Estate Planning Attorney for Marco Island, 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 #2637 at 1083 North Collier Boulevard, in the Town Center by Publix and West Marine, lists notary service seven days a week along with printing, faxing and scanning, at (239) 642-0011. Call ahead so a notary is on duty when you arrive.

The Collier Clerk posts its own recording rules. A document about real property must be notarized, a document mailed in needs a prepaid, self-addressed envelope for its return, and nothing on the page should be highlighted, because color scans as black in the official image. When we draft and e-record your deed, those details are handled.

City Hall sits on a quiet stretch of Bald Eagle Drive, and the island’s everyday errands sit to the north, around Elkcam Circle and North Collier Boulevard, more than 25 minutes on foot, so a short drive rather than a walk. The Marco Island Post Office at 600 East Elkcam Circle is open weekdays from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. and Saturday from 9 a.m. to noon, at (239) 394-5437. Several banks keep island branches on the same streets, among them Bank of America at 614 Bald Eagle Drive and Fifth Third at 650 East Elkcam Circle, which is useful if you bank there and need a cashier’s check. Hoot’s Breakfast and Lunch, at 563 Elkcam Circle East, has served breakfast and lunch seven days a week in Southwest Florida since 2004. For coffee on the way, Wake Up Marco at 912 North Collier Boulevard is a locally owned shop serving locally roasted coffee, open weekdays from about 6:15 a.m. to 1:45 p.m. and Saturday from 7 a.m. to 11:45 a.m., closed Sunday, at (239) 248-9398. Veterans Community Park at 901 Park Avenue has a walking path, a picnic area and the island’s Veterans’ Memorial, and it hosts the Farmers’ Market.

The closest stop of all is the Marco Island Historical Museum at 180 South Heathwood Drive, about 3 minutes on foot from City Hall. The museum is known for the Key Marco Cat, one of the most remarkable discoveries in North American archaeology, and traces the island from the Calusa through its years as a fishing village, pineapple plantation and clam cannery to the rapid building of the 1960s by the Miami-based Deltona Corporation. The museum is open Tuesday to Saturday from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m.

Also close enough to walk from City Hall is the city’s Mackle Park, about 12 minutes on foot at 1361 Andalusia Terrace. The Mackle Park Community Center there is open weekdays from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m., Saturday from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. and Sunday from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., at (239) 642-0575, and the park is a quiet place to sit for a few minutes after an errand at the Clerk’s office.

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

In Collier County, deeds are recorded by the Recording Department of the Clerk of the Circuit Court and Comptroller, Crystal K. Kinzel. The main office is in Naples, in the Courthouse Annex at the Collier County Government Center, 3315 Tamiami Trail East, Suite 102, on the second floor. The Clerk’s offices there are open 8 a.m. to 5 p.m., Monday through Friday. The Recording Department answers at (239) 252-2646, and recording questions go to [email protected].

Marco Island has its own Clerk’s office. The Collier Clerk Marco Satellite Office sits at 50 Bald Eagle Drive, the same address as Marco Island City Hall, and the Clerk lists Recording Services and certified copies among what it does there. The satellite is open weekdays from 8 a.m. to 4:45 p.m., closes for lunch from 1 p.m. to 2 p.m., and answers at (239) 213-8213. The Clerk’s posted hours for the satellites vary, so call ahead before you drive over with paperwork.

You will not need to go to either office. We record your deed electronically through Simplifile, which the Clerk lists on its own page as an e-recording partner, so the signed deed never has to travel by mail. 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. The Clerk also says plainly that mailed and electronic documents are processed as time permits, and that a time-sensitive document is recorded while you wait only when it is presented in person at the main office in Naples.

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 Vickie A. Downs, the Collier County Property Appraiser. The main office is at 3950 Radio Road in Naples, open weekdays from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m., at (239) 252-8141. The office also takes applications at 4715 Golden Gate Parkway, 2335 Orange Blossom Drive and 15450 Collier Boulevard, and says it opens additional locations during homestead season in January and February, so call to ask whether one is on the island that year.

Collier works differently from many counties. The Property Appraiser requires every homestead application to be made in person at one of its offices, so there is no online filing. You must own the home and make it your permanent residence on January 1, and the application is due by March 1. Prefiled applications are accepted any time after March 1 for the next year, which spares you the lines in February. Bring your recorded deed or tax bill, a Florida driver license and vehicle registration, your Collier voter registration if you vote, and Social Security numbers for you and your spouse.

If your home is held in a trust, the Property Appraiser asks for a complete copy of the trust agreement when you apply. A lady bird deed keeps the title in your own name, so the deed itself is what you bring. The Property Appraiser’s 2026 final roll values the real property in the City of Marco Island at about $23.4 billion, so the cap that homestead places on your assessed value is worth keeping in place.

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 Collier 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 Collier County issues certified death certificates at its main office, 3339 Tamiami Trail East in Naples, weekdays from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. The first certificate is $12 and each additional copy ordered at the same time is $10. Vital Statistics answers at 239-252-8205. The office issues certificates for Florida deaths from 2009 on, every request needs a photo ID, and the cause of death is released only to family or a legal representative. 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 or by instrument number and open the recorded image. The Clerk says a plain copy can be printed from the website on any printer at home.

If a bank or title company asks for a certified copy, the Clerk charges $1 a page for the copy and $2 for the certification. The Clerk’s own instructions say certified copies come from the Recording Department or from any Clerk satellite office, so the Marco office at City Hall can hand you one without the drive to Naples.

Then take two minutes to sign up for the Clerk’s free Risk Alert service. The Clerk sends you an email whenever a deed, lien, mortgage or other record matching your name or property is recorded in Collier County. The alert does not stop a fraudulent filing, but it gives you the chance to check whether you signed what was recorded. The Clerk asks anyone who suspects fraud to call the Collier County Sheriff’s Office at 239-252-9300.

A disabled veteran may qualify for more than the basic homestead exemption, and the proof comes from the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs. Florida law, as the Department of Revenue summarizes it, gives a $5,000 reduction in assessed value to an honorably discharged veteran who is disabled 10 percent or more, a full exemption from property taxes on the homestead for a veteran with a service-connected total and permanent disability, and a discount equal to the disability rating for a qualifying veteran 65 or older. Surviving spouses can keep some of these, and a veteran may apply before the VA paperwork arrives, with the exemption dating back to the original application once it does. The application goes to the Collier County Property Appraiser.

Collier County Veteran Services helps with the VA side of this from its office at 2671 Airport Road S, Court Plaza, Suite 202, in Naples, open weekdays from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m., at (239) 252-8387 or (239) 252-2870, and by email at [email protected]. Call first, because the office is a drive off the island.

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 with every homestead application. The Florida Department of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles requires every name change on a license to be made in person, and only after the Social Security Administration has updated your name, allowing 24 to 48 hours after that. The Collier Tax Collector’s island office was damaged in Hurricane Ian, and a temporary office now works from 650 E. Elkcam Circle, weekdays from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m., offering renewals, duplicates and replacements but no testing. Call 239-252-8171 to ask whether the island office can make your name change that day. Full driver license service is at the main office in Naples, 725 Airport Road South, weekdays from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. The Tax Collector adds a $6.25 service fee to each transaction.