Estate Planning Attorney for Gainesville, 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 downtown, Radiant Credit Union’s Downtown branch at 405 SE 2nd Place, about 6 minutes on foot from the courthouse, lists notary services, which helps if you bank there. The lobby is open Monday to Friday from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., at 352-381-5200, and the branch has a walk-up ATM.

The Alachua Clerk publishes a checklist to review before any deed is recorded. Each grantor and grantee needs a printed name and mailing address, the legal description must be complete, both witnesses need their printed names and addresses under their signatures, the notary’s acknowledgment must be complete with seal and commission date, and a real estate deed must say on its face who prepared it, with that person’s name and address. When we draft your deed, every item on the list is there.

If you do come downtown, the Family and Civil Justice Center’s main entrance is on its west side, facing the Downtown Community Plaza. The Clerk says the Downtown Parking Garage sits directly south of the building. City meters in the downtown core cost 50 cents an hour with a two-hour limit, enforced weekdays from 10 a.m. to 8 p.m., and the city’s SW Downtown Parking Garage at 105 SW 3rd Street charges 50 cents an hour up to $4 for the day.

For hot coffee, Wyatt’s Coffee is about 3 minutes on foot at 202 SE 2nd Avenue, open every day from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m., at 352-519-5818. For a sandwich, The Paper Bag deli is about 3 minutes away at 11 SE 1st Avenue, open Monday to Thursday and on weekends from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. and Friday from 10 a.m. to 8 p.m., at 352-554-6109.

For mail, the Main Street Post Office at 1401 North Main Street is about 23 minutes on foot, so most people drive. Business hours are Monday to Friday from 8:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. and Saturday from 8:30 a.m. to 10:30 a.m., at 352-271-6392.

When the errands are done, Bo Diddley Plaza is a minute’s walk from the courthouse door, at 111 East University Avenue. The city renamed the plaza in 2008 for Bo Diddley, the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame singer, guitarist and songwriter the city calls a local treasure, and its covered stage holds the free Friday concerts. Next door to the east, the Headquarters Library carries its own history. Gainesville’s library moved to 419 East University Avenue in 1918 with a $10,000 gift from the Carnegie Corporation, and after several moves it settled back on the same stretch of the avenue in 1991, beside the Sweetwater Branch Creek that runs behind it.

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

In Alachua County, deeds are recorded by the Official Records Department of the Clerk of the Court and Comptroller, J.K. "Jess" Irby, Esq. The Clerk is the County Recorder, and the recording counter is on the 1st floor of the Alachua County Family and Civil Justice Center at 201 East University Avenue in downtown Gainesville, open Monday to Friday from 8:15 a.m. to 5 p.m. with no appointment needed. Recording and Official Records answers at 352-374-3625, and the Clerk’s office takes email at [email protected].

You will not need to come downtown. We record your deed electronically through Simplifile, one of the five e-recording vendors the Alachua Clerk lists by name. The Clerk is candid that e-recorded documents are processed through the day, and that one sent late in the afternoon may not reach the Official Records until the next business day, so we send yours early. A paper deed mailed in without a stamped return envelope is held for one year and then disposed of, which is one more reason we handle the recording for you.

The Clerk posts the recording fee as $10 for the first page and $8.50 for each page after, so a two-page deed costs $18.50 to record. A $1 indexing fee applies for each name over four.

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 Ayesha Solomon, CFA, the Alachua County Property Appraiser, whose main office is at 515 North Main Street, Suite 200, about 9 minutes on foot from the courthouse. The office is open weekdays from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m., and the exemptions line is 352-374-5230, option 4, with email at [email protected]. A second office sits in the Swick House at 15010 NW 142 Terrace in the city of Alachua, open Monday to Thursday from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m., at 386-418-6157.

You must hold title and live in the home as your permanent residence on January 1, and the timely filing season runs from October 1 to March 1. The application is form DR-501. The Property Appraiser’s online homestead filing is marked currently disabled, so file by appointment at either office, by mail to Attn. Exemptions at the Main Street address, or through the green drop box outside the main office or the drop box on its second floor.

The Property Appraiser lists a change in ownership among the events that can lead to a homestead reassessment. A lady bird deed is written to keep your homestead in place, but once yours records, call the exemptions line and ask whether a lady bird deed needs a new application in your file, so nothing lapses by surprise.

The Property Appraiser has its own reason to care about planning like this. The office counts about $550 million of Alachua County property value at risk of going through probate, and it holds Probate and Estate Planning Summits around the county to help families avoid it.

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 Alachua 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 Alachua County issues death certificates at its main office, 224 SE 24th Street, a short drive east of downtown and next door to Veteran Services. The certificate window is open Monday to Friday from 8 a.m. to 4:30 p.m., the phone is 352-334-7900, and each copy costs $10. The office issues certificates for Florida deaths from 2009 on, and the cause of death is released only to family or a legal representative, with a photo ID.

Your family should also tell the Property Appraiser. An exemption belongs to the person who received it, and the Property Appraiser warns that one left running in a deceased owner’s name can become a tax lien reaching back up to ten years, with a 50 percent penalty and 15 percent interest a year. The office runs an Heirs Relief Program that waives the penalty and interest for families who come forward on their own, and its published example took $12,263.14 off a $22,422.66 lien. We make that call part of the paperwork, so it does not wait twenty years.

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 type your last name, a space, and your first name. The online index runs from August 21, 1971 to the present. Deeds from 1928 to 1971 sit in separate index books the Clerk has posted online, and the Clerk is still imaging the oldest record books, so an older deed on the same house may need a call to the Clerk’s Research Department.

For a paper copy, the Alachua County Library District’s Headquarters Library at 401 East University Avenue is directly east of the courthouse, about 3 minutes on foot. Printing there costs 10 cents a page in black and white and $1 a page in color, and you can email the file to the library’s print station from home and pick it up the same day. The library is open Monday and Friday from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m., Tuesday to Thursday from 10 a.m. to 7 p.m., Saturday from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., and Sunday from noon to 5 p.m., at 352-334-3900.

If a bank or title company asks for a certified copy, the Clerk charges $1 a page for the copy and $2 to certify the document, so a certified two-page deed costs $4. The Clerk sells certified copies online through the records search, in person, or by phone with a credit card.

Alachua County gives you two free alerts, and signing up for both takes five minutes. The Clerk’s Recording Notification Service watches up to ten versions of your name for each email address and sends an email whenever a document is recorded under one of them. Under Florida law the names and email addresses you register are protected from public disclosure. The Property Appraiser runs its own Title Alert, built in its own office, which watches a parcel by its Prop ID and tells you by phone call, text, email or mail when the owner of record changes. Anyone can register a parcel, so a grown child can watch a parent’s house too.

The Clerk explains why the alerts matter. The Clerk has no authority to refuse a properly prepared document even if it may be fraudulent, and no document comes off the Official Records without a court order. If an alert ever shows a deed you did not sign, the Clerk directs you to the Alachua County Sheriff’s Office at 352-367-4000 and to your attorney.

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 Alachua County Property Appraiser lists an exemption for a veteran with a service-connected disability of 10 percent or more, which does not require a homestead exemption, and a full exemption on the homestead for a veteran who is totally and permanently disabled from a service-connected cause. A veteran 65 or older whose disability is partly combat-related files form DR-501DV with a DD214 and the VA’s combat rating letter. Each exemption renews automatically, and a surviving spouse can keep the 10 percent and total and permanent exemptions by contacting the Property Appraiser.

Alachua County Veteran Services helps with the VA side, at the John Henry Thomas, M.D. Center, 218 SE 24th Street. The staff are accredited Veteran Service Officers, and visits are by appointment at 352-264-6740 or [email protected].

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 looks for a Florida driver license with your current address when you apply 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 Alachua County Tax Collector runs a driver license and motor vehicle service center downtown at 12 SE First Street, about 2 minutes on foot from the courthouse, open Monday to Friday from 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Appointments are booked online, and the phone is 352-374-5236.

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 or addition raises a question, a licensed surveyor can check it. eda, a Gainesville civil engineering, surveying and planning firm with Professional Surveyors and Mappers on staff, is at 720 SW 2nd Avenue, about 15 minutes on foot from the courthouse, at 352-373-3541. Most deeds never need one.