Estate Planning Attorney for Stuart, 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 #3631 at 2336 SE Ocean Boulevard lists notary service and keeps separate notary hours, so call ahead.

The Martin County Clerk publishes what a deed needs before it will record. Each signer’s and each witness’s name is printed under the signature, both witnesses’ addresses appear on the deed, the notary’s seal, commission number and expiration date are there, the page carries the preparer’s name and address and the mailing addresses of the owner and the person receiving the home, and a 3 by 3 inch space in the top right corner of the first page stays blank. When we draft your deed, those are handled.

If you do come downtown to the courthouse, the Clerk and the court share a free parking lot on SW Flagler Avenue on the west side of the building. The Googan Coffee Shop, a veteran-owned cafe at 55 SW Flagler Avenue that serves breakfast all day, is about five minutes on foot and opens at 7 a.m. Monday to Saturday. Osceola Street Cafe at 26 SW Osceola Street, also about five minutes away, serves homemade breakfasts until 11 a.m. and soups, salads and sandwiches from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. on weekdays. The Roasted Record at 600 Colorado Avenue, a coffee roaster and record shop, is about six minutes on foot and open every day from 7 a.m. to 9 p.m. For a sit-down lunch any day of the week, Luna Italian Cuisine at 49 SW Flagler Avenue opens at 11 a.m. and serves pasta, pizza and salads, about 6 minutes on foot from the courthouse.

For a cashier’s check, if you bank there, the Wells Fargo Stuart Main Branch at 301 SE Ocean Boulevard is about five minutes on foot, and Seacoast National Bank at 815 S Colorado Avenue is about ten. The Stuart Post Office at 801 SE Johnson Avenue, about fourteen minutes on foot, is the stop for certified mail, with the window open weekdays from 8:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. and Saturday from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. Afterward, Riverwalk Park behind City Hall at 121 SW Flagler Avenue, about seven minutes away, has benches, shaded seating and a boardwalk over the St. Lucie River.

A little farther along Flagler Avenue, about 9 minutes on foot from the courthouse, the Stuart Heritage Museum at 161 SW Flagler Avenue fills the old Stuart Feed Store, which the City of Stuart bought in 1988 to hold the town’s history. While the collection was still being gathered, the front of the building was rented for a couple of years to Mrs. Peter’s Smoked Fish House to help pay the bills. Volunteers keep the museum open seven days a week from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m., and admission is always free.

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

In Martin County, deeds are recorded by the Official Records Department of the Clerk of the Circuit Court and Comptroller, Carolyn Timmann, on the first floor of the Martin County Courthouse at 100 SE Ocean Boulevard in downtown Stuart. Official Records is open Monday to Friday from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m., answers at 772-288-5551, and takes email at [email protected].

You will not need to go downtown. We record your deed electronically through Simplifile, which is on the Martin County Clerk’s own list of approved e-recording vendors. A deed sent by mail has to go to a post office box with a self-addressed envelope for its return, and an e-recorded deed skips both trips. 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.

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 Jenny Fields, the Martin County Property Appraiser, whose main office is at 3473 SE Willoughby Boulevard, Suite 101, in Stuart, open Monday to Friday from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. The office answers at 772-288-5608 and [email protected]. A Hobe Sound branch at 11726 SE Federal Highway is open Monday and Tuesday, and the Indiantown office sees people by appointment.

The application is due by March 1, and a mailed application must be postmarked by then. You can file online, in person, or by mail to the Exemption Department at the main office. The Property Appraiser recommends a desktop computer with Chrome or Edge for the online application and answers by email once it is processed.

When a home is held in a trust, the Property Appraiser asks the owner’s attorney to complete a Trust Certificate showing who holds the current beneficial interest. If that person is the same one who filed for homestead, and nothing else about the homestead has changed, the exemption continues without interruption.

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 Martin 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 come from the Department of Health in Martin County at its main office, 3441 SE Willoughby Boulevard in Stuart, on the same boulevard as the Property Appraiser. The office is open Monday to Friday from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. and answers at 772-221-4000. Each certificate is $15, and a rush order adds $10. The office issues certificates for Florida deaths from 2009 on, asks for a photo ID, and gives the cause of death 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 online index covers documents recorded from January 1, 1986, and records older than that are kept on microfilm in the Clerk’s Archives Department on the same first floor.

For a paper copy in the file drawer, print it at home, or drive about two miles east to The UPS Store #3631 in the Ocean East Mall at 2336 SE Ocean Boulevard, which makes copies and prints documents, at 772-221-9300.

If a bank or title company asks for a certified copy, the Clerk charges $1 a page plus $2 for the certification at the counter, and sells e-certified copies online through E-Certify, so nobody has to drive downtown for that either.

Then take two minutes to sign up for the Clerk’s free Recording Activity Notification, the county’s property fraud alert. The service emails you every time a land records document is recorded under the name you register. The alert matches names exactly, so the Clerk suggests registering a few versions of your name, with and without a middle name or initial.

A disabled veteran may qualify for more than the basic homestead exemption, and the proof is a certificate from the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs. The Martin County Property Appraiser lists a $5,000 exemption for a veteran disabled at least 10 percent in war or by service-connected misfortune, and on a first filing the letter has to be dated within the year before the application. A veteran with a total and permanent service-connected disability is exempt from all property taxes on the homestead, and widows of veterans with a 10 percent service-connected disability also qualify for the $5,000 exemption. The exemptions desk answers at 772-288-5608.

Martin County Veterans Services helps with VA claims, discharge papers and the DD 214, and it is in Stuart at 2401 SE Monterey Road, open Monday through Friday from 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m., at (772) 288-5448, with housebound visits by appointment. The county also runs a free Uber program for veterans who live in Martin County, and the courthouse and county offices are among the destinations. A veteran applies once at (772) 288-5460 and, once approved, books rides at (772) 463-2860 on weekdays from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. The office also keeps a retirement box for worn U.S. flags, which should be folded before they go in.

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 Stuart the driver license office is at 3485 SE Willoughby Blvd., a few doors from the Property Appraiser at 3473 and the Department of Health at 3441, so a name change, a homestead question and a death certificate can be handled on one trip. The office is run by the Martin County Tax Collector, with driver license service weekdays from 8 a.m. to 4:15 p.m., at 772-288-5600. A second office is in Palm City at 3001 SW Martin Downs Blvd., with the same hours and phone number.