Terms Used In Florida Statutes 95.231

  • Deed: The legal instrument used to transfer title in real property from one person to another.
  • Devise: To gift property by will.
  • Dower: A widow
  • Evidence: Information presented in testimony or in documents that is used to persuade the fact finder (judge or jury) to decide the case for one side or the other.
  • Fraud: Intentional deception resulting in injury to another.
  • Litigation: A case, controversy, or lawsuit. Participants (plaintiffs and defendants) in lawsuits are called litigants.
  • person: includes individuals, children, firms, associations, joint adventures, partnerships, estates, trusts, business trusts, syndicates, fiduciaries, corporations, and all other groups or combinations. See Florida Statutes 1.01
  • Power of attorney: A written instrument which authorizes one person to act as another's agent or attorney. The power of attorney may be for a definite, specific act, or it may be general in nature. The terms of the written power of attorney may specify when it will expire. If not, the power of attorney usually expires when the person granting it dies. Source: OCC
  • Probate: Proving a will
  • Real property: Land, and all immovable fixtures erected on, growing on, or affixed to the land.

(1) Five years after the recording of an instrument required to be executed in accordance with s. 689.01; 5 years after the recording of a power of attorney accompanying and used for an instrument required to be executed in accordance with s. 689.01; or 5 years after the probate of a will purporting to convey real property, from which it appears that the person owning the property attempted to convey, affect, or devise it, the instrument, power of attorney, or will shall be held to have its purported effect to convey, affect, or devise, the title to the real property of the person signing the instrument, as if there had been no lack of seal or seals, witness or witnesses, defect in, failure of, or absence of acknowledgment or relinquishment of dower, in the absence of fraud, adverse possession, or pending litigation. The instrument is admissible in evidence. A power of attorney validated under this subsection shall be valid only for the purpose of effectuating the instrument with which it was recorded.
(2) After 20 years from the recording of a deed or the probate of a will purporting to convey real property, no person shall assert any claim to the property against the claimants under the deed or will or their successors in title.
(3) This law is cumulative to all laws on the subject matter.