Estate Planning Attorney for Tampa, 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 at 503 East Jackson Street has a commissioned notary, lists deeds among the documents it notarizes, and takes appointments online or at 813-387-3335. The store is open weekdays from 8 a.m. to 6:30 p.m., Saturdays from 9:30 a.m. to 3 p.m., and Sundays from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m.

If you are recording a deed yourself, the Clerk has required since January 1, 2024 that each witness’s name and post office address be printed, typed or stamped on the deed, and an email address does not count. The Clerk rejects a deed without them. The Clerk also asks for the original signed and notarized deed, a Recording Transmittal form or a cover letter, and a self-addressed stamped envelope for the return, and takes deeds in person or by mail to P.O. Box 3249, Tampa, FL 33601-3249, but never by email. When we draft and record it, those are handled.

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

In Hillsborough County, deeds are recorded by the Recording Department of Victor D. Crist, the Clerk of the Circuit Court and Comptroller. Downtown, the recording counter is not in the Edgecomb Courthouse, where the probate counter is. The counter is in Room 140 of the Pat Collier Frank Courthouse, 419 Pierce Street, about a four-minute walk from the Edgecomb Courthouse, and is open weekdays from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. The Clerk also records at the Brandon Regional Service Center, 311 Pauls Drive, Suite 110, open weekdays from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m., and at the Plant City Courthouse, 301 North Michigan Avenue, Room 1071. The Clerk’s line is 813-276-8100, and official records questions go to [email protected].

You will not need to go downtown or stand in line. We record your deed electronically through Simplifile, which is on the Clerk’s own list of eRecording vendors. The Clerk processes mailed and e-recorded documents in the order they arrive. The posted recording fee is $10 for the first page and $8.50 for each additional page, so a two-page deed costs $18.50 to record, plus $1 for each name after 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 Bob Henriquez, the Hillsborough County Property Appraiser. The main office is on the 15th floor of the County Center, 601 East Kennedy Boulevard, a two-minute walk from the recording counter, and is open weekdays from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. The office answers at 813-272-6100 and by email at [email protected], and its website offers a live chat weekdays from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. The Property Appraiser also has offices in Brandon at 311 Pauls Drive, in Plant City at 307 North Michigan Avenue, and in Ruskin at 410 30th Street SE.

You can file for homestead through the Property Appraiser’s online application. Applications are taken all year, and the deadline is March 1. A late application is accepted only until the 25th day after the Notice of Proposed Property Taxes is mailed, usually in August.

If your home is in a trust, the Property Appraiser says the trust beneficiary with the right to live there may also qualify, and publishes the sample trust wording it looks for. A lady bird deed leaves you as owner and resident. Florida law asks every owner to tell the Property Appraiser when a change affects the exemption, so we tell you whether your deed needs anything, and the exemptions line can confirm it before March 1.

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 Hillsborough 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 Florida Department of Health in Hillsborough County issues death certificates at its University Area Vital Statistics office, 13601 North 22nd Street, weekdays from 7:30 a.m. to 4:15 p.m., at 813-307-8002. The office posts the fee as $10 for a death certificate and covers Florida deaths from 2009 on. 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 free official records search, whose index runs from 1965 to the present. Print a copy at home for the file drawer, or have it printed downtown. The UPS Store at 503 East Jackson Street, between Marion and Morgan Streets, does color and black and white printing and copying and is about a four-minute walk from the recording counter.

If you want the copy printed downtown for pennies, the John F. Germany Public Library at 900 North Ashley Drive, about thirteen minutes on foot from the recording counter, gives every visitor 10 free black and white pages or 5 free color pages a day. After that, printing and copying cost 5 cents a page in black and white and 10 cents in color, and the machines take $1 and $5 bills and coins. Scanning to your own USB drive is free. The library is open Monday through Thursday from 10 a.m. to 9 p.m. and Friday and Saturday from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m., and the James J. Lunsford Law Library shares the building.

If a bank or title company asks for a certified copy, the Clerk sells one online at any hour through eCertify, delivered as a secured PDF by email. At the counter, the Clerk charges $1 a page, $2 to certify, and $2 for each year searched.

Then take two minutes to sign up for the Clerk’s free Property Fraud Alert, or call 800-728-3858. You enter your name, or a business name, and an email address or phone number, and the service notifies you whenever a document is recorded in Hillsborough County under that name. The alert is the simplest early warning there is against someone recording a false deed on your house, and the Clerk keeps your sign-up details confidential under Florida law.

Some families come downtown for another reason and want to know what is close to 419 Pierce Street. For coffee, Blind Tiger Coffee Roasters has a cafe at Tampa City Center, 201 North Franklin Street, open weekdays from 7:30 a.m. to 3 p.m., about seven minutes on foot. Moxie’s Cafe & Caterer serves coffee, breakfast and lunch at 302 East Kennedy Boulevard, on the corner of Franklin Street, weekdays from 7:30 a.m. to 2:30 p.m., about five minutes away. Duckweed Urban Grocery, which started downtown in 2011, is at 803 North Tampa Street, about eleven minutes on foot.

The errands are close together. The Bank of Tampa has its downtown branch at 202 North Franklin Street, with the lobby open weekdays from 8:30 a.m. to 5 p.m., about nine minutes away, which helps if you bank there. The Commerce post office at 401 North Ashley Drive is about eight minutes on foot and open weekdays, which is handy when an original has to go out by certified mail.

For a few minutes of local history, Tampa Theatre at 711 North Franklin Street is about nine minutes on foot from the recording counter. The movie palace, designed by John Eberson and built by Paramount Pictures, opened on October 15, 1926, and when it was slated for demolition in 1973, citizens rallied and the City Council struck a deal to buy and preserve it. Tampa Theatre reopened in January 1977, and the theatre marks its 100th anniversary on October 15, 2026.

When you are done, Joe Chillura Courthouse Square is a two-minute walk away at 600 East Kennedy Boulevard, a county open space beside the downtown county offices, open to the public from sunrise to sunset. Curtis Hixon Waterfront Park, at 600 North Ashley Drive on the Tampa Riverwalk, is about twelve minutes away if you want to sit by the water before the drive home.

If you drive downtown, the garage the Clerk itself points to is the City of Tampa’s Twiggs Street garage at 901 East Twiggs Street, immediately west of Nebraska Avenue, about seven minutes on foot from the recording counter. The entrance is only six feet seven inches high, so a tall van or a truck with a rack will not fit. The City posts the rate as $2 for the first hour and $2 for each hour after, with a $14 daily maximum.

Closer still, the Tax Collector points visitors to a public garage at 319 North Pierce Street, about two minutes from the recording counter. You drive in from Jackson Street and leave onto Pierce Street, and the first hour is free. The City’s own Pierce Street lot opens to the public only on weekdays from 3 p.m. and on weekends, so a morning visit needs a garage. Downtown street meters run $4 for the first hour and $3 for each hour after. If you would rather take the bus, the Clerk links to HART schedules, and HART answers at 813-254-4278.

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 an addition raises a question, a licensed surveyor can check it. American Surveying Inc is in Tampa at 4847 North Florida Avenue, at 813-234-0103, and says its surveys follow the minimum technical standards Florida sets for surveyors. Most deeds never need one.

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 Hillsborough County Property Appraiser lists a $5,000 exemption for a veteran with a service connected disability of less than 100 percent, and an exemption for a veteran with a service connected total and permanent disability, which passes to a surviving spouse who was married to the veteran for at least five years and has not remarried. Both renew on their own once granted, and each needs a current letter from the VA giving the percentage of disability and the award date. A veteran 65 or older with a combat related disability applies on the Property Appraiser’s DR-501DV form, with the rating decision and a copy of the DD-214.

Hillsborough County’s Veteran Community Services helps with that paperwork for free. Its headquarters is the Veterans Resource Center, 3602 US Highway 301 North, building 3610, on the grounds of Veterans Memorial Park, open weekdays from 8 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. The county invites veterans to stop by and meet one on one with a Veteran Services Officer, and one number, 813-635-8316, reaches every office. The same office helps when the Property Appraiser asks for a copy of your DD-214 or your current rating.

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. In Hillsborough County, driver licenses are issued by the Tax Collector, and every name change has to be made in person, after the Social Security Administration has updated your name, allowing 24 to 48 hours after that. Florida law gives you 30 days after a legal name change to update the license. Bring the original or a certified copy of each marriage certificate or court order; photocopies and church issued marriage certificates are not accepted. The Tax Collector’s Downtown office is on the 14th floor of the County Center, 601 East Kennedy Boulevard, one floor below the Property Appraiser and about two minutes from the recording counter. Driver license services run weekdays from 8 a.m. to 4:30 p.m., and from 9 a.m. on Wednesdays. Walk-ins are welcome, appointments are available to Hillsborough residents, and the office answers at 813-635-5200.