Estate Planning Attorney for Fort Pierce, 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 at 2301 Okeechobee Road lists notary service and answers at 772-464-3784, so call ahead to make sure a notary is in when your witnesses can come.

If you plan to record a deed yourself, the St. Lucie Clerk checks for a few things first. The present owners sign, two witnesses watch the owner sign, the notary’s seal and commission expiration date appear on the page, and the deed carries the addresses of both the owner and the person receiving the home. When we draft it, those are handled.

Most errands downtown are a short walk from the Clerk’s building. Havana George Cafe, a family-owned Cuban cafe at 100 South 2nd Street, is about two minutes away and serves coffee, pastries and Cuban sandwiches from 8 a.m. to 2 p.m. Monday to Saturday. SouthState Bank has a branch at 200 South Indian River Drive, a one-minute walk across the street, and Wells Fargo’s Fort Pierce main branch at 501 Orange Avenue is about eight minutes on foot, handy for a cashier’s check if you bank at either one. The Orange Avenue Post Office at 1717 Orange Avenue, for certified mail, is about 27 minutes on foot and an easy drive, open weekdays from 8:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. and Saturday from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m.

The Sunrise Theatre at 117 South 2nd Street, about two minutes from the Clerk on foot, is worth a look on the way back to the car. The theatre opened on August 1, 1923 as the largest theatre on Florida’s east coast between Jacksonville and Miami, closed in 1983 as downtown declined, and reopened on January 6, 2006 after a full restoration, owned and run today by the City of Fort Pierce.

For after, the Fort Pierce City Marina, established in 1937 and open to the public in historic downtown, is about eight minutes north on foot. Veterans Memorial Park, at North Indian River Drive and Seaway Drive, is about eleven minutes on foot. On the way, the Manatee Center at 480 North Indian River Drive, about nine minutes from the Clerk, has exhibits on the Indian River Lagoon for $3 a person and is closed Sundays and Mondays, so check its hours before you go. A short drive away on North Hutchinson Island, the National Navy UDT-SEAL Museum at 3300 North Highway A1A stands on the training grounds of the original Naval Combat Demolition Units and Underwater Demolition Teams, the frogmen, and is open Tuesday to Saturday from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. and Sunday from noon to 4 p.m.

Putting your home into the trust means recording a new deed, from you to yourself as trustee, in St. Lucie 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 St. Lucie County is recorded in Fort Pierce. The Clerk’s Main Office Recording Department is on the 4th floor of 201 South Indian River Drive, and it is open Monday to Friday from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. The Clerk’s general line is 772-462-6900, and e-recording questions go to 772-462-6928. The Clerk’s building in Port St. Lucie does not record deeds, so for a Fort Pierce owner the recording desk is right downtown. If you go in person, parking is free in the courthouse parking garage on 2nd Street, which the Clerk also names for its Main Office, and in the city and county public lots. Many downtown street and lot spaces are limited to two hours, and more so during events, so the garage is the safer choice for a longer visit.

You still will not need to go in. We record your deed electronically through Simplifile, which is on the St. Lucie Clerk’s own list of e-recording services. The Clerk accepts a paper deed delivered to the Main Office or mailed to P.O. Box 700 in Fort Pierce, always with a self-addressed, stamped envelope for its return, and an e-recorded deed needs neither the envelope nor the trip. The Clerk posts recording at $10 for the first page and $8.50 for each page after, so a two-page deed costs $18.50 to record, plus documentary stamps where they apply.

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 Michelle Franklin, the St. Lucie County Property Appraiser. The Property Appraiser’s main office is in Fort Pierce at 2300 Virginia Avenue, a short drive from downtown, and it answers at 772-462-1000 and [email protected]. The exemptions line for veteran and first responder questions is 772-462-1021.

The filing deadline is March 1, and you can file online at apps.paslc.gov/homestead. The Property Appraiser says homestead reduces taxable value by up to $51,411. For owners 65 and older, the additional senior exemption requires prior-year household income of no more than $38,686.

The Property Appraiser also warns that a change in title, such as conveying into a trust or adding a spouse, requires a new application, and asks for a copy of the entire trust when a home is titled in one. A lady bird deed changes the title too, so we tell you whether yours needs a fresh application, and the Virginia Avenue office can confirm it.

A surviving spouse should know one more exemption. The Property Appraiser lists a $5,000 widow’s and widower’s exemption for a Florida resident who is widowed as of January 1, filed with a copy of the spouse’s death certificate. A person who remarries does not qualify.

Property tax bills go out on or about November 1. The Tax Collector gives a 4 percent discount for paying in November, and the main line is 772-462-1650.

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 St. Lucie 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 St. Lucie Clerk asks for the same certified death certificate when a married couple owns a home together and one spouse dies, and the Property Appraiser is then notified to show the survivor as the sole owner.

Certified death certificates come from the Department of Health’s main St. Lucie office, which is south of Fort Pierce, in Port St. Lucie at the Port St. Lucie Clinic, 5150 NW Milner Drive. The office also takes requests by mail. Vital Statistics is open Monday to Friday from 8 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. and closes for lunch from noon to 12:30 p.m. Each copy is $17, and a rush order adds $10. The office issues certificates for deaths from 2009 on, asks for photo ID, and gives the cause of death only to family or a legal representative. The clinic’s main line is 772-462-3800. 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, which covers official records from 1980 to the present, so you can look it up by your name. For a paper copy in the file drawer, The UPS Store at 2301 Okeechobee Road prints documents and makes copies, open Monday to Friday from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. and Saturday from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m., a short drive west of downtown.

If a bank or title company asks for a certified copy, the Clerk sells certified official records online through Clerk E-Certify, so you can order one from home.

Then take two minutes to sign up for the Clerk’s free Property Fraud Alert. The service sends an email and a text within 24 hours when a document is recorded in your name, with a link to the recorded document. If an alert ever shows a deed you did not sign, the Clerk’s page lists the Fort Pierce Police Department at 772-461-3820 among the agencies to call, and we can take it from there.

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. Culpepper & Terpening, a Fort Pierce civil engineering and surveying firm that has worked on the Treasure Coast for more than three decades, is at 2980 South 25th Street, 772-464-3537, and takes survey requests through a quote form on its website. Most deeds never need one.

A disabled veteran may qualify for more than the basic homestead exemption. The St. Lucie County Property Appraiser lists a $5,000 exemption for an honorably discharged veteran with a service-connected disability rating of at least 10 percent, proved the first time with a current letter from the Department of Veterans Affairs, and the unremarried surviving spouse of a disabled veteran may also qualify if the couple had been married at least five years. An honorably discharged veteran with a service-connected total and permanent disability may qualify for a full exemption on the homestead. Veteran questions go to the exemptions line at 772-462-1021.

St. Lucie County Veteran Services helps with the VA letter and the rest of the paperwork, free. Its Fort Pierce office is in the Family Success Center at 714 Avenue C, about 15 minutes on foot from the Clerk. Visits are by appointment at 772-337-5670, though the office takes walk-ins for VA 30-day letters and tax and income verification letters. The same office runs a free van to VA appointments at the Thomas H. Corey VA Medical Center in West Palm Beach, with seats reserved at the same number.

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. In Fort Pierce the office is at 2300 Virginia Avenue, the same address as the Property Appraiser’s main office, run by the St. Lucie County Tax Collector. Driver license service runs weekdays from 9 a.m. to 4:30 p.m., and every person who needs service needs an appointment, made at tcslc.com or by calling 772-462-1650.