Jacksonville Estate Planning Attorney

Jacksonville covers more ground than any other city in Florida, and because the city and Duval County operate as one consolidated government, many of the offices that touch an estate plan sit under the City of Jacksonville. The people we hear from here range from young families in Mandarin who need guardians named for their children, to retirees at the Beaches who want their home to pass without probate, to adult children worried about a parent who can no longer manage the bills. This page covers the planning side of those questions and the Duval County offices your documents will pass through.

Communities we serve in Duval County

• Jacksonville, including Downtown, San Marco, Riverside, Mandarin and Arlington
• Jacksonville Beach
• Atlantic Beach and Neptune Beach
• Baldwin
• Families near Orange Park, which sits just over the line in Clay County

The documents a Jacksonville plan is built from

Most plans start with the same core documents. What changes from family to family is how they are drafted and how your property is titled to match them.

1. A Florida will. It names your beneficiaries, a personal representative and a guardian for minor children. Florida requires you to sign at the end before two witnesses, and a self proving affidavit before a notary lets the will be admitted later without tracking the witnesses down.
2. A revocable living trust. Assets titled in the trust pass without probate. A pour over will catches anything left outside it.
3. A durable power of attorney. It is signed before two witnesses and a notary, and it takes effect when signed, because Florida no longer allows new springing powers. Powers such as changing a trust must be separately initialed.
4. A health care surrogate designation and a living will. Each is signed before two adult witnesses, and at least one witness may not be your spouse or a blood relative.

Many Duval County families come to us because a parent's health is changing. The power of attorney and health care documents are what let a trusted person act without going to court, so they matter as much as the will. If your questions are mainly about long term care or guardianship, our Duval County elder law page covers that work.

The Duval County offices your plan touches

Homestead and your Jacksonville home

For most families the home is the largest asset, and Florida treats it differently from everything else. The Florida Constitution protects a primary residence from most creditors and limits how it can be left by will when you are survived by a spouse or minor child. A plan that ignores those limits can fail at exactly the moment it is needed. Our Florida homestead planning page explains the rules.

The homestead property tax exemption is a separate question handled by the Duval County Property Appraiser. Applications are due by March 1 (section 196.011), and you must own and live in the home on January 1. The Property Appraiser accepts timely applications by mail, fax, email or in person. After March 1, a late application must be made in person, and only people with extenuating circumstances may file late, up to the 25th day after the August mailing of proposed tax notices.

The Property Appraiser's materials also explain that a homestead exemption comes off when ownership changes as of January 1, and that its online filing system needs the property to show in your name, which can take some weeks after a deed is recorded. So when we prepare a deed moving your home into a trust, we confirm with the office what it needs to keep the exemption in place, rather than assuming.

Deeds, Official Records and fraud alerts

A deed into your trust, or an enhanced life estate deed, is recorded with the Duval Clerk in the county's Official Records. The Clerk's published recording fee is $10 for the first page and $8.50 for each additional page, with documentary stamp tax where it applies at 70 cents per $100. Electronic recording runs through approved third party vendors rather than directly through the Clerk.

Once your deed is on record, sign up for the Clerk's free Property Fraud Alert. It sends you a notice when a document is recorded in your name or your business name, with a document number you can look up in the Official Records search. Fraudulent deeds are a real problem for homeowners, and the alert is a simple safeguard for a home that is part of your estate plan.

If a family member has died

Under section 732.901, whoever holds the original will must deposit it with the clerk within 10 days after learning of the death. In Duval County that is the Clerk's probate office at the courthouse on West Adams Street, and the Clerk will not accept a will for deposit while the person who made it is still living. Whether the estate then needs formal administration, summary administration (generally available when the non exempt estate is $150,000 or less, or the death was more than two years ago) or no court case at all depends on how the assets were titled. Our Duval County probate page walks through those steps, and our general Florida probate administration page explains the process.

How we work with Duval County clients

We work with Jacksonville and Duval County clients by phone and video, and you are welcome to meet at any of our offices, including Orlando. Your first consultation is free. We listen to what you want to happen, explain which documents fit, draft them in plain language and arrange a proper signing with the witnesses and notary Florida requires. When a deed is part of the plan, we prepare it, have it recorded with the Duval Clerk and talk you through the homestead filing. Because the firm limits its caseload, you work directly with an attorney from the first call to the signing. If you also own rental or investment property in the county, our Duval County real estate page covers that work. Start with our Florida estate planning overview, or contact us to talk it through.