Estate Planning Attorney for Orlando, 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 downtown, The UPS Store #3999 at 424 East Central Boulevard lists notary service and says a notary is available seven days a week. Call 407-872-1057 before you go to confirm one is in.

The witnesses matter more in Orange County than people expect. The Comptroller warns that a deed recorded without two subscribing witnesses may not be recognized by the Property Appraiser for tracking ownership on the tax roll, and that the office keeps the fee when someone insists on recording one anyway. The deed also has to meet Florida’s recording requirements, and it may not include a Social Security number or a bank account number. When we draft your deed, all of that is on it, and nothing that should not be.

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

Orange County splits the job most Florida counties give to one office. The Clerk of Courts runs the courthouse, and deeds are recorded by the Official Records Department of the Orange County Comptroller, Phil Diamond, CPA. The office is at 109 East Church Street, Suite 300, in downtown Orlando, open Monday through Friday from 7:30 a.m. to 4 p.m. Official Records answers at 407-836-5115 and takes email at [email protected], and mail goes to Attn. Official Records, P.O. Box 38, Orlando, FL 32802.

You will not need to go downtown. We record your deed electronically through Simplifile, which the Comptroller lists by name among its eRecording vendors. The Comptroller says it aims to process eRecordings within 24 hours of receiving them, while its deed FAQ puts a deed received by mail at 7 to 10 business days. 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. The first four names on a document are indexed free, and each name after that costs $1.

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 Amy Mercado, the Orange County Property Appraiser, whose office is at 200 South Orange Avenue, Suite 1700, about 4 minutes on foot from the Comptroller. Constituent Services and Exemptions answers at 407-836-5044 and takes email at [email protected].

You can file for homestead online. The Property Appraiser’s filing page says applications for 2027 can be filed in the fall of 2026, and the timely deadline under Florida law is March 1. You must own the home and make it your permanent residence on January 1 of the tax year.

If you are also moving your legal residence to Orlando, the Comptroller records a Florida Declaration of Domicile for $10 when you bring it in already notarized, or for $13.50 when you complete it at the counter and take the oath there.

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 Orange 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 Comptroller accepts a Florida death certificate for recording only as an unaltered certified copy without the cause of death shown, and the typical cost to record a one-page death certificate is $10.

Certified death certificates come from the Department of Health in Orange County, at its Vital Statistics office in the Central Health Center, Building 2, 807 West Church Street, about 20 minutes on foot west of the Comptroller. The office is open weekdays from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m., answers at 407-858-1460, and posts the fee as $10 a certificate. The county 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 Comptroller returns it. The deed also appears in the Comptroller’s official records search, where you accept the disclaimer, search by your name and open the recorded image. The Comptroller lets you print a copy of any recorded document from the site for free, with no limit on pages, and the Official Records call center at 407-836-5115 helps if the search gives you trouble.

For a paper copy printed downtown, The UPS Store #3999 at 424 East Central Boulevard, about 9 minutes on foot from the Comptroller’s office, lists printing among its services and describes itself as locally owned and operated. The store answers at 407-872-1057 and is open weekdays from 8:30 a.m. to 7 p.m., Saturday from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. and Sunday from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m.

If a bank or title company asks for a certified copy, the Comptroller charges $1 a page plus $2 to certify the document, so a three-page deed costs $5. Certified copies can be bought by credit card from the search results page, and only complete documents are certified.

Then take two minutes to sign up for the Comptroller’s free Property Fraud Alert, which notifies you by email or phone when a document is recorded in your name. The service answers questions at 800-728-3858. The Comptroller is candid about why this matters. Official Records staff review only the requirements for recording and have no authority to refuse a properly prepared document, even a fraudulent one, and no recorded document comes out of the records without a judge’s order. If a deed ever appears that you did not sign, the Comptroller sends you first to the Orange County Sheriff’s Office Economic Crimes line at 407-836-4357.

If you drive downtown, the City of Orlando’s Library Garage on East Central Boulevard is about 4 minutes on foot from the Comptroller’s office. City garages charge $1 for the first 30 minutes and $2 an hour after that, up to $15 a day, and an early bird rate of $8 applies when you enter between 5:30 and 7 a.m. and leave before 5 p.m. Street meters in the downtown core cost $1 an hour, Monday through Saturday from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m.

Without a car, the LYMMO downtown circulator buses run through the center of town. The Orange Line lists stops at Church Street and at the History Center and Library, and runs every 12 minutes during office hours, weekdays from 6 a.m. to 8:25 p.m. and weekends from 8 a.m.

Some families come to 109 East Church Street to record something else or to buy a certified copy, and want to know what is close. Sunrise Bank has an office in the same building, at 109 East Church Street, which helps if you bank there. A Chase branch is at 25 East Church Street, about 3 minutes on foot, if you need a cashier’s check and bank there.

For coffee or breakfast, Mecatos Bakery & Café Downtown at 20 North Orange Avenue, Suite 102A, about 9 minutes on foot, serves Colombian coffee, arepas, empanadas and pastries, and opens at 7 a.m. on weekdays and 8 a.m. on weekends. The bakery answers at 407-704-3841.

For lunch, The Neighborhood Eatery at 231 Palmetto Avenue, about 9 minutes on foot, serves lunch and dinner five days a week, old school American food with some Asian comfort dishes, and answers at 407-648-1050.

The Downtown Orlando Post Office at 51 East Jefferson Street, about 9 minutes on foot, is open weekdays from 7 a.m. to 5 p.m. and answers at 407-425-6464.

When you are done, Lake Eola Park is about 8 minutes on foot, with a sidewalk that circles the lake for 0.9 miles, the Linton E. Allen Centennial Fountain in the middle, and the city’s swan-shaped pedal boats for rent Tuesday through Sunday. The park is open daily from 6 a.m. and is a pleasant place to sit before the drive home.

The lake began as a sinkhole on land Jacob Summerlin, the “Cattle King of Florida,” bought in 1873, and the Summerlin family gave a strip around it for public use in 1883, when it was renamed Lake Eola in memory of Robert Summerlin’s sweetheart. The first swans arrived in 1922, and the fountain in the middle was built in 1957.

We copy the legal description from your last recorded deed, word for word, because that is what the title record already recognizes. If it does not match the lot, or a fence or addition raises a question, a licensed surveyor can check it. Southeastern Surveying & Mapping, a surveying and mapping firm founded in 1972, has its office at 6500 All American Boulevard in northwest Orlando, a short drive from downtown, at 407-292-8580. Most deeds never need one.

Florida gives disabled veterans more than the basic homestead exemption, and the proof is a letter from the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs. The Orange County Property Appraiser’s exemptions desk at 407-836-5044 can tell you which exemption your rating qualifies for and what to bring.

Orange County Veterans Services helps with the paperwork at no charge, at 2100 East Michigan Street, a short drive south of downtown. The office sees veterans and their families on a first-come, first-served, walk-in basis, and asks you to bring any military service records you have. If a medical or language barrier makes a walk-in visit hard, call 407-836-8990 to ask about an accommodation.

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 Orange County the Tax Collector runs the driver license offices, and the downtown office at 301 South Rosalind Avenue is about 4 minutes on foot from the Comptroller. The office answers at 407-434-0312 and is open Monday, Tuesday, Thursday and Friday from 8:30 a.m. to 5 p.m., with driver license service on Wednesday from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. Appointments are available, and Orange County offices serve county residents only.