Estate Planning Attorney for Tallahassee, 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. The Clerk’s office has a few commissioned notaries, but the Clerk’s policy limits them to official Clerk business, so the courthouse is not the place to have a deed notarized. If you would rather sign in person, The UPS Store #6133 at 104 North Woodward Avenue, by the Florida State University campus and a short drive from the courthouse, lists notary service and printing, at 850-561-9180. Call ahead, because the store keeps separate notary hours.

The Leon Clerk prints a standing notice that, since January 1, 2024, the Clerk will not record a deed unless the name and post office address of each witness appear under the witness’s signature. When we draft your deed, those addresses are on it.

The Clerk also hands out a county flyer about deeds that divide land. Deeding part of a parcel to someone, or moving a property line, needs approval first from the county’s Department of Development Support and Environmental Management, at 850-606-1300, or the new owner may be refused building permits later. A lady bird deed normally covers the whole parcel, but if yours would not, we raise the flyer with you before anything is signed.

If you do come downtown to the courthouse on another errand, La Florida Coffee & Wine is about 5 minutes on foot at 350 South Duval Street, in Kleman Plaza, and roasts its coffee locally. Regular hours are 7:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. on Monday and Friday, 7:30 a.m. to 7 p.m. Tuesday to Thursday, and 9 a.m. to noon on Saturday, with shorter hours in summer. For a sandwich, Metro Deli is about 3 minutes up Monroe Street on foot, at 104 South Monroe, open weekdays from 7:30 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. and Saturday from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m., at 850-224-6870.

For errands, Capital City Bank has its downtown office at 217 North Calhoun Street, about 8 minutes on foot, with a lobby open weekdays from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. and a 24-hour ATM, which helps if you bank there and need a cashier’s check. The bank also lists notary services at that branch, so a customer can ask there about a signing. The Park Avenue Post Office at 221 West Park Avenue, about 7 minutes on foot, has window service weekdays from 7:30 a.m. to 5 p.m., at 850-224-1167.

For a paper copy printed downtown, the LeRoy Collins Leon County Main Library at 200 West Park Avenue is about 8 minutes on foot. Every Leon County library prints from its public computers for 10 cents a black and white page, library cardholders get 10 free pages a day, and a mobile printing service lets you upload the deed from home and release it at the library’s print station. The Main Library answers at 850-606-2665.

If you drive downtown, the City of Tallahassee’s Kleman Plaza garage is under Kleman Plaza at 306 South Duval Street, about 5 minutes on foot from the courthouse, with hourly entrances on Duval Street and on Bronough Street. The City posts the first 15 minutes free, $2 for the first hour, $1 for each hour after, a $7 daily maximum and $1 all day on Saturday and Sunday. Street meters downtown charge $1 an hour on weekdays from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m.

When the errands are done, the city’s Cascades Park at 1001 South Gadsden Street is about 15 minutes on foot. The park is open from sunrise to sunset and holds the Imagination Fountain and the Korean War Memorial, a green place to walk off a morning at the courthouse.

In the middle of Cascades Park stands the Prime Meridian Marker, first set in 1824, the beginning point for every land survey in Florida, so the legal description on your deed traces back to a stone a short walk from the courthouse. On the way, the Historic Capitol at 400 South Monroe Street is about 4 minutes on foot, and since September 21, 2026 the museum has asked visitors to use the Capitol Courtyard entrances while construction closes its Monroe Street door.

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

In Leon County, deeds are recorded by the Official Records Division of the Clerk of the Circuit Court and Comptroller, Gwen Knight. The Clerk’s main office is in the Leon County Courthouse at 301 South Monroe Street, suite 100, in downtown Tallahassee, open Monday to Friday from 8 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. The recording desk answers at 850-606-4030, and a separate line, 850-606-4050, handles people who want to view records. The Clerk publishes a fax number for Official Records, 850-606-4155, but no email address for the division.

You will not need to come downtown. We record your deed electronically through Simplifile, one of the four e-recording vendors the Leon Clerk has approved by name. The Clerk’s own notice on recording delays warns that mail can hold a document up and suggests an e-recording vendor for anything time sensitive, which is the reason we record this way. 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 Akin Akinyemi, the Leon County Property Appraiser, whose office is in the Leon County Government Annex at 315 South Calhoun Street, Suite 300, on the third floor. The Property Appraiser describes the building as behind the Leon County Courthouse, about 5 minutes on foot, so a trip to one is a trip to the other. The office is open weekdays from 8:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. The Exemptions Department answers at 850-606-6200, Option 1, and by email at [email protected].

You must own the home and live in it as your permanent residence on January 1, and March 1 is the filing deadline for each tax year. You can file online, or by email, mail, fax or in person. The Property Appraiser puts the 2026 homestead exemption at up to $51,411 off the assessed value, which it estimates saves about $800 a year.

The Property Appraiser also cautions that a change in ownership can trigger a reassessment or the loss of an exemption. A lady bird deed is written to keep your homestead in place, but once yours records, call or email the Exemptions Department and ask whether a lady bird deed needs a new application in your file, so nothing lapses by surprise. For questions about how a recorded deed has been entered, the Ownership Records Department answers at 850-606-6200, Option 2.

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 Leon 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 Leon County issues certified death certificates at its main office, 1515 Old Bainbridge Road, Monday to Friday from 8 a.m. to 4:30 p.m., at 850-404-6300, for $15 a copy. The office issues certificates for Florida deaths from 2009 on, and the cause of death is released only to family or a legal representative with a photo ID.

A surviving husband or wife in Leon County may also qualify for an extra $5,000 widow or widower exemption, and the Property Appraiser asks for the death certificate to be recorded with the Clerk first. The same recording serves both purposes. 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. Leon County’s index there runs from January 1, 1945, so an older deed on the same house is usually in the same place. The Property Appraiser notes that most recorded documents can be viewed and printed there at no cost, which makes printing at home the simplest way to get a paper copy for the file drawer.

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, so a certified two-page deed costs $4.

Recording the deed also reaches the Property Appraiser without anything more from you. The Property Appraiser receives a daily notice of every deed the Clerk records, and says its own records usually show the change two to four weeks after recording.

Then take two minutes to sign up for the Clerk’s free Property Fraud Alert. The service watches up to five names for each email address and sends an email within 24 hours whenever a document is recorded under one of them. Under Florida law the names and email addresses you register are confidential. Watching the records for your name is the simplest guard there is against someone recording a false deed on your house.

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 Leon County Property Appraiser lists an extra $5,000 off the assessed value for a veteran with a service-connected disability of 10 percent or more, a full exemption from property taxes for a veteran with a total and permanent service-connected disability, and a tax discount for a veteran 65 or older with a combat-related disability, set by the VA’s disability percentage. The VA letter needs to state the percentage, the effective date and an honorable discharge, and surviving spouses can qualify for some of these exemptions.

Leon County Veteran Services helps veterans and surviving spouses apply for these exemptions, and with VA claims, from its office at 615 East Paul Russell Road. Monday through Thursday are by appointment at 850-606-1940, and Friday takes walk-ins from 8 a.m. to 3 p.m.

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. The Leon County Tax Collector runs the driver license offices, all by appointment, with walk-ins taken only when there is room, and they serve residents of Leon, Gadsden, Wakulla and Jefferson counties. The Southside Service Center at 3477 South Monroe Street is a short drive south of the courthouse, open weekdays from 8:30 a.m. to 5 p.m., at 850-606-4700.