Lady Bird Deed Palm Beach County: One Office, and a Homestead Rule That Flips
A lady bird deed Palm Beach County residents record goes to a single elected officer who records the deed, runs the probate division and audits the county’s books — and files both the deed and any later probate at the same downtown address. At Lorenzo Law I handle these across the county. Jose M. Lorenzo, Jr., Florida Bar No. 107002.
| Palm Beach County | Where |
|---|---|
| Deeds and probate | Clerk of the Circuit Court & Comptroller, 205 N. Dixie Highway, West Palm Beach |
| Recording counter hours | Weekdays 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. · (561) 355-2991 |
| Homestead and parcel data | Property Appraiser, 301 N. Olive Avenue, West Palm Beach |
| Judicial circuit | Fifteenth — Palm Beach County alone |
| Recording, page one | $10.00, then $8.50 each later page |
| Documentary stamps | $0.70 per $100 — the standard rate |
| Lorenzo Law flat fee | $675, recording included |
| Call | (305) 224-6811 |
Where does a lady bird deed Palm Beach County owners sign get recorded?
With the Clerk of the Circuit Court & Comptroller, at 205 N. Dixie Highway in West Palm Beach. The counter opens 8 a.m. until 4 p.m. on weekdays.
Recordings sent by post go to P.O. Box 4177, West Palm Beach 33402. That one office is unusual. It records deeds, runs the probate division, and serves as the county’s comptroller — three functions that elsewhere in Florida sit with different people. Orange County, ninety miles north, splits the first two: deeds record with the Comptroller on Church Street while probate is filed with the Clerk on North Orange Avenue, in a different building. Palm Beach puts the deed registry and the probate court at the same street address.
That matters when a deed does not work. Under § 695.01 a conveyance that never reaches the official records gives way to creditors, and to anyone who later buys the property without notice of it. If the transfer fails, the estate opens down the corridor rather than across town.
What does recording actually cost here?
Ten dollars for page one, then $8.50 a page. Names past the first four are indexed at a dollar apiece. Two pages and two names come to $18.50.
| Charge | Amount |
|---|---|
| First page, § 28.24 base plus statutory add-ons | $10.00 |
| Each later page | $8.50 |
| Each name indexed beyond the first four | $1.00 |
| First legal description | $0.60 |
| Second legal description | $0.60 |
| Each further legal description | $0.20 |
| Extra search, where the document carries no legal description | $2.00 |
Those last four lines are a Palm Beach quirk worth knowing. The county charges per legal description and adds a search fee to any instrument that arrives without one — which is a small, precise financial penalty for the single most common defect in a downloaded deed. A parcel identified only by street address or folio number does not just risk failing later; it costs two dollars more on the day. It is also the defect a free form is least able to prevent, because a blank template has no way to know what your recorded deed says.
The whole of it sits inside the firm’s $675 flat fee rather than arriving as a separate bill. Quotes elsewhere often exclude recording, so compare on what reaches the counter rather than on the drafting line alone.
Can I record at a branch instead of going downtown?
Yes — five locations take recordings. Besides the main courthouse there are counters in Delray Beach, Palm Beach Gardens, Belle Glade and Royal Palm Beach, all keeping the same 8-to-4 weekday hours.
| Branch | Address |
|---|---|
| South County | 200 W. Atlantic Ave., Delray Beach |
| North County | 3188 PGA Blvd., Palm Beach Gardens |
| West County | 2950 State Road 15, Belle Glade |
| Royal Palm Beach | 200 Civic Center Way, Suite 400 |
One caution. The Property Appraiser keeps offices in the same four towns but at different addresses — in Belle Glade the Clerk is at 2950 State Road 15 and the Appraiser at 2976, and in Royal Palm Beach the Clerk is in Suite 400 while the Appraiser is in Suite 200. The Appraiser also opens until 5 p.m. rather than 4. People arrive at the wrong counter with an hour to spare and lose the day. If the errand is a homestead application rather than a recording, it is the Appraiser you want, and the two offices do not pass paperwork between themselves.
Does the homestead restriction apply to a Florida second home?
Not if you genuinely live somewhere else. The constitutional restrictions attach to the property a person actually resides in, so a condominium owned by someone whose permanent home is up north sits outside them.
This is the point where Palm Beach inverts the usual Florida analysis. Everywhere else on this site the homestead rules are the constraint: § 732.4015 bars devising homestead away from a surviving spouse or minor child, and a married owner cannot convey homestead without the spouse joining. On a true second home neither applies, and the deed becomes markedly simpler.
Everything else still applies. The deed needs two subscribing witnesses under § 689.01, the enhanced powers have to be drafted so the owner keeps the right to sell and revoke without the beneficiaries joining, and the legal description still has to come off the recorded deed rather than the tax bill. Losing the homestead constraint removes one question from the analysis, not the analysis.
Read that carefully, because the trap here is subtle. Constitutional homestead and the property tax exemption are two different things. § 731.201 defines protected homestead by reference to the constitution, not to the tax roll. A property can be constitutional homestead even though nobody ever filed for the exemption, because the test is where the owner actually lives. Never reason from “the Property Appraiser shows no homestead exemption” to “the restrictions do not apply.” Reason from where the family sleeps.
Why does the county’s homestead page mention New York?
Because of who buys here. The Property Appraiser requires that an applicant hold no residency-based benefit elsewhere — and names New York’s Rollback, STAR and Enhanced STAR programmes specifically.
| Palm Beach County Property Appraiser | Detail |
|---|---|
| Main office | 301 N. Olive Ave., West Palm Beach · (561) 355-3230 |
| Hours | Weekdays 8:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. |
| Homestead deadline | 1 March, with eligibility tested at 1 January |
| Late filing | available, closing in mid-September |
| Portability form | DR-501T, due 1 March |
| Portability ceiling | $500,000 |
| Save Our Homes cap | the lower of 3% or CPI |
| Parcels on the roll | 662,126, of which 186,723 are condominium units |
A Florida county naming New York tax programmes in its own eligibility rules is the seasonal economy showing up in the paperwork. It also signals what the office is watching for: someone claiming a Florida exemption while still claiming one up north. If the plan is to make Palm Beach the permanent residence and pass the property to children, the exemption and the deed need to be sequenced in that order, not the reverse.
What happens to the 10% cap on a non-homestead property?
This is genuinely unsettled. Non-homestead residential property is capped at 10% annual assessment growth under § 193.1554, and that cap resets to just value after a change of ownership.
The reason for caution is a difference between two statutes that most pages never mention. § 193.155, which governs homestead, carves out a long list of transfers that do not count — including where the same person remains entitled to the exemption, and transfers by operation of law at death. The non-homestead provision carries a much shorter list: correcting an error, moving between legal and equitable title, transfers between spouses, and dissolution of marriage.
No Florida court, Department of Revenue rule or Property Appraiser bulletin that I can find decides whether recording an enhanced life estate deed is a change of ownership for that purpose. Anyone telling you confidently either way is guessing. On a homestead the question barely arises; on a Palm Beach second home carrying years of accumulated cap benefit, it is the one worth asking first.
Does a lady bird deed here attract documentary stamp tax?
The Department of Revenue has advised that it does not. Technical Assistance Advisement 20B4-004 reasoned that no present beneficial interest changes hands, because the remainder stays contingent while the life tenant lives.
Two limits belong with that. § 213.22 binds an advisement only to the taxpayer who requested it, and § 201.02 treats an outstanding mortgage as consideration even where nobody assumes the debt. Palm Beach pays the ordinary $0.70 per $100, not the Miami-Dade rate, so a mortgaged property is the fact pattern worth confirming before the deed is recorded.
What happens at the Clerk’s counter after the owner dies?
Someone records proof of death, and the remainder becomes ownership. That means an affidavit identifying the life tenant, the recorded deed and the death certificate, filed into the same official records.
It is a short errand, and it is where a defective deed finally announces itself. If the remainder beneficiaries were named loosely, if one of them died first with no alternate, or if the legal description does not match the chain, the family discovers it standing at the counter with a death certificate in hand. Nothing about that moment is fixable by the person who signed the deed, because that person is the reason everyone is there. An hour spent on one of these instruments before signing costs a fraction of the equivalent hour after a funeral, when the remaining options have narrowed to litigation or acceptance. That asymmetry is the entire argument for having somebody read the title first.
Beneficiaries who inherit a Palm Beach condominium should also expect the association to want its own paperwork, and the property tax picture to change at the following 1 January. A deed that transfers cleanly still leaves an estate with administrative work; it simply keeps that work out of court.
Which court takes the probate if the deed fails?
The Fifteenth Judicial Circuit, which covers Palm Beach County and nothing else. § 26.021 composes it of this county alone — unlike the Ninth, which spans Orange and Osceola.
A single-county circuit makes practice predictable: one set of local procedures, one probate division, and the same building that recorded the deed. Compare Orange and Osceola, which share the Ninth and therefore share judges and administrative orders across two counties with quite different filing arrangements. Probate services also run from the Delray Beach and Palm Beach Gardens courthouses. Note that probate filings go to a different post office box from recordings, which is a small thing that delays a surprising number of first filings.
Can a lady bird deed be e-recorded in Palm Beach County?
Only through an approved vendor. The Clerk accepts electronic submissions around the clock but takes nothing directly — everything arrives through services such as CSC, Simplifile or Indecomm.
Same-day recording is not promised. The formatting rules bite here as much as on paper. § 695.26 has required, since 1 January 2024, every signature backed by a printed name and a post-office address, the preparer identified on the face of it, three inches of clear space squared off in the upper right corner of page one, and a one-by-three-inch strip in the same corner of everything after. Vendor software validates page size, margins and fees. Whether the person signing held the legal power to convey is not something it inspects, and no rejection notice will ever raise it.
What should I bring to a consultation?
The current deed, the parcel control number, and the mortgage statement. With those the title question is usually answered in the first meeting rather than the second.
For a seasonal property, bring two more things: proof of where you actually reside, and any homestead or residency-based benefit claimed in another state. Those two facts decide which half of this page applies to you, and they are the two a downloaded form never asks about.
Bring the family facts as well — who would inherit, their ages, and whether any of them receives needs-based assistance. Where a beneficiary receives SSI or Medicaid, an interest arriving at death can disqualify them, and the answer is usually to route that share through a trust rather than to give up on the deed. Our preparation checklist lists everything else worth gathering first.
How do I reach a lady bird deed attorney for this county?
Call (305) 224-6811. A standard matter is $675 with recording included, confirmed after the title review and before drafting begins.
Related reading: the statewide lady bird deed attorney page deals with fees and with when a lawyer is worth paying for, the Orlando page sets out how Orange County splits the same functions, the practice guide explains the instrument, the Florida lady bird deed form shows what the document contains, and tax consequences goes deeper on basis and stamps. Whether a lady bird deed Palm Beach County suits your property comes down to one question nobody can answer from a form: where do you actually live. The Miami page covers the only county that pays a different documentary stamp rate.
Last updated: 6 August 2026.
What changed: new page. Clerk and Property Appraiser addresses, hours, fees and deadlines verified against those offices; statutes cited to the 2025 Florida Statutes, the current published edition; the § 193.1554 question flagged as unresolved rather than answered.
Written and reviewed by Jose M. Lorenzo, Jr., attorney, Florida Bar No. 107002.
This page is general information about Florida law and does not constitute legal advice for any particular situation. Reading it does not create an attorney-client relationship.