Spring Boot Date conversion from Form

I'm having a few issues with getting a date from a controller because I don't understand what's the right format for it to work.

Controller:

@RequestMapping(value = "/findFlights", method = RequestMethod.POST)
    public String findFlights(@RequestParam("from") String from, @RequestParam("to") String to,
            @RequestParam("departureDate") @DateTimeFormat(pattern = "YYYY-MM-DD") LocalDate departureDate, Model model) {}

Form:

<form th:action="@{/findFlights}" method="POST">
        From:<input type="text" name="from" required/>
        To:<input type="text" name="to" required/>
        Departure Date:<input type="date" name="departureDate"  required />
        <input type="submit" value="Search"/>
</form>

When I submit the form it always gives me an error no matter what the format of the date is :( Here is the error:

Failed to convert value of type 'java.lang.String' to required type 'java.time.LocalDate'; nested exception is org.springframework.core.convert.ConversionFailedException: Failed to convert from type [java.lang.String] to type [@org.springframework.web.bind.annotation.RequestParam @org.springframework.format.annotation.DateTimeFormat java.time.LocalDate] for value '2018-11-05'; nested exception is java.lang.IllegalArgumentException: Parse attempt failed for value [2018-11-05]

If I specify the @DateTimeFormat annotation I thought that the conversion would be done automatically.