Estate Planning Attorney for Hollywood, 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 near City Hall. South Florida Mobile Notary & Apostille Service is at 2719 Hollywood Boulevard, across the street, and The UPS Store at 4302 Hollywood Boulevard also notarizes. If you are signing from another country, the apostille desk at that Hollywood Boulevard office is worth knowing about.

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.

City Hall stands on one of the circles in Hollywood’s original town plan. Joseph Wesley Young, who founded Hollywood and saw it incorporated on November 28, 1925, laid three large circles along his main boulevard. The one that holds City Hall was first named City Hall Circle and later renamed Watson Circle, and the ten-acre park first called Harding Circle is now ArtsPark at Young Circle, named for him and dedicated as an arts park in March 2007.

If your errands take you downtown, the city’s Van Buren Garage at 251 South 20th Avenue charges $1 an hour Monday through Thursday and $2 an hour Friday through Sunday, about 20 minutes on foot from City Hall, and the University Station Garage at 2031 Polk Street charges non-residents $2 an hour, about 19 minutes on foot. The Hollywood Post Office at 1801 Polk Street keeps its window open weekdays from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. and Saturday from 8:30 a.m. to 1 p.m., about 23 minutes on foot. For a quick lunch to take home, the Publix at 1740 Polk Street is steps from ArtsPark at Young Circle, about 25 minutes on foot.

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 in Room 114 of the Broward County Governmental Center, 115 South Andrews Avenue in Fort Lauderdale, open 8:30 a.m. to 5 p.m., at 954-831-4000 and [email protected].

You will not need to go. We record your deed electronically through Simplifile, which is 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 mail pile.

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 come to Hollywood this fall, with appointments at web.bcpa.net/ExemptionsExpress.

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.

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. Certified death certificates can be picked up in Hollywood itself, at the Department of Health’s South Regional Health Center, 4105 Pembroke Road, weekdays from 8 a.m. to 4:30 p.m., for $15 a copy. We prepare and record the rest.

We send you the recorded deed as soon as Broward returns it. It 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, or have it printed downtown at Printing Planet, 2000 Harrison Street, Suite 4, with Mystic Coffee in the same building if you want a hot coffee while you wait. The building is about 18 minutes on foot from City Hall.

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

Then take two minutes to sign up for Broward’s free Recording Notification Service. It emails you whenever a document is recorded in your name, 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 or addition raises a question, a licensed surveyor can check it. Gibbs Land Surveyors is downtown at 2131 Hollywood Boulevard, Suite 204, 954-923-7666. 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, and one of its service locations is in Hollywood, at the South Regional Courthouse, 3550 Hollywood Boulevard. Visits are by appointment at 954-357-6622, and the Veteran Services Officers are veterans themselves. The same number handles requests for a copy of your discharge papers, if the Property Appraiser or the VA asks for them, and 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 Hollywood is at 8001 Pembroke Road in Pembroke Pines, 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. The office at 3387 Sheridan Street in Hollywood handles motor vehicle services only, so a license name change has to go to Pembroke Road.