Estate Planning Attorney for Fort Lauderdale, 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 downtown. The UPS Store at 401 East Las Olas Boulevard, Suite 130, next to the Bank of America tower, lists notary services and is open weekdays 8:30 a.m. to 7 p.m., Saturday 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. and Sunday 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. The store asks you to call ahead at 954-463-0444, because a notary is there only when staffing allows. From the Governmental Center the walk is about 7 minutes, and from the Central Courthouse about 12.

The Recording Office notarizes only its own county forms, such as a Declaration of Domicile, so a deed has to be notarized before it reaches Room 114.

If you are recording a deed yourself, Broward checks it against a list before it will record. Each witness’s printed name and address goes under the signature, the top right corner of the first page needs a three-inch blank square, and the deed needs the parcel number and a “prepared by” line. A deed missing any of these comes back, which in the mail queue can mean weeks. When we draft it, those are handled.

If you drive downtown for the Recording Office or the Property Appraiser, the city’s City Hall Garage at 100 North Andrews Avenue is about 7 minutes on foot from the Governmental Center. The garage is entered from NE 1st Street or NE 2nd Street, east of Andrews Avenue, and charges $4 an hour with a five-hour limit. The city’s Riverwalk Center garage at 150 SE 2nd Street, entered from SE 2nd Avenue, charges $3 an hour.

For hot coffee before or after, Café Bastille at 704 SE 1st Street serves coffee, breakfast and lunch, weekdays from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. and weekends from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m., about 15 minutes on foot. To mail anything, the Alridge Post Office at 400 NW 7th Avenue has its window open weekdays from 9:30 a.m. to 6 p.m., about 19 minutes on foot.

For a quiet ten minutes afterward, Stranahan House sits on the New River at 335 SE 6th Avenue, about 10 minutes on foot. Frank Stranahan, credited as the city’s founding father, built the house in 1901 with his wife Ivy, the area’s first schoolteacher, and over the years it served as a trading post, a post office, the town hall and the Stranahans’ home. The museum calls it the oldest surviving structure in Broward County, and tours run five or six days a week, with the last tour at 3:15 p.m. (954-524-4736).

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

In Broward, deeds are recorded by the county itself, not the Clerk of Courts. The Recording Office of the Records, Taxes and Treasury Division is downtown in Room 114 of the Broward County Governmental Center, 115 South Andrews Avenue, open 8:30 a.m. to 5 p.m., at 954-831-4000 and [email protected]. Broward publishes only that one recording counter, with no branch office.

You will not need to go. We record your deed electronically through Simplifile, which appears under its ICE Mortgage Technology name on Broward’s own list of approved e-recording services. That matters here right now. The county’s status page, updated September 22, 2026, showed it was still working through mailed and courier documents received August 4. An e-recorded deed never joins that pile.

The recording fee Broward posts is $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 Marty Kiar, the Broward County Property Appraiser, whose office is in the same Governmental Center as the Recording Office, in Room 111. The exemptions desk answers at 954-357-6830, weekdays from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. You can file online at bcpa.net, and for 2027 the window runs from March 3, 2026 to March 1, 2027. The Property Appraiser asks for a Florida driver license when you file.

If you would rather sit down with a person, the Property Appraiser’s staff hold walk-up exemption sessions around the county, including one in Fort Lauderdale this fall. Michael Clark at the Property Appraiser’s office coordinates these sessions, at 954-357-5579 and [email protected].

The Broward Property Appraiser answers the lady bird question in its own FAQ. An owner who deeds the future interest in the home to children or others and keeps a life estate keeps the homestead exemption and the existing Save Our Homes value. A lady bird deed keeps that life estate for you. After your death the exemption ends, the home is reassessed at market value the next year, and a family member who moves in files a new homestead application.

If your home is going into a trust instead of a lady bird deed, bring a notarized certificate of trust. The Property Appraiser asks for one before it will keep the exemption on a trust-owned home.

If you ever see a homestead claim on a property that looks wrong, the Property Appraiser runs a Homestead Fraud Hotline at 954-357-6900.

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 Broward 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. Nobody needs to open a probate case at the Central Courthouse on SE 6th Street for the house. We prepare and record the rest.

In Fort Lauderdale, certified death certificates come from the Department of Health’s main Broward office in the Fort Lauderdale Operations Building, 2421A SW 6th Avenue, at 954-467-4413. The office is open Monday from 8 a.m. to 6:30 p.m. and Tuesday through Friday from 8 a.m. to 4:30 p.m., and closes at 3 p.m. on the third Thursday of each month. Each certified copy is $15.

We send you the recorded deed as soon as Broward returns it. The deed also shows up in Broward’s official records search, where you can look it up by your name and open the recorded image. Print it at home for the file drawer. If you are downtown anyway, the Broward County Main Library at 100 South Andrews Avenue, on the same street as the Governmental Center, lets you send a file from your phone or laptop and collect the printout there (954-357-7444). The library is about 3 minutes on foot from the Governmental Center. The UPS Store on Las Olas, about 7 minutes on foot, and FedEx Office at 300 North Federal Highway (954-467-1007), about 18 minutes on foot, also print.

If a bank or title company asks for a certified copy, the Recording Office in Room 114 charges $1 a page plus $2 to certify.

Then take two minutes to sign up for Broward’s free Recording Notification Service. The service emails you whenever a document is recorded under a name or parcel number you are watching, up to 40 of them, which is the simplest protection there is against someone recording a false deed on your house.

We copy the legal description from your last recorded deed, word for word, because that is what the title record already recognizes. If it does not match the lot, or a fence, seawall or addition raises a question, a licensed surveyor can check it. Craven Thompson & Associates at 3563 NW 53rd Street has done surveying in South Florida since 1961, including boundary surveys and water boundary lines, which matters for a home on one of Fort Lauderdale’s canals. The office answers at 954-739-6400. Most deeds never need one.

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 Broward Property Appraiser lists a $5,000 exemption for a veteran with a service-connected disability of at least 10 percent, and a full exemption on the homestead for an honorably discharged veteran with a service-connected total and permanent disability. Each is proved with a certificate or letter from the VA, and surviving spouses of qualifying veterans can keep some of these exemptions.

Broward County Veterans Services helps with the paperwork. The service location closest to downtown Fort Lauderdale is the Central Family Success Center in the Edgar P. Mills Multipurpose Center, 900 NW 31st Avenue, and visits at every location are by appointment at 954-357-6622. The same call starts the county’s free Parks Passport for veterans with a service-related disability, which covers the weekend and holiday entrance fee at Broward County parks for five years.

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, because the Property Appraiser asks for a Florida driver license when you file for homestead. 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. The nearest state driver license office to downtown is at 3718-3 West Oakland Park Boulevard in Lauderdale Lakes, 954-497-1570, open Monday, Tuesday, Thursday and Friday from 7:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. and Wednesday from 8:30 a.m. to 5 p.m., with appointments taken online. The office at 1113 North Federal Highway in Fort Lauderdale handles motor vehicle services only, so a license name change has to go to Oakland Park Boulevard.