Highlands County Certificate of Trust Form

A Florida certificate of trust lets a trustee prove the authority to sell, mortgage, or buy real property without handing the trust instrument to a buyer, lender, or title agent. This form prepares the certification of trust described in Section 736.1017 of the Florida Trust Code, for one or two currently acting trustees of a Florida trust, formatted for recording in the county where the property is located.

Proof of authority without the trust document

Section 736.1017 allows a trustee, instead of furnishing a copy of the trust instrument to a person other than a beneficiary, to furnish a certification of trust stating the facts the statute lists: the trust's existence and date, the settlor, the currently acting trustee and address, the trustee's powers, any powers of direction, revocability and who may revoke, the authority of cotrustees, and the manner of taking title to trust property. The certification must state that the trust has not been revoked, modified, or amended in any manner that would cause its representations to be incorrect, and it need not contain the dispositive terms of the trust. The beneficiaries stay private; the authority to act goes on the record.

The statute is what makes a closing agent accept the document: a person who acts in reliance on a certification without knowledge that its representations are incorrect is not liable for so acting, may assume without inquiry that the facts stated in it exist, and may enforce a good-faith transaction against the trust property as if the representations were correct.

Eight statutory items, including powers of direction

The form arranges the statutory contents as numbered sections in the statute's own order. One item is newer than the rest: chapter 2021-183, Laws of Florida, the Florida Uniform Directed Trust Act, added a requirement that the certification state whether the trust contains any powers of direction and, if so, name the current trust directors. A conventional living trust states that none exists; forms drafted before 2021 omit the item. Revocability is entered by marking one of two printed boxes, Revocable or Irrevocable. A final section ties the certification to a particular parcel by county, parcel number, legal description, and the recording reference of the deed into the trustee, so a recorded certification is indexed beside the trustee's deed.

Signed by any trustee, acknowledged in the trustee form

The statute provides that a certification may be signed or otherwise authenticated by any trustee, so one signature satisfies it; the form also carries a second block for a cotrustee whose joinder the trust requires. Each block is followed by its own acknowledgment certificate in the statutory short form of Section 695.25(6) for a trustee, which records whether the trustee appeared by physical presence or online notarization and the identification relied on, with a labeled area reserving room for the rubber-stamp seal Section 117.05 places below or beside the notary's signature. No subscribing witnesses sign a certification of trust: the two-witness rule of Section 689.01 attaches to an instrument that conveys an interest in real property, and the certification conveys none, so the trustee's deed carries the witnesses and the documentary stamp tax. The form also carries the recording data Florida clerks look for: reserved clerk space on every page, printed names beneath every signature, post-office addresses, and a preparer block.

What this configuration carries

The form recites one trust and one or two currently acting trustees who are natural persons signing as trustee; the second signature block and its certificate are left blank where a sole trustee signs. The pattern appears in the record when a settlor-trustee sells a home held in a living trust, when cotrustee spouses refinance, and when a successor trustee conveys after the settlor's death. The form is not set up for a corporate trustee signing through an officer, which calls for the corporation acknowledgment rather than the trustee form, for a trust with three or more cotrustees who must all join, or for a Florida land trust governed by the Land Trust Act rather than the Trust Code.

The package includes the fillable certificate of trust form, a completed example filled in for a two-trustee revocable living trust holding Orange County property, and the guide that explains Section 736.1017 and walks through every numbered section. This description and the guide describe the form and the governing Florida statutes in general terms; they are not legal advice.