History: My mother managed to get herself involved with a person who
conned her into purchasing properties in Florida using only her money
as tenants in common with him. After confronting him, he quit claimed
his interest in 7 of the 12 properties to her for a consideration of
$1.00 per property.
Question: The county requires a stamp fee of .70 per $100.00 of
sales/transfer price OR mortgage amount. There is an outstanding
mortgage on the property.
Does this mean that to get my mother a clear title to the properties
that she paid for that she will have to pay .70 per $100.00 remaining
on the mortgage or is the $1.00 consideration considered a
"Sales/Transfer" price?
My Own Analysis: If it is the mortgage amount, then as I understand
it, if a person's interest in a Million dollar property were quit
claimed for $1.00 and there was no mortgage on the property then there
would only be a .70 stamp fee. But if a 150K property were quit
claimed in the same manner but had a $100,000.00 mortgage then the
stamp fee would be $700.00. Something just doesn't add up. :)
Is the county mis-understanding what I am trying to do or is the fee
structure really that scrued up?
Sowport

On 12 Jul 2004 18:23:09 -0700, sowport@hotmail.com (Sowport) wrote:
I believe the state's argument is that consideration for a deed to
real property can be in things other than money; for example, the
discharge of an obligation is consideration, and a mortgage is
consideration.
Thus, if your mother is taking the properties subject to the existing
mortgages, the consideration she paid is not one dollar, but the
balance of the mortgages she (instead of the scamster) will have to
pay off.
I suspect a good Department of Revenue auditor could come up with
still more reasons why one dollar is not any kind of reasonable value
of either the properties or the consideration (for example,
forbearance from suing the scamster) given for them. They would
probably be able to make just as good a case for assessing stamp tax
on a free-and-clear property being quitclaimed for a dollar.
From the state's point of view, it adds up perfectly well: the state's
treasury has an important interest in not allowing people to game the
stamp tax by transferring properties for nominal consideration, while
concealing the true consideration given.