Tampa Living Trust: Hillsborough County Probate and Deed Recording

By Rozsa Gyene, California estate planning attorney, State Bar of California #208356. Published September 28, 2026. Last reviewed September 28, 2026.

Which county this page covers

This page covers Hillsborough County. Under Florida Statutes section 733.101 probate is filed in the county where the person was domiciled, and deeds are recorded in the county where the land is, so a Tampa mailing address in a neighboring county would be served by that county's clerk instead. This page does not name those counties because no official page stating which counties the city extends into could be opened when it was written. St. Petersburg has its own page, which covers Pinellas County.

The clerk's Probate Department

The clerk's probate page says the will of a deceased person must be deposited by the custodian with the clerk's office in the county where the decedent resided within ten days after receiving information of the death, which is the rule in Florida Statutes section 732.901. There is no fee to deposit the will, the probate court requires the original will to be filed, and an Acknowledgement of Venue form must accompany any will filed with the Hillsborough County Clerk's Office.

The same page states the two shortened procedures in the clerk's own words: summary administration may be filed when the value of the entire estate does not exceed $150,000.00 or when the decedent has been dead for more than two years, which matches section 735.201 as amended by Chapter 2026-57 effective July 1, 2026; and a disposition of personal property without administration under section 735.301 may be filed without the assistance of an attorney and is handled by the clerks in the Probate Department. A caveat may be filed with the clerk by a creditor or an interested person to prevent either probate of a will or administration of an estate without notice. The general Florida steps are in the Florida probate process guide.

Probate fees listed by the clerk

Recording a deed with the clerk

The deed that moves a Tampa home into a living trust is recorded in the clerk's Official Records. The clerk's recording page gives the downtown Tampa location as 401 Pierce Street, Tampa, and the mailing address as P.O. Box 3249, Tampa, FL 33601-3249; the office hours, and the Brandon and Plant City recording addresses, were not on the page read and are not quoted here. Checks are payable to Clerk of Circuit Court, and credit cards are accepted in person.

Two details from the clerk's recording page matter for a trust deed. First, from January 1, 2024, certain documents presented for recording in Hillsborough County Official Records require two witnesses, along with the name of each witness, and must also include the post office address of each witness. Second, the clerk accepts e-recording through CSC, e-Doc Solutions, eRecording Partners Network, Indecomm Global Services, RecordNation, Simplifile, File and Go, eRecordingUSA, Hopdox and Swift-E Recording Services.

What this means for a Tampa homeowner

A will alone leaves a Tampa home in the probate estate, to be administered through the steps in the Florida probate process guide. Once the home has been deeded to the trustee of a living trust it is trust property, and it passes under the trust's terms, within Florida's homestead rules for a surviving spouse or minor child described in the spouse's rights guide. The trust deed is recorded once, with the clerk, while the owner is alive.