It may not have been subject to a loan since it was only quit claimed. The lender, if one was involved, would have had to sign off on the transfer and a lot of times they won’t do that on just a quit claim deed (they’ll require a general warranty deed because of the potential liability in the chain of title). You are absolutely correct on the 10.00 though—that has nothing to do with the sales price. However, if it’s revealed eventually that this was a huge plot and he transferred it in order to avoid pending litigation then it may be deemed a fraudulent transfer—depending on what Florida law says, and I have no idea what it does say. For instance if he was planning on filing for bankruptcy and transferred the property like that, the bankruptcy court would void the transfer. Anyway you slice it, it’s fishy.
All a quit claim deed does is convey any interest the “owner” may have. It comes without warranties of any kind. I can give you a quitclaim deed to a bridge. All that does is give you any interest I may have in the bridge, which may be no interest whatsoever.
Whether a warranty or quitclaim is used, the lender does not have to sign off on it to have a valid transfer. The remedy for the lender, if they had a due on sale clause in the note and trust deed, is to call the loan due and foreclose. They don’t always do that.
You are correct that a transfer in contemplation of bankruptcy can cause the transfer to be voided. I do not know about Florida law and whether there was any litigation. Even if there were litigation, if the property was not the subject of the lawsuit, he would probably have been able to transfer the house. If there was pending litigation, unless there was a pre-judgment attachment, there would not be a problem with the transfer.
For the record, I taught California RE Law and Econ in college for 10 years.