Estate Planning Attorney for Destin, 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, so you can sign from your own kitchen table. If you would rather sign in person, The UPS Store #1229 at 771 Harbor Boulevard in Destin lists notary service seven days a week, at (850) 654-5774. Call ahead to confirm when a notary is in.

The Okaloosa Clerk publishes its own short list of what a deed needs before it will record. The deed carries a preparation statement with the name and address of the person who prepared it, the names and mailing addresses of the grantor and the grantee, each signer’s name printed or typed beneath the signature, and the signatures of two witnesses and a notary. When we draft your deed, all of that is on it.

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

Destin has no recording office of its own. In Okaloosa County, deeds are recorded in the Official Records of Brad E. Embry, the Clerk of the Circuit Court and Comptroller, and the Clerk takes deeds for recording at two offices, the Okaloosa County Courthouse at 101 East James Lee Boulevard in Crestview and the Courthouse Annex Extension at 1940 Lewis Turner Boulevard in Fort Walton Beach. The annex is the office closer to Destin, about 11 miles west of Destin City Hall in a straight line, while Crestview sits about 26 miles to the north. Both offices are open weekdays from 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Central time, an hour behind Miami. Customer Service answers at (850) 651-7200, option 4, for the annex and (850) 689-5000, option 4, for Crestview.

You will not need to make either drive. We record your deed electronically through Simplifile, which the Clerk lists by name among its e-recording vendors, so the deed never has to travel by mail. The Clerk posts the recording fee as $10 for the first page and $8.50 for each page after, so a two-page deed records for $18.50, and up to four names are indexed at no charge. Anyone recording by mail has to enclose a self-addressed, stamped envelope, and the Clerk does not accept personal checks.

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 the Okaloosa County Property Appraiser, not by the Clerk or the City of Destin. Florida’s rules are the same in every county. You must own the home and make it your permanent residence by January 1, and the application, Form DR-501, goes to the Property Appraiser by March 1 of that tax year. The exemption can take up to $50,000 off the home’s taxable value and brings the Save Our Homes cap on yearly increases in assessed value.

Check the Property Appraiser’s website for its offices, hours and online filing before you go, and ask whether a lady bird deed needs a new application. The state’s homestead guide says the Property Appraiser may ask whose names were on the title on January 1, so the question is worth a phone call after your deed records.

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 Okaloosa 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 Okaloosa County issues certified death certificates from its office at 221 Hospital Drive NE in Fort Walton Beach, weekdays from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m., closed daily from 12:30 to 1:30 p.m. for lunch, at (850) 833-9255. Each copy costs $15. 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. 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 search by name, book and page, or legal description. The online index runs from January 1, 1983 to the present, and an Alpha Index tab on the same page gives the book and page for older deeds, which you then open from the main search.

A copy printed at home is fine for the file drawer. If you would rather have it printed, The UPS Store #1229 at 771 Harbor Boulevard, Suite 400, in Destin lists printing and copying, at (850) 654-5774, a short drive from City Hall toward the harbor.

If a bank or title company asks for a certified copy, the Clerk’s fee schedule lists $1 a page for a copy and $2 to certify it. You can buy an electronically certified copy through the Clerk’s E-Certify page, or email a request to [email protected] and the Clerk replies with the cost and instructions.

The Okaloosa Clerk’s website did not list a free property fraud alert when we checked on September 29, 2026, so the simple habit is to search your own name in the official records now and then. A new deed on your house that you did not sign is the thing to look for.

Some Destin families pass through the Courthouse Annex Extension for another reason, often a probate matter, because the county’s probate judge sits there. The building has free parking in front and on both sides, with accessible spaces on all three sides. The Clerk’s website also offers a Make an Appointment link and a remote queue, so you can hold your place in line before you leave home.

Little is within walking distance of the annex. For lunch, Task Force Pizza at 1826 Lewis Turner Boulevard is about 10 minutes on foot, a veteran-owned shop open every day from 11 a.m. to 9 p.m. with a daily lunch buffet of pizza and a salad bar. The bank branches along Racetrack Road, PNC, Truist and Wells Fargo among them, are a short drive rather than a walk, and worth a stop if you bank there and need a cashier’s check.

Back in Destin, Hancock Whitney’s Destin branch at 14075 Emerald Coast Parkway is about 9 minutes on foot from City Hall at 4200 Indian Bayou Trail. The Destin post office at 175 Main Street keeps its window open weekdays from 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. and Saturday from 9 a.m. to noon, a short drive from City Hall.

For printing or a notary in Destin itself, the city’s Destin Library at 150 Sibert Avenue, a short drive from City Hall, prints and copies for 15 cents a black and white page and 25 cents in color, faxes for $1 a local page, and offers free notary service when a staff notary is available, so call 850-837-8572 before you go. The library is open Monday from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., Tuesday and Thursday until 8 p.m., Wednesday from 1 to 5 p.m., Friday until 6 p.m. and Saturday from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m., and printers shut down 15 minutes before closing. For a deed, bring your own two witnesses.

When the errands are done, Henderson Beach State Park at 17000 Emerald Coast Parkway is about 17 minutes on foot from City Hall, a protected stretch of shore backed by 30-foot white sand dunes, open from 8 a.m. to sunset for $6 a vehicle. Since May 15, 2026 every visitor needs a day-use reservation to enter, so book it before you go.

A disabled veteran may qualify for more than the basic homestead exemption, and the proof is a letter from the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs. The Florida Department of Revenue’s guide for veterans lists a $5,000 reduction for an honorably discharged veteran disabled 10 percent or more, a total exemption on the homestead for a veteran with a service-connected total and permanent disability, and a discount for a veteran 65 or older with a permanent, service-connected disability, equal to the disability percentage. A surviving spouse can carry some of these over, and the discount carries over only if the spouse holds legal or beneficial title and lives in the home, so we draft a married veteran’s deed with that in mind. The guide adds that a veteran may apply before the VA letter arrives, and the exemption then dates back to the application. Each is filed with the Okaloosa County Property Appraiser.

Okaloosa County Veterans Services helps with the paperwork at its office in Shalimar, Suite 302 on the third floor of 1250 North Eglin Parkway, open weekdays from 8 a.m. to noon and 1 to 5 p.m., at (850) 651-7258. A second office in Crestview, at 302 North Wilson Street, Suite 301, is open Tuesdays and Fridays at (850) 689-5922.

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.

Your driver license should match as well. The Florida Department of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles requires every name change on a license to be made in person at a local office, and only after the Social Security Administration has updated your name, allowing 24 to 48 hours after that. Destin has its own office, the Okaloosa County Tax Collector at 4012 Commons Drive West, Unit 122, about 7 minutes on foot from City Hall, with driver license service weekdays from 8:30 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. Central time, at 850-651-7300. The Tax Collector offers every driver license service by appointment only, and for a name change asks for the original or a certified copy of every marriage certificate or court order that shows it, because an uncertified photocopy is not accepted.