Estate Planning Attorney for Kissimmee, 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. The Osceola Clerk spells out what a deed needs before it will record, and our drafts meet every item. The grantor’s signature is notarized with the grantor’s printed name and address under it, and the notary’s name and seal appear. Two witnesses sign, each with a printed name and, since January 1, 2024, a post office address beneath it. The deed carries a complete legal description, the grantee’s mailing address, the preparer’s first and last name and address, and a 3 by 3 inch space at the top right corner left blank for the Clerk. The Clerk rejects photocopied signatures and wants original ink.

If you would rather sign in person downtown, the Clerk’s main office in the courthouse lists a recording notary among the services it offers by appointment, which you can book through the Clerk’s online appointments page. Plan on bringing your own two witnesses. There is one caution that can save you a trip. The Osceola Library System offers free notaries at its branches, but its own notary page says it does not notarize deeds, wills, powers of attorney or mortgage documents.

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

In Osceola County, deeds are recorded by the Clerk of the Circuit Court and County Comptroller, Kelvin Soto, Esq. The Recording Department is on the second floor of the Judge Jon B. Morgan Courthouse, 2 Courthouse Square in downtown Kissimmee. The office is open Monday through Friday from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m., but the Clerk stops recording at 4:30 p.m., and a document that arrives later is recorded the next business day. Recording answers at 407-742-3517, and mail goes to the Osceola Clerk of the Circuit Court and County Comptroller, Attention Recording, at the same address.

You will not need to go downtown. We record your deed electronically through Simplifile, which the Clerk lists by name among its approved eRecording vendors. The posted recording fee is $10 for the first page and $8.50 for each page after, so a two-page deed records for $18.50, and the Clerk adds $1 for each name past the first four. At the counter the Clerk takes cash, a business check, a cashier’s check or a money order, and a credit card carries a 3.5 percent fee. Personal checks are not accepted. The Clerk’s branch office in Poinciana handles criminal and traffic payments only, so the courthouse is the one place in the county that records.

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 Katrina S. Scarborough, the Osceola County Property Appraiser, whose office is at 2505 East Irlo Bronson Memorial Highway in Kissimmee, open weekdays from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. The office answers at 407-742-5000 and takes email at [email protected]. The Property Appraiser lists the full homestead exemption at $51,411 for 2026, which is $25,000 plus $26,411.

You can file for homestead online. You must own the home and make it your permanent residence on January 1, and the timely deadline under Florida law is March 1. The Property Appraiser asks each applicant for a Florida driver license or ID, vehicle registration, voter registration and a recent electric bill, all showing the home’s address.

The Property Appraiser warns that a change in the title, such as putting the home into a trust or adding a spouse, could change or end your exemption, and asks owners to call first. When we record your lady bird deed, ask the office at 407-742-5000 whether it needs a new application. If your home is held in a trust, the office wants a copy of the entire trust or a Certificate of Trust on the office’s own form. A homebound owner can call the same number to arrange a visit from the office’s Homebound Outreach Program.

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 Osceola 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 Osceola Clerk records a Florida death certificate only as a certified copy from the Department of Health with the confidential information left off. A surviving spouse can also apply for the widow’s or widower’s exemption, which the Property Appraiser wants filed by March 1 with a copy of the death certificate.

Certified death certificates come from the Florida Department of Health in Osceola County, 1875 Fortune Road in Kissimmee. Vital Statistics is open weekdays from 8 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. and answers at 407-343-2009. The fee is $10 for each certificate, the county office issues certificates for Florida deaths from 2009 on, and every request needs a copy of a photo ID. 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 search by party name, last name first with no comma, and open the recorded image. The Clerk also keeps a historical index of the old books by subdivision and by section, township and range, for anyone tracing a title back before the online records.

If a bank or title company asks for a certified copy, the Clerk charges $1 a page plus $2 to certify each document, so a three-page deed costs $5. By mail, include a self-addressed stamped envelope. The Clerk also sells electronically certified copies through its website, and a third-party vendor adds its own fee.

For a paper copy printed near the courthouse, the Hart Memorial Central Library at 211 East Dakin Avenue, about 13 minutes on foot, prints in color or black and white for 25 cents a page, by credit card or exact change, and scans to a USB drive or to email for free. You can also send a print job from your phone and pick it up within two hours. The library answers at 407-742-8888.

Then take two minutes to sign up for the Clerk’s free Property Alert. After you register and confirm by email, you pick the parcel number from the Property Appraiser’s site or your name, and the service alerts you when a matching document is recorded. The Clerk asks you to register every version of your name, with and without a middle initial or a suffix, because the alert matches names exactly. The Clerk is plain about why this matters. Florida law does not let the office check who is signing a deed, and nothing comes out of the records once it is recorded without a court order. If a deed ever appears that you did not sign, the Clerk sends you to the Kissimmee Police Department, the St. Cloud Police Department or the Osceola County Sheriff’s Office, depending on where you live.

Some families come to 2 Courthouse Square to record something else, file a probate paper or buy a certified copy, and want to know what is close. For hot coffee and breakfast, Susana’s Cafe at 18 South Orlando Avenue, about 7 minutes on foot, serves Costa Rican coffee and breakfast, open every day from 8 a.m. to 3 p.m. For a later cup, Cariño’s Cafe at 222 Broadway, about 12 minutes on foot, is a coffee shop serving cappuccino and breakfast croissants, open from 7 a.m. Monday through Thursday and from 8 a.m. Friday through Sunday, and it answers at 407-904-5815.

If you need a cashier’s check and bank there, Centennial Bank has a full-service branch at 625 North Central Avenue, about 17 minutes on foot. The Oak Street Post Office at 1415 West Oak Street, about 26 minutes on foot and an easier drive, is open weekdays from 8:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. and Saturday from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m., and it answers at 407-846-2513.

When you are done, Kissimmee Lakefront Park at 201 Lakeview Drive is about 7 minutes on foot, between historic downtown and the shore of Lake Tohopekaliga, with a fishing pier, a lighthouse, a splash pad and pavilions you can rent. The Monument of States stands in the park, and the city’s own history records that its construction was completed in 1943. The county’s Historic Courthouse is at 3 Courthouse Square, about 5 minutes on foot.

• Starting October 4, 2026, the Hart Memorial Central Library is open Monday through Thursday from 9 a.m. to 8 p.m., Friday and Saturday from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m., and Sunday from 1 p.m. to 5 p.m.

Courthouse parking is on the east side of the complex, and both the street-level spaces and the garage are free. The building is open weekdays from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m., and everyone entering goes through a security search, so leave extra time.

Without a car, SunRail stops at the Kissimmee/Amtrak station at 320 Pleasant Street, about 13 minutes on foot from the courthouse. SunRail riders can also call a free Freebee electric car from the station to downtown destinations through the Freebee app, Monday through Friday from 6 a.m. to 9 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 Osceola Property Appraiser lists a $5,000 exemption for an honorably discharged veteran with a service-connected disability rating of at least 10 percent, a full exemption on the homestead for a veteran with a service-connected total and permanent disability, and an added discount for a veteran 65 or older whose disability was combat related. The unremarried surviving spouse of a disabled veteran may also qualify for the $5,000 exemption.

Osceola County Veterans Services helps with the VA paperwork. The main office is at 1392 East Vine Street in Kissimmee, with a branch at 810 13th Street in St. Cloud, and both answer at 407-742-8455. The county says appointments must be scheduled in advance, and it asks you to bring your discharge papers.

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. In Kissimmee the Osceola County Tax Collector runs a driver license and motor vehicle office at 2501 East Irlo Bronson Memorial Highway, on the same road as the Property Appraiser, open weekdays from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. at 407-742-4000. The state asks you to make an appointment through the Tax Collector’s website, osceolataxcollector.org.