Estate Planning Attorney for Titusville, 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 in Titusville or from wherever you are. Since March 1, 2026, the Brevard Clerk’s office charges $10 for notary services. The Clerk does not say which branch offers the service, so call the main line at 321-637-5413 before you go. The Clerk also takes passport applications without an appointment at every branch and sells passport photos, in case the trip to South Street does double duty.

The Clerk publishes a quitclaim deed form but no recording checklist, and its staff are not allowed to give advice on preparing a document for recording. When we draft your deed, we prepare it to Florida’s recording requirements so it records the first time.

For hot coffee near the Clerk, Sunrise Bread Company at 315 South Hopkins Avenue is about 8 minutes on foot from 400 South Street, at 321-268-1009. The bakery has been baking since 1996, pours Batdorf & Bronson coffee from Seattle, and serves breakfast sandwiches and lunch on its own breads. The Titusville Welcome Center at 419 South Hopkins Avenue, about 6 minutes on foot, is open Tuesday through Saturday from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. and hands out maps and rocket launch viewing tips. The historic Titusville Courthouse at 506 South Palm Avenue, where Brevard’s probate judge sits, is about 4 minutes on foot.

Downtown has no bank branch or post office on foot. The Titusville post office is a short drive south at 2503 South Washington Avenue, with its retail window open weekdays from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. and Saturday from 9 a.m. to noon, at 321-267-4826, which helps when an original has to go out by certified mail. Truist has its Titus Landing branch nearby at 2460 South Washington Avenue, if you bank there and need a cashier’s check.

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

In Brevard County, deeds are recorded by the Recording Division of the Clerk of the Circuit Court and Comptroller, Rachel M. Sadoff. Titusville is the county seat, and the Clerk’s full-service counter is in Titusville, on the second floor of 400 South Street, open weekdays from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. The Recording Division answers at 321-637-2006 and by email at [email protected].

Brevard’s recording address is in Titusville too. Mail for the Recording Department goes to P.O. Box 2767, Titusville, FL 32781, and overnight packages go to the Clerk’s Parkway Complex at 700 South Park Avenue, Building B, about 13 minutes on foot from South Street. The Parkway office also records plat maps and surveys by appointment. The Clerk does not say whether the South Street counter takes a paper deed over the counter, so call 321-637-2006 before you bring one in.

You will not need to go to either office. We record your deed electronically through Simplifile, which is on the Clerk’s own list of e-recording vendors. The Clerk says e-recording saves postage and courier fees and speeds up recording, and a short payment is settled electronically instead of the paper deed being sent back. Brevard posts its recording fee as $10 for the first page and $8.50 for each page after, so a two-page deed records for $18.50.

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 Dana Blickley, the Brevard County Property Appraiser. The Titusville office is in the Brevard County Government Complex North at 400 South Street, on the fifth floor, three floors above the Clerk’s counter, at 321-264-6700. The office is open weekdays from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m., and there are other offices in Viera, Melbourne and Palm Bay. The Exemptions desk answers at 321-264-6700, Option 1, and by email at [email protected].

You must own the home and make it your permanent residence on January 1, and the application is due by March 1. Most owners can file online. If your home is held in a trust, the Property Appraiser asks for a copy of the trust agreement or a recorded memorandum of trust.

The Property Appraiser asks owners to contact the office if they changed title. When your lady bird deed records, ask the Exemptions desk whether it needs anything new from you. We can make that call with you.

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 Brevard 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 for Titusville families come from the Department of Health’s Office of Vital Statistics in Viera, at 2565 Judge Fran Jamieson Way, weekdays from 8 a.m. to 4:30 p.m., at 321-454-7163. The office charges $12 a certificate, takes cash, Visa, MasterCard or a money order but no personal checks, and issues records for Florida deaths from 2009 on to a family member with a valid picture ID. 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 search by your name and view, print or save the recorded image. Brevard’s index and images there go back to January 1, 1981.

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. Copies are ordered through the Clerk’s Research and Copy Request Center, and the Official Records and Research desk answers at 321-637-2004.

Then take two minutes to sign up for the Clerk’s free Recording Notification Service. The service emails you whenever a document is recorded under a name or property you register, up to 10 per email address, and your registration stays on until you unsubscribe. If an alert ever looks wrong, the Clerk sends you to local law enforcement and to its Fraud, Waste and Abuse line at 321-637-6541.

Titusville takes its name from a game of dominoes. The city’s own history says Colonel Henry Titus beat Captain Clark Rice at a dominoes match to decide who would rename the settlement of Sand Point, and it became Titusville in 1873. The Pritchard House at 242 South Washington Avenue, about 6 minutes on foot from the Clerk, is a Queen Anne house built for Captain James Pritchard in 1891, and tours are by reservation at 321-607-0203.

For the river, Space View Park sits at the end of Broad Street off Indian River Avenue, about 15 minutes on foot from 400 South Street and about 9 minutes from Sunrise Bread Company. The city describes it as less than 15 miles directly across the Indian River from the launch pads, with a boardwalk, benches, the handprints of the Mercury astronauts to compare your own against, and mission logos carved in black granite.

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 Brevard Property Appraiser lists a $5,000 exemption for an honorably discharged Florida resident who is at least 10 percent disabled from war or service-connected events, and a full exemption on the homestead for a veteran with a service-connected total and permanent disability, applied for with a DD-214 and a VA letter stating the percentage. A veteran 65 or older with a combat-related disability may also receive a discount equal to the disability percentage, and since January 1, 2021 that discount extends to a surviving spouse.

Ask about these at the Property Appraiser’s fifth-floor office at 400 South Street, or at the Exemptions desk at 321-264-6700, Option 1.

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. Titusville has its own driver license and motor vehicle office at 800 South Park Avenue, about 14 minutes on foot from the Clerk, open weekdays from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Every service there requires an appointment, which North and Central Brevard residents make at 321-264-6935.