Estate Planning Attorney for Pensacola, 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, and the Escambia Clerk’s own instructions say the same, with the owner signing in the presence of a notary and two witnesses. 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 #5202 at 707 East Cervantes Street lists notary service and keeps store hours seven days a week. Call ahead at (850) 433-8334, because notary hours can differ from store hours.

At the north end of the county, the Clerk’s Century Office at 7500 North Century Boulevard offers notary service for a $10 fee. Bring the completed document, a valid photo ID, and everyone else who has to sign.

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

In Escambia County, deeds are recorded in the Official Records of Pam Childers, the Clerk of the Circuit Court and Comptroller. The recording desk is not in the courthouse. The Clerk’s Official Records department sits at 221 Palafox Place, Suite 110, in downtown Pensacola, about five minutes on foot from the M.C. Blanchard Judicial Building at 190 West Government Street, where the Clerk keeps its main office. Official Records is open Monday to Thursday from 8 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. and Friday from 8 a.m. to 3:30 p.m., Central time, an hour behind Miami, and answers at 850-595-3930. A Friday errand at the recording desk has to be finished by midafternoon.

You will not need to go downtown. We record your deed electronically through Simplifile, which the Clerk lists by name among its e-recording vendors, so the 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. Anyone recording on paper has to bring or mail the original, because the Clerk will not record a copy of a signed deed.

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 the Escambia County Property Appraiser, not by the Clerk or the City of Pensacola. Florida’s rules are the same in every county. You must own the home and make it your permanent residence by January 1, and the application, Form DR-501, goes to the Property Appraiser by March 1 of that tax year. The exemption can take up to $50,000 off the home’s taxable value and brings the Save Our Homes cap on yearly increases in assessed value.

Check the Property Appraiser’s website for its offices, hours and online filing before you go, and ask whether a lady bird deed needs a new application. The state’s homestead guide says the Property Appraiser may ask whose names were on the title on January 1, so the question is worth a phone call after your deed records.

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 Escambia 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 Escambia Clerk is specific about the certificate. For a death in Florida, the Clerk records only a certified copy issued by the Department of Health without the cause of death, and will not record a copy with the cause blacked out, so the family should ask for the copy “for recording purposes.”

The Florida Department of Health in Escambia County issues death certificates at its Fairfield Service Center, 1295 West Fairfield Drive in Pensacola, weekdays from 8 a.m. to 4:30 p.m., at 850-595-6500. Each certificate costs $11. 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, which is indexed by the owner’s name. For much older deeds, the Clerk keeps a separate historical deed book index covering 1820 to 1982.

A copy printed at home is fine for the file drawer. If you would rather have it printed, The UPS Store #5202 at 707 East Cervantes Street, Suite B, lists copies and document printing and answers at (850) 433-8334. The store is about a mile and a quarter from the recording office, a short drive rather than a walk.

If a bank or title company asks for a certified copy, the Clerk’s Official Records division provides one for a per-page fee plus a certification fee. You can also order an electronically certified copy through the Clerk’s E-Certify service, searching by instrument number or by name, and every e-certified copy carries a reference number that anyone can check against the Clerk’s authentication page.

Then take two minutes to sign up for the Clerk’s free Property Fraud Alert. The Clerk emails you within 24 hours whenever a deed, mortgage or other land record with your registered name is recorded, and you can register as many spellings of your name as you like. The alert arrives from [email protected] with a subject line that begins Landmark Recording, and gives the Clerk’s File Number so you can open the document.

Some Pensacola families come downtown for another reason, often a probate matter at the M.C. Blanchard Judicial Building, where the probate division sits. The courthouse has no free public parking of its own. The circuit lists limited free parking along Spring Street, metered parking on the Baylen Street and Government Street sides, and accessible parking behind the building off the Spring Street entrance.

For coffee, Maker’s Cafe & Espresso Bar at 422 South Palafox Street is about four minutes on foot from the recording office, a family-run cafe open Monday to Saturday from 7 a.m. to 5 p.m. For lunch or groceries, Ever’man Cooperative Grocery & Cafe at 315 West Garden Street is about twelve minutes on foot, a natural foods cooperative founded in 1973 with a cafe inside. If you bank there and need a cashier’s check, Bank of Pensacola has its office at 500 South Palafox Street, about five minutes on foot.

When the errands are done, walk south on Palafox to Plaza de Luna at 900 South Palafox Street, about thirteen minutes on foot. The city park sits at the end of Palafox Pier on Pensacola Bay, with a walking path along the water and a life-size statue of Tristan de Luna, whose colonists sailed into the bay in 1559. City parks are open from sunrise to sunset.

The nearest post office counter is the Pensacola Post Office at 1400 West Jordan Street, a short drive north of downtown, with retail hours weekdays from 8:30 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. and a phone line at 850-434-9182.

A disabled veteran may qualify for more than the basic homestead exemption, and the proof is a VA Benefit Summary Letter. Escambia County’s Veterans Services lists three that the Property Appraiser grants. There is a $5,000 discount for an honorably discharged veteran disabled 10 percent or more, an exemption for a veteran over 65 with a documented combat-related disability, and a total exemption for a veteran rated totally and permanently disabled from service, which may carry over to a surviving spouse. The county notes that the VA mails the summary letters the first week of December and that a veteran can also print one from the VA website.

Escambia County Veterans Services helps with the paperwork at the Central Office Complex, 3363 West Park Place, open Monday through Friday from 8 a.m. to 4:30 p.m., at 850-595-2409. Eligibility questions and the application itself go to the Escambia County Property Appraiser.

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 Pensacola the Escambia County Tax Collector runs the driver license offices, and its Downtown Office is next door to the Clerk’s recording office, at 213 Palafox Place between Intendencia and Government Streets, about a minute on foot. The office offers driver license services by appointment only, weekdays from 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Central time, at 850-438-6500, and sends visitors to park in the Baylen Street garage at the corner of Baylen and Intendencia Streets. Call ahead to confirm the office handles a name change on the day you book.