“Seven dollars for 5 acres in Key Largo sounds like a good deal to me!”
Some land records read less like paperwork and more like a chapter from a history book.
During the Great Depression, Florida’s land market collapsed. Property values fell so sharply that, in many cases, the taxes owed on a property were worth more than the property itself. Thousands of landowners stopped paying, and under the 1937 Murphy Act, Florida eventually took the title to properties whose tax certificates remained unpaid. By 1939, an estimated 17 to 20 million acres had ended up in state hands.
Beginning in the late 1930s, Florida started putting Murphy Act properties back into private hands. People could request that a parcel be sold, and the property went to the highest bidder with no minimum bid required. Seven dollars for 5 acres in Key Largo sounds like a good deal to me! The state ultimately issued an estimated 800,000 Murphy deeds.
Murphy deeds can still turn up in Florida title searches today. In fact, some contained reservations for future road rights-of-way, meaning an old deed from the Depression era can still affect a property’s use or title decades later.
There are even Murphy Act parcels in places that are now part of Florida’s public lands. Eden Gardens State Park, for example, includes parcels the state acquired through the Murphy Act.
So, a property record that looks like an ordinary deed can sometimes lead back to a landowner who couldn’t pay taxes during the Great Depression, a state sale for a few dollars, or even a piece of a public park.
That’s what makes title research so interesting. The history of a property doesn’t necessarily stay in the history books. Sometimes, it stays in the title.
At Real Title Services, we spend our days tracing ownership, boundaries, and the records behind properties across the country. You never quite know what you’ll find hiding in a modern property file.
Angela Sharp
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