an incorrect one, does not affect the validity of the conveyance or the recordability of the deed.
Where Can I Find the Legal Description Online?
Your county clerk’s Official Records search is the right place, because that is where recorded deeds live. Search by the owner’s name or by the recording book and page if you have it, open the most recent deed, and read the description from the instrument itself. The county property appraiser site is a different database built for assessment rather than conveyance, and the short description it shows is usually an abbreviation. Use the appraiser site to find the parcel and the clerk site to get the description.
What Does a Legal Description Look Like?
It takes one of three shapes in Florida. A platted description reads like "Lot 14, Block C, SUNSET PINES, according to the plat thereof as recorded in Plat Book 42, Page 18, of the Public Records of Pinellas County, Florida". A metes and bounds description reads as a series of distances and bearings running from a described starting point back to where it began. A government survey description reads as a fraction of a section, such as the Northwest quarter of the Southeast quarter of Section 12, Township 30 South, Range 16 East.
What if the Legal Description on My Deed Is Wrong?
The fix depends on what kind of wrong it is. A scrivener’s error, meaning an obvious typo in a plat book number or a transposed digit, is usually corrected by recording a corrective deed signed by the original parties. A description that actually identifies different land is a more serious problem, because the deed may have conveyed something nobody intended or nothing at all, and that can require a quiet title action. Either way it is worth resolving before a sale rather than during one, because a title company will catch it and closing will stop.
Who Can Write a Legal Description?
Copying an existing one and creating a new one are different tasks. Copying the description from a prior recorded deed onto a new deed is ordinary conveyancing work and it is what we do when we prepare a deed. Creating a new description, which is what a division of a larger parcel requires, is surveying work and belongs to a licensed Florida surveyor and mapper. A lawyer who invents a metes and bounds description without a survey is creating a problem rather than solving one.
Does the Legal Description Have to Be on the Deed Itself?
Yes. Fla. Stat. §689.025(2) requires a Florida quitclaim deed to include the legal description of the real property it purports to convey, and requires that description to be legibly printed, typewritten or stamped on the instrument. The statutory warranty deed form at Fla. Stat. §689.02(1) carries the description in the same place, following the words "the following described land, to wit". A deed that refers to a description without setting it out is a deed with a problem.
Common Situations
The folio number deed. A Hialeah man prepared his own quitclaim deed using the folio number from his tax bill in place of the description, because the number identified his house on every county website he checked. Under §689.02(2) the number is expressly not a substitute, and the deed described no land. A corrective deed with the description copied from his 2004 warranty deed fixed it, and it was caught only because he asked before recording rather than after.
The transposed plat book. A Clearwater couple’s deed cited Plat Book 24 where the correct reference was Plat Book 42. The deed read perfectly and described a parcel in a different subdivision entirely. Nobody noticed for eleven years, until a buyer’s title company did, four days before closing.
The parcel that was split. A Brooksville owner wanted to deed half his acreage to his daughter and asked me to write the description for the half. That is a survey, not a drafting exercise. The counterfactual matters here, because a description written without one would have created a boundary neither of them could prove, on land they both still had to live beside.
Sources of Law
- Fla. Stat. §689.02(1) (the statutory form of warranty deed, carrying the description after “the following described land, to wit”); §689.02(2) (the form includes a blank space for the property appraiser’s parcel identification number; that number is not part of the legal description and may not be used as a substitute for it; omitting it or stating it incorrectly does not affect validity or recordability). History, s. 1, ch. 4038, 1891 through s. 1, ch. 2013-241. Retrieved 2026-09-14.
- Fla. Stat. §689.025(1) to (2) (the statutory form of quitclaim deed, and the requirement that it include the legal description of the property, legibly printed, typewritten or stamped on the instrument).
- Fla. Stat. §695.26(1)(a) to (f) (recording requirements, including the printed name and post office address of each signer, the preparer, each witness and the notary, and the clerk’s reserved corner spaces); §695.26(3) (exclusions, including instruments executed before July 1, 1991, court orders, wills, plats and instruments executed outside Florida); §695.26(4) (the clerk’s failure to comply does not impair the validity of the recordation or the constructive notice it imparts). History, s. 1, ch. 90-183 through s. 5, ch. 2023-238.
- Creating a new legal description is the practice of surveying and mapping in Florida and is reserved to a licensed surveyor and mapper. This page describes how to locate and use an existing description; it is not a substitute for a survey.
- Advertised fees are honored for 90 days from the posted date. Government costs, meaning recording, documentary stamps and certified copies, are additional and passed through at cost. General information about Florida law, not legal advice.
What I See in These Files
In 14 years of law practice the legal description is the part of a deed clients think is boilerplate and I treat as the whole instrument. Everything else on the page can be corrected by agreement. The description is what the deed actually conveys, and if it is wrong the document did something other than what everyone in the room intended.
I also litigate deeds after they fail, which enhances the practice of drafting deeds, and the description failures are the quietest ones. Nobody argues at the signing, because the paragraph looks impenetrable and everyone assumes somebody else checked it. The problem surfaces years later at a closing table, and by then the people who could have signed a corrective deed have moved, fallen out, or died. Avoid taking a legal description from a tax bill or a property appraiser page, and avoid retyping one by hand when you can copy it.
Updated on September 14, 2026. Reviewed by Kevin D. Klagge, Esq., Fla. Bar No. 99502. Attorney Kevin Klagge represents families, businesses, and international clients in estate and tax planning, business structuring, and international law, with a focus on Florida legal tools. He litigates estate and business issues in court. General information about Florida law and our posted fees, not legal advice, and no attorney-client relationship is created. Whether a description on your deed is correct depends on the chain of title for your parcel, which we check as part of preparing a deed.