Full Opinion

Third District Court of Appeal State of Florida Opinion filed October 7, 2026. Not final until disposition of timely filed motion for rehearing. ________________ No. 3D25-0817 Lower Tribunal No. 18-591-CP-02 ________________ Pauline Walters, as Personal Representative for the Estate of Enid May Townsend, Appellant, vs. Agency for Healthcare Administration, Appellee. An Appeal from a non-final order from the Circuit Court for Miami-Dade County, Bertila Soto, Judge. Law Office of Dexter F. George, and Dexter F. George (Plantation), for appellant. Alexander R. Boler (Tallahassee), for appellee. Before LOGUE, LINDSEY, and GOODEN, JJ. LOGUE, J. Pauline Walters, as Personal Representative for the Estate of Enid May Townsend, appeals a trial court order that held a cooperative unit was not real property and therefore was not protected by the Florida Constitution’s homestead provisions from forced sale to satisfy debts to a creditor of the Estate. We held as much when this case was previously before us. Walters v. Agency for Health Care Admin., 288 So. 3d 1215, 1218 (Fla. 3d DCA 2019). Subsequently, however, in 2021, the Florida Legislature amended section 719.103(25), Florida Statutes (2021), to provide that an interest in a cooperative unit is an interest in real property. The issue in this appeal is whether the 2021 amendment to section 719.103(25) applies retroactively to the date of Enid May Townsend’s (“Decedent”) death. The trial court held that the amendment did not apply retroactively. We affirm. BACKGROUND The Decedent died intestate on August 29, 2017. The Decedent’s sole heir was her daughter, Pauline Walters. On February 8, 2018, Walters filed a petition for summary administration of the Decedent’s estate. The estate’s only asset was the Decedent’s interest in a cooperative unit, which Walters proposed be distributed to herself as protected homestead property. On March 21, 2018, the Agency for Health Care Administration (the “Agency”) filed a statement of claim against the Decedent’s estate for $81,276.76. This amount represented the Decedent’s debt that resulted from 2 her acceptance of Medicaid benefits from the Agency. See §§ 409.9101, 414.28, Fla. Stat. (2018). The following day, on March 22, 2018, Walters filed a petition to determine homestead status of the Cooperative Unit. In the petition, Walters described the Cooperative Unit as “Cooperative Stock, 16900 NW 14th Avenue, Apt. 203, North Miami Beach, FL 33162.” Walters argued “[t]he Property constituted the homestead of the decedent within the meaning of Section 4 of Article X of the Constitution of the State of Florida,” and, therefore, title to the Cooperative Unit passed to Walters upon the Decedent’s death and the constitutional exemption from claims of the Decedent’s creditors—in this case, the Agency—also inured to Walters’ benefit at that time. In response, the Agency filed an objection to the Homestead Status Petition and argued the Cooperative Unit was not entitled to the homestead exemption because it was “not a fee simple interest in land as required by law.” On June 21, 2018, following a hearing, the trial court entered the 2018 Homestead Status Order, stating that “the Petition to Declare Decedent’s CO-OP Property Homestead for the purpose of descent and distribution is denied,” citing, in part, to In re Estate of Wartels, 357 So. 2d 708 (Fla. 1978). 3 Walters then appealed the order to this Court. We affirmed the order but certified to the Florida Supreme Court, as one of great public importance, the question of whether Wartels had continuing effect. We also certified conflict with Geraci v. Sunstar EMS, 93 So. 3d 384 (Fla. 2d DCA 2012). See Walters, 288 So. 3d at 1218. The Florida Supreme Court accepted jurisdiction to review this Court’s decision. See Walters v. Agency for Health Care Admin., No. SC20-12, 2020 WL 3494393 (Fla. June 29, 2020). While the Florida Supreme Court’s case was pending, section 719.103(25), which defined the term “Unit,” was amended, see Ch. 2021-99, § 15, Laws of Fla., to provide as follows: “Unit” means a part of the cooperative property which is subject to exclusive use and possession. A unit may be improvements, land, or land and improvements together, as specified in the cooperative documents. An interest in a unit is an interest in real property. § 719.103(25), Fla. Stat. (2021) (emphasis added). The only change between the 2017 version of the statute, which was in effect at the time of the Decedent’s death, and the amended 2021 version was the addition of the last sentence: “An interest in a unit is an interest in real property.” § 719.103(25), Fla. Stat. (2021). The Chapter Law enacting the amendment was signed into law on June 16, 2021, and the Legislature made the amendment effective July 1, 2021. Ch. 2021-99, § 27, Laws of Fla. 4 Following this amendment, on June 23, 2021, the Florida Supreme Court discharged its jurisdiction and declined review. See Walters v. Agency for Health Care Admin., No. SC20-12, 2021 WL 2562698 (Fla. June 23, 2021). Thereafter, on June 30, 2021, this Court issued its mandate, which stated that “such further proceedings be had in said cause as may be in accordance with the opinion of this Court.” Walters then filed an amended petition to determine homestead status of real property and again argued the constitutional homestead exemption applied to the Cooperative Unit under the 2021 Amendment. The trial court ruled against Walters: The Court finds that the change in law regarding cooperative [units] at section 719.103(25), Florida Statutes (2021), is not remedial in nature, and is to be applied only prospectively. The Order Denying Petition for Homestead (DIN 21, filed June 21, 2018) will be upheld. Walters timely appealed. ANALYSIS Courts must proceed cautiously when considering whether a statute impacting substantive rights applies retroactively. See, e.g., Menendez v. Progressive Express Ins. Co., 35 So. 3d 873, 875 (Fla. 2010). “The general rule is that in the absence of clear legislative intent to the contrary, a law affecting substantive rights, liabilities and duties is presumed to apply 5 prospectively.” Metro. Dade Cnty. v. Chase Fed. Hous. Corp., 737 So. 2d 494, 499 (Fla. 1999). But “the presumption against retroactivity is only a default rule of statutory construction.” Id. at 500. The presumption can be “rebutted by clear evidence of legislative intent.” Id. The homestead provisions of the Constitution at issue protect homestead property from forced sale and bar the owners of homesteaded property from devising the property away from their spouse or minor children. See Art. X, § 4(a)(1), Fla. Const. (“There shall be exempt from forced sale under process of any court, and no judgment, decree or execution shall be a lien thereon . . . the following property owned by a natural person: . . . a homestead, if located outside a municipality, to the extent of one hundred sixty acres of contiguous land and improvements thereon . . . ; or if located within a municipality, to the extent of one-half acre of contiguous land, upon which the exemption shall be limited to the residence of the owner or the owner’s family[.]”); Art. X, § 4(c), Fla. Const. (“The homestead shall not be subject to devise if the owner is survived by spouse or minor child . . . .”); Art. X, § 4(b), Fla. Const. (“These exemptions shall inure to the surviving spouse or heirs of the owner.”). Thus, the 2021 amendment, to the extent it transforms cooperative units into real property protected as homestead, impacts the substantive 6 rights of diverse parties. The amendment expands the rights of owners and heirs of such property to be free from forced sale while commensurately diminishing the rights of their creditors to be paid. As importantly, it expands the rights of spouses and minor children to inherit while commensurately diminishing the rights of the owners to freely devise. These impacts on substantive rights trigger “the presumption against retroactivity.” Metro. Dade Cnty., 737 So. 2d at 500. In the face of this presumption, we find little evidence of the Legislature’s intent that the 2021 amendment should apply retroactively. The Chapter Law enacting the amendment was signed into law on June 16, 2021, and the Legislature provided a future effective date: “This act shall take effect July 1, 2021.” Ch. 2021-99, § 27, Laws of Fla. At no point, either in the text of the 2021 amendment or in the Chapter Law enacting the amendment, does the Legislature state the amendment will take effect retroactively. We acknowledge that the “presumption in favor of prospective application generally does not apply to ‘remedial’ legislation; rather, whenever possible, such legislation should be applied to pending cases in order to fully effectuate the legislation’s intended purpose.” Smiley v. State, 966 So. 2d 330, 334 (Fla. 2007) (quoting Arrow Air, Inc. v. Walsh, 645 So. 2d 422, 424 (Fla. 1994)). But, such statutes are recognized as remedial 7 because they relate only “to remedies or modes of procedure, which do not create new or take away vested rights, but only operate in furtherance of the remedy or confirmation of rights already existing[.]” Smiley, 966 So. 2d at 334 (quoting City of Lakeland v. Catinella, 129 So. 2d 133, 136 (Fla. 1961)). At no point, does the Legislature characterize the amendment as remedial or as a clarification of existing law. Instead, as mentioned above, the 2021 amendment substantively impacts the rights of owners, heirs, and creditors in terms of forced sale and the rights of owners, spouses, and minor children of owners in terms of devise. Finally, we recognize authority exists for the “recent controversy rule” of interpretation: “When . . . an amendment to a statute is enacted soon after controversies as to the interpretation of the original act arise, a court may consider that amendment as a legislative interpretation of the original law and not as a substantive change thereof.” Lowry v. Parole & Prob. Comm’n, 473 So. 2d 1248, 1250 (Fla. 1985). The sequence of events involving the issuance of our prior opinion that recognizes this area of the law might be in flux, our certification to the Supreme Court, the Supreme Court taking jurisdiction, the Legislature enacting the 2021 amendment directly addressing the issue, and the Supreme Court discharging its jurisdiction, admittedly move this case towards the ambit of this rule. However, the 8 validity of this rule of interpretation has been called into question by the Supreme Court and has been rejected by the Second District. See Ham v. Portfolio Recovery Assocs., LLC, 308 So. 3d 942, 946-47 (Fla. 2020); Conage v. United States, 346 So. 3d 594, 598-99 (Fla. 2022); State v. Crose, 378 So. 3d 1217, 1244-45 (Fla. 2d DCA 2024) (en banc). In any event, its application to these facts does not change the result given the substantive nature of the rights at issue, the Legislature’s directive that the amendment have a future effective date, and the absence of any indication the Legislature viewed the amendment as remedial or serving only as a clarification. Affirmed. 9