Estate Planning Attorney for Jupiter, 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. If you bank there, the Seacoast Bank branch at 585 West Indiantown Road, which the bank describes as just west of the Clock Tower at Military Trail and Indiantown Road, lists notary service and is about 6 minutes on foot from Town Hall, so call ahead. Bring the complete, unsigned original and a government photo ID, along with your two witnesses.

If you are recording a deed yourself, the Clerk checks it against a posted list. Every deed notarized in Florida must show each witness’s name and address, the first page needs a blank three-inch square in the top right corner for the recording stamp, with a one-by-three-inch space on each page after, and a deed that affects real property needs a “prepared by” statement. A deed sent by mail needs a self-addressed stamped envelope, and payment by mail cannot be cash. When we draft your deed, those are handled.

If you have business at Town Hall, 210 Military Trail, hot coffee is about 10 minutes away on foot at I Need Coffee, 711 West Indiantown Road, Suite B3, an independent coffee shop open every day from 7 a.m. to 3 p.m. whose menu includes Haitian coffee, at 561-401-9092. For lunch, Koon Manee Thai and Sushi at 17370 Alternate A1A, about 19 minutes on foot, serves lunch weekdays from 11:30 a.m. to 2:30 p.m., at (561) 747-2836. The Jupiter Post Office at 1095 Military Trail, about 17 minutes on foot, is open weekdays from 8:30 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. and Saturday from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.

For a quiet stop on the water afterward, the Town’s Sawfish Bay Park at 1133 North Alternate A1A has 2.5 acres on the Intracoastal Waterway, with a boardwalk, a fishing pier, picnic pavilions and restrooms. The park is about 32 minutes on foot from Town Hall, so it is an easy drive instead.

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

In Palm Beach County, deeds are recorded by the Recording Department of the Clerk of the Circuit Court and Comptroller, where Shannon Ramsey-Chessman serves as Clerk Ad Interim. The Clerk has no office in Jupiter. The nearest counter that records deeds is the North County Courthouse, 3188 PGA Boulevard in Palm Beach Gardens, open Monday through Friday from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. The Clerk lists recording of documents among the services there, and deeds are not on the short list of documents that only the Main Courthouse in West Palm Beach will take. The same courthouse also takes probate cases, and the Clerk posts its wait times online.

To drive there, the Clerk says to leave I-95 heading east on PGA Boulevard and turn right onto Campus Drive, with the courthouse on your right and free parking behind it. The recording line is not listed separately for the branch, so questions go to the Recording Department at (561) 355-2991.

You will not need to make that drive. We record your deed electronically through Simplifile, which is on the Clerk’s own list of eRecording vendors, so the signed deed never travels by mail. The Clerk’s eRecording page says electronic submission reduces the time gap for recording, and it also says plainly that a mailed original comes back to the sender without a recording stamp. 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 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 Dorothy Jacks, the Palm Beach County Property Appraiser. The appraiser’s North County Service Center is in the same building as the Clerk’s North County counter, on the second floor at 3188 PGA Boulevard in Palm Beach Gardens, at 561.624.6521, open weekdays from 8:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. Exemption questions also go to 561.355.2866 or [email protected]. You can file online, at any of the appraiser’s five service centers, or by mail. You must qualify on January 1 and file by March 1, and the appraiser takes late applications in person at a branch until mid-September.

Once you qualify, the exemption renews itself, and each December the appraiser mails a pink and white receipt card. The appraiser asks owners to call when ownership changes by sale, marriage, divorce or death, and its homestead page says Florida law requires a new application when you change the manner in which title is held on your existing homestead. Before we record, ask us whether your lady bird deed calls for one, and we will check it with the appraiser’s exemptions staff.

If your home is going into a trust instead of a lady bird deed, the appraiser does not want the trust agreement. The appraiser asks instead for a Certificate of Trust, sent to [email protected] or mailed to Exemption Services at 301 North Olive Avenue in West Palm Beach.

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 Palm Beach 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 Department of Health issues certified death certificates in Palm Beach County at three offices, and the one nearest Jupiter is the Main Office at 800 Clematis Street in downtown West Palm Beach, weekdays from 8 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. (closing at 2 p.m. on the first Thursday of each month), for $15 a copy. Vital Statistics answers at 561-837-5847, and the office issues certificates for Florida deaths from 2009 on. 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 look it up by your name and open the recorded image. Images there go back to January 1, 1968, so the deed you received when you bought a Jupiter home is usually in the same place.

Uncertified, watermarked copies are free to view, save and print from the Clerk’s website. For a paper copy in Jupiter, the Jupiter Branch of the Palm Beach County Library System at 705 Military Trail, about 10 minutes on foot from Town Hall, prints black and white copies for 25 cents a page and color for 50 cents, and the copiers also scan to email. The library’s machines take cash only, and no bill larger than $5. The branch answers at (561) 744-2301.

If a bank or title company asks for a certified copy, the Clerk charges $1 a page plus $2 to certify it at the North County counter, or $8 per document for an electronically certified copy ordered online, which downloads right after purchase.

Then take two minutes to sign up for the Clerk’s free Property Fraud Alert. The Clerk emails you within 24 hours when a document is recorded that exactly matches the name, address or parcel number you registered. Because the match has to be exact, the Clerk asks you to register every variation of your name and address, each owner separately, and a trust as a business name ending in the word Trust.

The landmark every Jupiter owner knows is the Jupiter Inlet Lighthouse, a short drive from Town Hall at 500 Captain Armour’s Way. The museum’s own history says the 108-foot tower was first lit on July 10, 1860, went dark through the Civil War after an assistant keeper and local Confederate sympathizers disabled it, and was relit on June 28, 1866. Captain Armour’s Way is named for James Armour, who kept the light for 40 years until 1906. Admission is Tuesday through Sunday from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.

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 Palm Beach County Property Appraiser lists an additional $5,000 exemption for a veteran with a service-connected disability of 10 percent or more, a total exemption for a veteran whose total and permanent disability is service-connected, and a discount for a veteran 65 or older whose disability is combat-related. The appraiser verifies each VA letter with the local VA office before approving it, and a surviving spouse can keep some of these exemptions.

For help with the paperwork, the Property Appraiser points veterans to the Palm Beach County Veteran Services office at 561.355.4761. The exemption forms themselves can be filed at the appraiser’s North County Service Center on PGA Boulevard.

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. The driver license office nearest Jupiter is a few steps from the North County Courthouse, at 3185 PGA Boulevard in Palm Beach Gardens, at 561-355-2264. The Tax Collector runs it, serves Palm Beach County residents only, and sees customers by reservation, with driver license service weekdays from 8:15 a.m. to 4:30 p.m.