Estate Planning Attorney for Melbourne, 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 in Melbourne or from wherever you are. Since March 1, 2026, the Brevard Clerk’s office charges $10 for notary services. The Clerk does not say which branch offers the service, so call the main line at 321-637-5413 before you go.

The Clerk publishes a quitclaim deed form but no recording checklist, and its staff are not allowed to give advice on preparing a document for recording. When we draft your deed, we prepare it to Florida’s recording requirements so it records the first time.

The Clerk’s Melbourne Branch Courthouse also takes passport applications, with appointments available, and sells passport photos, in case you have other errands at the Clerk’s office. The Merritt Island and Palm Bay branches close between 11:30 a.m. and 1:30 p.m., and the Melbourne branch stays open through lunch.

For lunch near the Melbourne branch, Nami’s Korean Bistro on South Babcock Street, at number 24, is about 12 minutes on foot from 51 Nieman Avenue. The restaurant opens Tuesday through Sunday from 11 a.m. to 8:30 p.m. and is closed Mondays, at 321-587-1768. TD Bank has a branch at 1025 South Babcock Street, a short drive south, if you bank there and need a cashier’s check.

Historic downtown Melbourne on East New Haven Avenue is a short drive southeast of the branch and has the errands in one walkable stretch. The Melbourne post office at 640 East New Haven Avenue has its retail window open weekdays from 8:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. and Saturdays from 9 a.m. to noon, at 321-723-6164, which helps when an original has to go out by certified mail. Moon River Cafe, a coffee shop at 728 East New Haven Avenue, is about 4 minutes on foot from the post office and posts its hours as Friday and Saturday from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. and Sunday from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m., at 321-210-9704. The Roots, at 2011 Melbourne Court, serves breakfast, brunch and lunch every day from 8 a.m. to 2 p.m., about 5 minutes on foot from Moon River Cafe, at 321-220-0636.

Parking downtown is free. The City lists free public parking in the garage and lot next to City Hall, with no time limit on floors 2 through 5 of the garage, in the lot in front of the Henegar Center across New Haven Avenue from the post office, in the lot behind the Henegar Center, and along New Haven Avenue and its side streets, where posted time limits apply only from 8 a.m. to 7 p.m. The City may charge in its lots and the City Hall garage during special events and posts notice on its website first.

For the river afterward, Claude Edge Front Street Park at 2205 Front Street sits on the Indian River at the base of the Melbourne Causeway, about 12 minutes on foot from Moon River Cafe.

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

In Brevard County, deeds are recorded by the Recording Division of the Clerk of the Circuit Court and Comptroller, Rachel M. Sadoff. The Recording Division answers at 321-637-2006 and by email at [email protected]. The Clerk’s offices are open weekdays from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m.

The Clerk has a Melbourne Branch Courthouse at 51 Nieman Avenue, and other offices in Viera, Palm Bay, Merritt Island and Titusville. The Clerk does not publish which counter takes a deed for recording. The Recording Department’s published address is P.O. Box 2767 in Titusville, and overnight packages go to 700 South Park Avenue, Building B, in Titusville. If you ever want to bring a document in person, call 321-637-2006 first and ask whether the Melbourne branch will accept it that day.

You will not need to drive anywhere or mail anything to Titusville. We record your deed electronically through Simplifile, which is on the Clerk’s own list of e-recording vendors. The Clerk says e-recording saves postage and courier fees and speeds up recording, and that a short payment is settled electronically instead of the paper deed being sent back. Brevard posts its recording fee as $10 for the first page and $8.50 for each page after, so a two-page deed records for $18.50.

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 Dana Blickley, the Brevard County Property Appraiser. The office serving Melbourne is in the Brevard County South Services Complex at 1515 Sarno Road, at 321-255-4440, and there are other offices in Viera, Palm Bay and Titusville. All four are open weekdays from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m., and a specialist at any of them will help you file in person. The Exemptions desk answers at 321-264-6700, Option 1, and by email at [email protected].

You must own the home and make it your permanent residence on January 1, and the application is due by March 1. Most owners can file online. If your home is held in a trust, the Property Appraiser asks for a copy of the trust agreement or a recorded memorandum of trust.

The Property Appraiser asks owners to contact the office if they changed title. When your lady bird deed records, ask the Exemptions desk whether it needs anything new from you. We can make that call with you.

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 Brevard 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 for Melbourne families come from the Department of Health’s Office of Vital Statistics in Viera, at 2565 Judge Fran Jamieson Way, weekdays from 8 a.m. to 4:30 p.m., at 321-454-7163. The office charges $12 a certificate, takes cash, Visa, MasterCard or a money order but no personal checks, and issues records for Florida deaths from 2009 on to a family member with a valid picture 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 can search by your name and view, print or save the recorded image. Brevard’s index and images there go back to January 1, 1981.

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. Copies are ordered through the Clerk’s Research and Copy Request Center, and the Land Records and Research Department answers questions at 321-637-2004.

Then take two minutes to sign up for the Clerk’s free Recording Notification Service. The service emails you whenever a document is recorded under a name or property you register, up to 10 per email address, and your registration stays on until you unsubscribe. Watching the record is the simplest early warning there is against someone recording a false deed on your house. If an alert ever looks wrong, the Clerk sends you to local law enforcement and to its Fraud, Waste and Abuse line at 321-637-6541.

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. In Brevard the Tax Collector runs the driver license offices, and every service needs an appointment. The Melbourne office is at 1515 Sarno Road, in the same South Services Complex as the Property Appraiser, open weekdays from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. South Brevard residents call 321-633-2199.