Living Trust and Estate Planning Attorney for Boca Raton, 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. In downtown Boca Raton, The UPS Store #2137 at 102 NE 2nd Street lists notary service and keeps separate notary hours, so call ahead. The Department of Health in Palm Beach County also notarizes deeds for $10 at its Vital Statistics office in the Delray Beach Health Center, 225 South Congress Avenue, which added notary service in October 2025. Bring the complete, unsigned original and a government photo ID, along with your two witnesses.

If you are recording a deed yourself, the Clerk checks it against a posted list. Every deed notarized in Florida must show each witness’s name and address, the first page needs a blank three-inch square in the top right corner for the recording stamp, with a one-by-three-inch space on each page after, and a deed that affects real property needs a “prepared by” statement. A deed sent by mail needs a self-addressed stamped envelope, and payment by mail cannot be cash. When we draft your deed, those are handled.

For a hot coffee or an early lunch downtown, Crema Gourmet at 305 Plaza Real in Mizner Park serves coffee and breakfast all day, every day from 7 a.m. to 4:30 p.m., about 10 minutes on foot from City Hall, at (561) 269-4820.

The Downtown Boca Raton Post Office at 170 NE 2nd Street is two minutes on foot from The UPS Store and about 11 minutes from City Hall, open weekdays from 8:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. and Saturday from noon to 3 p.m. If a court day takes you to the South County Courthouse and you bank there, the Seacoast Bank branch at 50 NE 5th Avenue in Delray Beach is about 12 minutes on foot, which helps if a cashier’s check is needed.

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

In Palm Beach County, deeds are recorded by the Recording Department of the Clerk of the Circuit Court and Comptroller, where Shannon Ramsey-Chessman serves as Clerk Ad Interim. The Clerk has no office in Boca Raton. The nearest counter that records deeds is at the South County Courthouse, 200 West Atlantic Avenue, Room 1S-124, in Delray Beach, open Monday through Friday from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m., at (561) 274-1588. The Clerk’s own page lists recording among the services there, and deeds are not on the short list of documents that only the Main Courthouse in West Palm Beach will take. The same courthouse handles probate cases for the south end of the county, and the Clerk says parking is free in the garage across SW 2nd Avenue.

You will not need to drive to Delray Beach or to West Palm Beach. We record your deed electronically through Simplifile, which is on the Clerk’s own list of eRecording vendors, so the signed deed never travels by mail. The Clerk’s eRecording page says electronic submission reduces the time gap for recording, and it also says plainly that a mailed original comes back to the sender without a recording stamp. 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 Dorothy Jacks, the Palm Beach County Property Appraiser. The office closest to Boca Raton is the South County Service Center, 14925 Cumberland Drive, Delray Beach, at 561.276.1250, open weekdays from 8:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. Exemption questions also go to 561.355.2866 or MyExemption@pbcpao.gov. You can file online, at any of the appraiser’s five service centers, or by mail. You must qualify on January 1 and file by March 1, and the appraiser takes late applications in person at a branch until mid-September.

If your home is in a homeowner or condominium association, the appraiser’s community outreach program can bring its staff to the association to answer questions and help residents apply. The program is run from the South County Service Center by Margaux A. Robertson, at 561.894.7751 or MARobert@pbcpao.gov.

Once you qualify, the exemption renews itself, and each December the appraiser mails a pink and white receipt card. The appraiser asks owners to call when ownership changes by sale, marriage, divorce or death, and its homestead page says Florida law requires a new application when you change the manner in which title is held on your existing homestead. Before we record, ask us whether your lady bird deed calls for one, and we will check it with the appraiser’s exemptions staff.

If your home is going into a trust instead of a lady bird deed, the appraiser does not want the trust agreement. The appraiser asks instead for a Certificate of Trust, sent to pa-trust@pbcpao.gov or mailed to Exemption Services at 301 North Olive Avenue in West Palm Beach.

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 Palm Beach 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 nearest place to pick up certified death certificates is the Department of Health’s Vital Statistics office in the Delray Beach Health Center, 225 South Congress Avenue, weekdays from 8 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. (closing at noon on the first Thursday of each month), for $15 a copy. The health center answers at 561-274-3100, and the office issues certificates for 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 official records search, where you can look it up by your name and open the recorded image. Images there go back to January 1, 1968, so the deed you received when you bought a Boca Raton home is usually in the same place.

Uncertified, watermarked copies are free to view, save and print from the Clerk’s website. For a paper copy printed for you in Boca Raton, The UPS Store #2137 at 102 NE 2nd Street offers document printing and copies, about 10 minutes on foot from City Hall, at (561) 393-3231. The Boca Raton Public Library’s Downtown Library at 400 NW 2nd Avenue, about 9 minutes on foot from City Hall, prints from its public computers and by mobile printing for 20 cents a page in black and white and 50 cents in color. The library is open Monday through Thursday from 9 a.m. to 8 p.m. and Friday through Sunday from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.

If a bank or title company asks for a certified copy, the Clerk charges $1 a page plus $2 to certify it at the South County counter, or $8 per document for an electronically certified copy ordered online, which downloads right after purchase.

Then take two minutes to sign up for the Clerk’s free Property Fraud Alert. The Clerk emails you within 24 hours when a document is recorded that exactly matches the name, address or parcel number you registered. Because the match has to be exact, the Clerk asks you to register every variation of your name and address, each owner separately, and a trust as a business name ending in the word Trust.

Parking near Boca Raton City Hall is free. The city lists free parking at the City Hall lots at 201 West Palmetto Park Road, at the Building Administration lot, and at the Downtown Library lot, where the city allows no overnight parking from 11 p.m. to 8 a.m. and no parking for Brightline riders. If a court day takes you to the South County Courthouse in Delray Beach instead, the Clerk says parking is free there too, in the garage across SW 2nd Avenue.

Coming by train, the Brightline Boca Raton station at 101 NW 4th Street is about 10 minutes on foot from City Hall, and its own parking garage is open around the clock.

Historic Town Hall at 71 North Federal Highway, about 8 minutes on foot from City Hall, houses The Schmidt Boca Raton History Museum, open Wednesday through Saturday from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. The Historical Society’s own history of Addison Mizner tells how the city’s land boom ended in court. By the spring of 1927, after the September 1926 hurricane, buyers had filed suits to recover property sold by the Mizner Development Corporation, a court appointed trustees in bankruptcy, and in November one of Mizner’s original backers, Clarence H. Geist, bought the company’s assets for $71,500 in cash and about seven million dollars of its debts.

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 addition raises a question, a land surveyor can check it. Landtec Surveying, a land surveying firm that handles boundary work and delivers digitally signed and sealed surveys, is just south of Boca Raton at 700 West Hillsboro Boulevard, Suite 2-102, in Deerfield Beach, at (866) 776-3185. 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 Palm Beach County Property Appraiser lists a full exemption from property taxes for a veteran with a total and permanent service-connected disability, proved with a 27/e Benefits Letter or a VA form letter 27-333, and the appraiser checks every letter with the VA before approving it. A veteran with a service-connected disability of 10 percent or more may qualify for an additional $5,000 exemption with a 27/e Benefits Letter or a VA form letter 27-125. The surviving spouse of a veteran who held the total and permanent exemption keeps a full exemption on the homestead.

The Property Appraiser sends veterans with questions to Palm Beach County Veteran Services at 561-355-4761. The application itself goes to the appraiser, by email to myexemption@pbcpao.gov, by mail, or in person at the South County Service Center, 14925 Cumberland Drive in Delray Beach, and the filing deadline is March 1 of the year the exemption will apply.

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 state lists no driver license office in Boca Raton. The nearest is in Delray Beach at 501 S. Congress Ave., on the same road as the Department of Health’s Delray Beach Health Center, with driver license service weekdays from 8:15 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. The Palm Beach County Tax Collector runs the office and requires a reservation for in-person service, for Palm Beach County residents only, at pbctax.gov/reservations or 561-355-2264.