Estate Planning Attorney for Orange Park, 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. If you would rather sign in person, The UPS Store #5287 at 410 Blanding Boulevard lists notary service and posts separate notary hours, so call 904-276-2966 before you go.

Clay’s Clerk publishes the rules a deed must meet before it will record. The deed must be properly acknowledged, carry a proper “prepared by” statement, and leave a blank three-inch square on the first page and a blank one-by-three-inch space on every page after. The Clerk also posts a sample enhanced life estate deed on its forms page, and says in the same place that it cannot tell whether a form fits your situation and recommends speaking to an attorney. When we draft your deed, every one of those requirements is on it.

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

In Clay County, deeds are recorded by the Recording Department of Tara S. Green, the Clerk of Court and Comptroller, on the first floor of the Clay County Courthouse (the Judge William A. Wilkes Judicial Complex) at 825 North Orange Avenue in Green Cove Springs, the county seat. The courthouse is open Monday through Friday from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Official Records answers at 904-284-6362, and the department is supervised by Manager Michelle Thrasher. Mail for the Clerk goes to P.O. Box 698, Green Cove Springs, FL 32043.

Orange Park has its own Clerk office, the Orange Park Branch Office at 1590 Park Avenue in the Park Central Plaza, across Park Avenue from Moosehaven. The branch is open weekdays from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m., answers at 904-541-2784, and is run by Manager Tawnya Disparti. The Clerk lists the branch for passport and marriage license appointments but does not say it records deeds, and asks that nothing be mailed to a branch office, so the recording itself happens in Green Cove Springs.

You will not need to make that drive. We record your deed electronically through Simplifile, which is first on the Clerk’s own list of certified e-recording vendors. The Clerk warns that mail delays can hold up a recording and describes e-recording turnaround in minutes rather than days or weeks. 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, plus $1 for each name past the fourth.

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 Tracy Scott Drake, the Clay County Property Appraiser. The office has one location, on the second floor of the County Administration Building at 477 Houston Street in Green Cove Springs, off U.S. Highway 17, open weekdays from 8 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. with no appointment needed. An Exemptions Specialist answers at 904-284-6305, extension 1, and questions can also go through the office’s online contact form by choosing Exemptions.

You must hold title and live in the home as your permanent residence on January 1, and the application is due by March 1. The office is taking 2027 applications now, and you can file online with your Florida driver license at the homestead address and the Social Security number of each applicant and spouse. The appraiser also requires that the deed be recorded in Clay County’s official records, so the deed we record is the one your application rests on.

Orange Park homeowners have one more exemption to ask about. The Town of Orange Park and the City of Green Cove Springs are the only taxing authorities in Clay County that have adopted the senior longevity exemption, for owners 65 or older who meet the income limit, whose home has a just value under $250,000, and who have lived there as their permanent residence for at least 25 years.

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 Clay 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 in Clay County issues certified death certificates at its office at 1845 Town Center Boulevard, Building 400, on Fleming Island, weekdays from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m., at 904-529-2800, for $10 a copy. The office issues certificates for Florida deaths from 2009 on, every request needs a valid photo ID, and the cause of death goes 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. The Clerk says an unofficial copy of many records is free through its online search, and the search page asks you to try every spelling of a name.

For a paper copy for the file drawer, print it at home, or ask The UPS Store #5287 at 410 Blanding Boulevard, Suite 10, in the Publix plaza at the corner of Blanding Boulevard and Kingsley Avenue, a short drive west of the branch. The store lists printing among its services and answers at 904-276-2966.

If a bank or title company asks for a certified copy, the Clerk charges $1 a page for the copy and $2 to certify it, and sells tamper-proof electronic certified copies online through its E-Certify page.

Then sign up for the Clerk’s free Property Fraud Alert. When a document is recorded in a name you register, the service sends you a text or email, and the Clerk says registration takes 24 to 48 hours to take effect. The Clerk also notes that Clay County is not immune to scammers filing bogus documents to steal homes or land. Watching the records for your name is the simplest guard there is against someone recording a false deed on your house.

Some families stop at the Orange Park branch for a passport or marriage license appointment and want to know what is close. Orange Park Town Hall is at 2042 Park Avenue, about 9 minutes on foot south of the branch, and the Town Clerk’s office there keeps hours of Monday through Friday, 7:30 a.m. to 5:30 p.m., at 904-278-3011. Town Hall Park shares the same address and is a quiet place to sit.

The errands sit a short drive west along Kingsley Avenue. The Orange Park Post Office at 1335 Kingsley Avenue has window hours of weekdays from 8:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. and Saturday from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m., at 904-264-1388. SouthState Bank’s Orange Park branch is two minutes on foot from the post office at 1440 Kingsley Avenue, which helps if you bank there and need a cashier’s check.

For a hot coffee close to the branch, the Dunkin’ at 1408 Park Avenue is about 4 minutes on foot north along Park Avenue, with a drive thru and a phone line at 904-375-9382. For a page or two printed on paper, the Orange Park Library at 2054 Plainfield Avenue, about 17 minutes on foot, prints black and white pages for 20 cents each and answers at 904-278-4750.

Across Park Avenue from the branch, Moosehaven at 1701 Park Avenue has been a retirement home for members of the Loyal Order of Moose since 1922, when the order bought the four-story Hotel Marion and its eight acres on the St. Johns River, and its first residents ran their own dairy and farm.

For after, Clarke House Park at 1039 Kingsley Avenue, about 26 minutes on foot from the branch, is the old Clarke family homestead of pecan trees, whose last 15 acres the Town bought in 1991. The Clarkes are buried across the street in the Town’s Magnolia Cemetery. At the far east end of Kingsley Avenue, the Kingsley East River Overlook is a pocket park with a panoramic view of the St. Johns River and parking along the street.

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 Clay County Property Appraiser lists a full exemption on the homestead of an honorably discharged veteran with a service-connected total and permanent disability, proved with a VA rating decision or summary of benefits letter, and a tax discount for a veteran 65 or older with a combat-related disability, proportional to the disability rating. The appraiser also says a veteran may apply before the VA letter arrives, and the exemption then dates back to the application.

The appraiser adds one rule that matters when a married veteran signs a deed. The full exemption carries over to the surviving spouse only if the spouse holds the legal and beneficial title to the homestead and lives there, so we draft your deed with that in mind.

Clay County Veterans Services helps with VA claims and paperwork from the County Administration Building at 477 Houston Street in Green Cove Springs, the same building as the Property Appraiser. The office keeps hours weekdays from 8 a.m. to noon and 1 to 4 p.m., takes appointments at 904-529-4256, and answers email at [email protected].

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’s online filing asks for a Florida driver license at the homestead address. 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 Orange Park, the Clay County Tax Collector’s office at 518 Kingsley Avenue, about 14 minutes on foot from the Clerk’s branch, handles driver licenses by appointment only and serves Clay County residents only. The office answers at 904-284-6320 and is open Monday, Tuesday, Thursday and Friday from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. and Wednesday from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.