Estate Planning Attorney for Clearwater, Florida

A Florida trust that leaves your home or savings to someone at your death has to be signed the way a will is signed, with two witnesses who watch you sign and a notary. Florida law voids the parts of a trust that pass property at death when they are signed without those formalities, and Florida courts have thrown out trust amendments that carried one witness instead of two. We run the signing with our own witnesses and notary, by video or in person. If you would rather sign locally, these are the places nearby.

A Florida deed needs two witnesses and a notary. We set up the signing for you by video, or you can sign in person. The UPS Store #4344 at 611 South Fort Harrison Avenue lists a commissioned notary public, with notary hours matching the store’s seven days a week. Call ahead at (727) 446-3993 so a notary is on duty when you arrive.

Florida law will not let the Clerk record a deed unless it prints the name and post office address of each witness, the name and address of the person who prepared it, and leaves a blank space three inches square in the top right corner of the first page for the Clerk. When we draft your deed, those details are on it.

If you are at the courthouse on Court Street anyway, the errands line up along Fort Harrison Avenue to the south. Chase has its Clearwater Downtown branch at 511 South Fort Harrison Avenue, about 4 minutes on foot, which helps if you bank there and need a cashier’s check. Publix at the Harbor Oaks Shopping Center, 619 South Fort Harrison Avenue, is open every day from 7 a.m. to 10 p.m. for a sandwich or groceries, about 6 minutes away.

For a sit-down lunch, Chiang Mai Thai and Sushi Bar at 415 Cleveland Street, a family restaurant that has served downtown Clearwater for more than a decade, opens for lunch weekdays from 11:30 a.m. to 3 p.m., about 9 minutes on foot. The Cleveland Street post office at 650 Cleveland Street is about 12 minutes away and is open weekdays from 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m.

When the day is done, Coachman Park, in the heart of downtown Clearwater, is about 10 minutes on foot. The city’s park has green lawns, a playground and The BayCare Sound music venue, and makes a quiet place to sit a minute before the drive home.

For a hot breakfast before the courthouse, Emily’s Downtown Clearwater at 101 South Garden Avenue serves breakfast and lunch Monday through Saturday from 7 a.m. to 2 p.m., about 9 minutes on foot, at (727) 443-4600.

Putting your home into the trust means recording a new deed, from you to yourself as trustee, in Pinellas County’s official records. The trust deed is recorded at the same office, and in the same way, as any other deed.

Every deed in Pinellas County is recorded by the office of Ken Burke, the Clerk of the Circuit Court and Comptroller, which keeps the county’s Official Records. The Property Appraiser says so plainly on its own site and sends questions about a recorded document to the Clerk at (727) 464-7000. The Clerk serves the county from the courthouse at 315 Court Street downtown as well as from a branch in St. Petersburg.

You will not need to go to the courthouse. We record your deed electronically, so the signed deed never has to travel by mail. Florida law sets the recording fee for every county at $10 for the first page and $8.50 for each page after, so a two-page deed costs $18.50 to record.

A home held in your revocable trust keeps its homestead exemption when the trust gives you a lifetime interest in the home, which is how we draft it. The Property Appraiser still asks for proof of the trust, and each county asks for something slightly different, so here is what this one wants.

Homestead is handled by Mike Twitty, the Pinellas County Property Appraiser, and one of his offices is in the same courthouse, on the second floor at 315 Court Street. A second Clearwater office is at Northside Square, 29269 US Highway 19 North, and there are more in St. Petersburg and beside the Tax Collector at 13025 Starkey Road in Largo. All answer at (727) 464-3207, weekdays from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m., and exemption questions also go through the office’s online form.

You must own the home and make it your permanent residence on January 1, and the application is due by March 1. You can file online or at any of the offices. The Property Appraiser puts the exemption at up to $51,411 off the assessed value, with the first $25,000 fully exempt.

The Pinellas Property Appraiser answers the lady bird question in its own FAQ. A deed in which you keep a life estate or an enhanced life estate, which is what a lady bird deed does, does not adjust your Save Our Homes cap, because you keep the title the exemption needs. The same FAQ adds that the people named to receive the house do not inherit your capped value when you die. The homestead page also says an exemption ends when ownership changes in any manner, so we tell you whether your deed needs a new application, and the exemptions staff can confirm it before March 1.

If your home is in a trust, the Property Appraiser lists three conditions for keeping the exemption and the cap, namely that you are a trustee or beneficiary, that you have the right to live there, and that the deed into the trust is recorded.

After your death your successor trustee steps in without a court. Within 60 days the trustee must tell the beneficiaries the trust exists, and Florida law requires a notice of trust to be filed with the court in Pinellas County. To sell or transfer the house, the trustee signs a deed as trustee and gives the title company a certification of trust instead of the whole trust.

After you die, the house is already your family’s. To show that in the record, they record a certified copy of your death certificate and an affidavit, and then a title company can insure a sale. The Florida Department of Health in Pinellas County issues certified death certificates at its Mid-County office, 8751 Ulmerton Road in Largo, weekdays from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m., for $9 a copy. Vital Statistics answers at 727-507-4330, extension 6316. The office issues certificates for Florida deaths from 2009 on, every request needs a photo ID, and the cause of death is released only to family or a legal representative.

The Property Appraiser also asks the family to tell its office about the death, with the death certificate, through the Change Mailing Address tool on the property’s page at pcpao.gov. Notice matters most when a sole owner had the homestead exemption, because the new owner has to act to avoid a lien for an exemption that no longer applies. We prepare and record the rest.

We send you the recorded deed as soon as the Clerk returns it. The deed also appears in the Clerk’s official records search, where you can look it up by your name. Search the Clerk first. The Property Appraiser says a newly recorded deed can take four to six weeks to show on its own site, pcpao.gov, where each parcel page links to its last recorded deed.

For a paper copy for the file drawer, print it at home, or take it to The UPS Store #4344 at 611 South Fort Harrison Avenue, which offers printing and copies about 5 minutes on foot from the courthouse. The store is open weekdays from 8 a.m. to 6:30 p.m., Saturday from 9:30 a.m. to 3 p.m. and Sunday from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m., at (727) 446-3993.

If a bank or title company asks for a certified copy, Florida law sets the Clerk’s charge at $1 a page for the copy and $2 a page to certify it.

Then take two minutes to sign up for the Clerk’s free Property Fraud Alert. Pinellas County describes the service as notifying you by phone or email of any document recorded against your property in the Official Records. Watching the records for your name is the simplest guard there is against someone recording a false deed on your house.

A second place to print is the Clearwater Main Library at 100 North Osceola Avenue, about 11 minutes on foot from the courthouse. Black and white prints are 15 cents a page, and you can send a document from your phone before you arrive through the library’s Princh service, using printer ID 107373, then pay and collect it at the release station. The library is open Monday to Wednesday from 10 a.m. to 7 p.m., Thursday to 6 p.m. and Friday to 5 p.m., and closed on weekends. City Council meets in the library while the new City Hall at 200 South Myrtle Avenue is finished, so the library closes at 5 p.m. on council meeting days.

Downtown Clearwater parking is paid only on weekdays from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m., and free at other times unless a sign says otherwise. The city posts street parking at $1 an hour with a five-hour limit, and its public lots at 75 cents an hour with no time limit, payable through the ParkMobile app. The city’s own waterfront lot at Coachman Park is priced separately, at $2.25 an hour every day from 6 a.m. to 6 p.m.

The courthouse you are parking for has a history of its own. Pinellas County’s list of places on the National Register of Historic Places includes the old Pinellas County Courthouse at 315 Court Street, a Classical Revival building by architect Francis J. Kennard, added to the Register in 1992. The Cleveland Street Post Office, where the errands above end, has been on the same Register since 1980.

A disabled veteran may qualify for more than the basic homestead exemption, and the Pinellas Property Appraiser lists each benefit with the proof it wants. A veteran with a service-connected disability of 10 percent or more receives a $5,000 exemption on top of homestead, proved with a letter or certificate from the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs. An honorably discharged veteran with a service-connected total and permanent disability owes no property tax on the homestead, and a veteran 65 or older whose disability is partly combat related receives a discount on the tax bill equal to the disability rating. The Property Appraiser says to apply as soon as you believe you qualify, because once the VA letter arrives the exemption dates back to your application and excess taxes can be refunded for up to four years.

Pinellas County Veterans Services has its Clearwater office at 2189 Cleveland Street, Suite 263, a short drive east of downtown. Call (727) 464-8460 for an appointment, or TDD (727) 464-4388. The same office helps with a duplicate DD-214 or a combat disability letter when the Property Appraiser asks for one.

Marriage or divorce often leaves a home titled in a name you no longer use. We write the new deed with both names, the name on your old deed and your name today, so the record connects them and a future title search does not stall on the difference.

In Pinellas County, driver licenses are issued by the Tax Collector, and every name change on a license must be made in person. Change your name with Social Security first. The Tax Collector says you can come in 24 hours after that, and the state asks you to allow 24 to 48 hours. Bring a U.S. passport in your new name, or an original or certified copy of each marriage certificate, divorce decree or court order that links your birth name to your name today. A church marriage document is not accepted.

The Tax Collector’s Gulf to Bay office at 1663 Gulf to Bay Boulevard is the closest to downtown, a short drive from the courthouse, and the North County office is at 29399 US Highway 19 North, Suite 100, behind the Olive Garden. Both issue driver licenses and are open Monday, Tuesday, Thursday and Friday from 8 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. and Wednesday from 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Appointments are encouraged and served first, in-person service is limited to Pinellas residents and property owners, and questions go to 727-464-7777.