Is a Trust Public Record in Florida?

1. Are Trust Documents Public Record?

No. A Florida trust agreement is a private document, and the signed original stays with you or your lawyer. Florida’s trust code says a trust is not subject to continuing court supervision unless a court orders it, and a trust case starts only when someone files a complaint. With no court case and no recording, no public office ever receives a copy.

While a revocable trust can still be revoked, the trustee’s duties run to you alone, so even the children named in it have no right to read it. After your death the trust becomes irrevocable, and within 60 days the trustee must tell the qualified beneficiaries the trust exists and that they may request a copy. A qualified beneficiary who asks is entitled to a complete copy. The right belongs to the beneficiaries, not to the public, and our guide to Florida trust beneficiary rights covers who qualifies.

The trust’s money is private too. Account balances are between the trustee and the bank, and a trust that files its own tax return files it with the IRS, which federal law requires to keep confidential.

2. Where Is a Trust Recorded in Florida?

Nowhere. Florida has no place to record a trust agreement and no requirement to record one. The document that does get recorded is the deed that moves your house into the trust, which goes into the official records of the county where the house sits, and anyone can pull it up on the clerk’s website.

That deed reveals less than people fear. Florida lets a deed name a person “as trustee” and grant the trustee the power to protect, sell, lease and mortgage the property, and the deed is effective without the trust agreement attached. Florida also says people dealing with that trustee need not look into who the beneficiaries are. A well-drafted deed to the trustee therefore shows the trustee’s name, the trust’s name and date, and the trustee’s powers, and it says nothing about who inherits. The county property appraiser will then list the trustee as the owner. Our guide to putting your house in a trust covers the deed, and the page on trust real estate and title covers the trust code’s side.

An owner who wants the trust’s name off the public record can title the trust generically, such as “the 2026 Family Trust” instead of a surname, and a Florida land trust is sometimes used for real estate where privacy is the main goal.

3. Does a Trust Have to Be Filed With the Court?

Only as a one-page notice, and only after your death. When the creator of a revocable trust dies, the trustee must file a notice of trust with the court in the county where the creator lived. The notice states the creator’s name and date of death, the trust’s title and date, and the trustee’s name and address. The trust agreement itself is not attached.

The clerk files and indexes the notice the way it indexes a caveat, or in the probate file if one is open, and sends a copy to the personal representative. The notice is a public court record, so anyone searching the court file under the creator’s name can learn that a trust exists and who the trustee is. The notice tells a probate court and the creditors where to look for the trust, and it tells nobody who inherits. Our page on the Florida notice of trust covers the filing, and our guide to Florida trust administration covers the rest of what the trustee does.

4. What Does a Certification of Trust Reveal?

A certification of trust is a short signed statement the trustee gives a bank, a brokerage or a title company instead of the whole trust. Florida lists what it covers, including that the trust exists and when it was signed, who created it, who the current trustee is, the trustee’s powers, whether the trust can be revoked and by whom, and how title to trust property is held. Florida says the certification need not contain the trust’s dispositive terms, which are the provisions saying who receives what.

A certification handed to a bank stays in the bank’s file. A certification recorded with a deed, which title companies often require when a trustee sells or mortgages real estate, becomes part of the county’s public records. Either way, the beneficiaries and their shares stay out of it. A person relying on a certification can ask for copies of the pages naming the trustee and granting the power to act, but not the rest. Our guide to the Florida certification of trust covers when to use one.

5. When Does a Trust Become Public?

A trust becomes public when someone sues over it. A trust case in Florida starts with a complaint in the circuit court, and the complaint usually attaches the trust, its amendments and the facts of the family dispute. Court files are public, and an appeal produces a published opinion that anyone can read for decades.

Florida’s court rules let a party ask the judge to seal particular records, and the standard for sealing is demanding, so most trust disputes play out in public. The families who keep their trusts private are, for the most part, the families who never end up in court. Our guide asking can a trust be contested in Florida covers the grounds and the six-month deadline, and the trust litigation guide covers the process.

6. Is a Will Public Record in Florida?

A will becomes public after death. Florida requires anyone holding a will to deposit it with the clerk of court within 10 days of learning the person has died, and the clerk keeps the original for at least 20 years. Once the will is probated, the will, the petition and the court’s orders are part of a public file. The inventory of what the estate owns and the accountings are the exception. Florida law makes both confidential, open only to the personal representative, the beneficiaries and others with a stake in the estate, or by court order. A trust keeps even the will and the court file out of view, because a funded trust never goes to court at all.

A trust avoids that exposure for the property it holds. A pour-over will still has to be deposited, and it is probated only if property was left outside the trust. The pour-over will names the trust as its beneficiary and does not repeat the trust’s terms, so even a probated pour-over will keeps the family’s shares private. Our page asking does a trust avoid probate in Florida explains which assets stay out of court, and does a will override a trust explains how the two documents divide the property.

What Does a Private Trust Plan Cost?

The Complete Trust Plan is a flat fee from $3,200, and $4,500 for a couple. The plan includes the revocable trust, a pour-over will that keeps the trust’s terms out of any probate file, one funding deed drafted so the public record shows the trustee and nothing about your beneficiaries, and help retitling your accounts. A deed moving another property into an existing trust is a flat fee from $550. Administering a trust after a death is a flat fee quoted at consult. Recording and other government costs are additional and passed through at cost. Advertised fees are honored for 90 days from the posted date. A lawsuit over a trust is litigation, which we quote per matter.

Frequently Asked Questions

Common Situations

The neighbor who searched the county records. A retired physician in Naples deeds his home to himself as trustee. A curious neighbor finds the deed online and learns that a trust exists, its name and its date. The deed says nothing about his three children or their shares, and neither does the property appraiser’s listing.

The sale after a death. A daughter serving as successor trustee sells her late mother’s condo. The title company records her certification of trust with the deed, showing that she is the trustee and has the power to sell. Her brother’s larger share, which the trust gives him to repay a loan he made to their mother, never appears in any public record.

Sources of Law

• Fla. Stat. §736.0201 (annotated)(1),(3) (trust proceedings commenced by complaint; no continuing judicial supervision unless ordered); §736.0603 (annotated)(1) (while revocable, duties owed exclusively to the settlor); §736.0813 (annotated)(1)(b)-(c),(4) (60-day notice after the trust becomes irrevocable; copy of the trust on request of a qualified beneficiary; no duties to beneficiaries while revocable).
• Fla. Stat. §736.05055(1)-(5) (notice of trust filed with the court of the county of the settlor’s domicile; its contents; indexed in the same manner as a caveat or filed in the probate proceeding).
• Fla. Stat. §736.1017 (annotated)(1),(4),(5),(8) (contents of a certification of trust; need not contain the dispositive terms; recipient may require excerpts designating the trustee and conferring the power; no limit on obtaining the instrument when required by law or in a judicial proceeding).
• Fla. Stat. §733.604(1)(b) (estate inventories and accountings filed with the clerk are confidential and exempt from public records, disclosed to the personal representative, interested persons and on court order).
• Fla. Stat. §689.073(1)-(2) (a recorded instrument naming a trustee and conferring powers vests those powers; persons dealing with the trustee need not inquire into the beneficiaries).
• Fla. Stat. §732.901(1),(4) (deposit of a will with the clerk within 10 days after learning of the death; retention for at least 20 years); Fla. R. Gen. Prac. & Jud. Admin. 2.420 (public access to and confidentiality of court records); 26 U.S.C. §6103 (confidentiality of federal tax returns).
• Case retold below: Siegel v. Novak, 920 So. 2d 89 (Fla. 4th DCA 2006) (applying New York law; after the settlor’s death, beneficiaries of a revocable trust have standing to challenge pre-death withdrawals made by someone other than the settlor outside the trust’s purposes; the court did not reach whether any breach occurred). Opinion read in full; retrieved September 30, 2026.

How a Private Trust Hid Withdrawals From the Family

I have read cases where a trust’s privacy kept the owner’s own children in the dark. In one of them, a woman signed a revocable trust in March 1990 with a bank as trustee, leaving equal shares to her three children at her death. The trust said that only she could revoke or amend it, and that her agent under a power of attorney could not. The mother later gave one daughter a durable power of attorney. From November 1995 to June 2001, while the mother was in her nineties and frail, the daughter signed a series of revocation letters as her agent and withdrew principal, and the bank paid every one.

The mother died in February 2002. In March 2003 the bank itself asked a Florida court to approve its accounts and release it from liability, and attached an 89-page accounting to the complaint. The sons objected, and in a later filing they put the withdrawals at $3,373,629. The trial court ruled that the sons could not question anything done while the trust was revocable. The Fourth District reversed and held that once the mother had died, the sons could challenge withdrawals made by someone else that fell outside the purposes the trust allowed.

In reviewing the Florida cases on revocable trusts and the family’s right to information, I have a few take-home points.

The first is who the privacy protects. A revocable trust is private from the family as well as from the public, because the trustee answers to the owner while the owner is alive. The withdrawals here ran from 1995 to 2001, and the sons could bring a challenge only after their mother died.

The second is how the privacy ended. The trustee’s own request for a discharge put six years of one woman’s withdrawals into a public court file, and the dispute that followed put the family in a published opinion.

The third is a second set of eyes. An owner can name a person in the trust, such as a child who is not the agent, to receive copies of the trustee’s statements while the owner is alive. Avoid giving one child a power of attorney over an owner who is declining, with no one else entitled to see what leaves the trust, because the first review may come only after the money is gone.

An owner can set those reporting terms at the drafting stage, and every Complete Trust Plan I prepare, flat fee from $3,200, lets the owner decide who sees the trust statements and when. One limit applies. The court applied New York law, because the trust had chosen it in 1995, and decided only that the sons could raise the challenge, not whether any withdrawal was improper.

Kevin D. Klagge, Esq., admitted in Florida since 2012. Each case described above is a decision of a Florida court rather than a matter handled by this firm. Past results do not guarantee a similar outcome.

Updated on September 30, 2026. Reviewed by Kevin D. Klagge, Esq., Fla. Bar No. 99502. Attorney Kevin Klagge represents families, businesses, and international clients in estate and tax planning, business structuring, and international law, with a focus on Florida legal tools. He litigates estate and business issues in court. General information about Florida law, not legal advice, and no attorney-client relationship is created. Do not send confidential information until we have agreed to represent you.