Title company in St. Lucie County
A St. Lucie County title search starts in Fort Pierce.
Indian River County was carved out of St. Lucie on 29 June 1925. Sebastian spent the twenty years before that as a St. Lucie County town, and incorporated as a city in 1923 without leaving it.
Three courthouses, one chain
Before 1 July 1905 the records are in Brevard County at Titusville. From then until 29 June 1925, St. Lucie County at Fort Pierce. After that, Indian River County at Vero Beach. A homestead patent, a 1910s riverfront conveyance and a 1920s mortgage on one parcel can sit in three different buildings, and we search all three.
Okeechobee County came out of St. Lucie in 1917 and Martin County in 1925, so early Stuart and Jensen Beach instruments are in Fort Pierce too.
St. Lucie County
Over 80,000 lots were platted here and sold by mail to people who never came.
General Development Corporation bought 40,000 acres in 1958 and platted quarter-acre lots for installment land sales. The 1970 census counted 330 residents. GDC pled guilty to federal mail fraud in March 1990 and filed Chapter 11 the following month.
Three generations later that is a chain running through a bankrupt developer, an out-of-state estate and one or more tax deeds. On top of it: 12,501 homes still on septic as of 31 August 2025, unpaid mowing assessed against the lot, and a recorded Declaration of Unity of Title that stops two combined lots being sold apart.
Tradition and St. Lucie West
In a district community you need three estoppels, and the water bill does not come from the city.
St. Lucie West Services District, established 1990 under chapter 190, runs its own water and wastewater plants across 4,600 acres, with its own elected board and its own final bill. Order a City of Port St. Lucie utility final on a St. Lucie West house and you have ordered the wrong one.
District assessments come in two parts, operations and debt service on the bonds, and both are collected on the tax bill rather than recorded. Southern Grove alone is 3,605 acres under six separate districts.
How your file runs
Four steps, and you know whose desk it is on at every one.
01
Contract in, file open.
The same day it arrives, and we tell you who is handling it.
02
We search the title.
The chain, the district assessments, and whichever courthouse the early instruments landed in. A defect gets a phone call and a plan.
03
Figures go out before closing day.
Not at the table.
04
You sign at 1208 US-1.
We record with the St. Lucie County Clerk in Fort Pierce, and the policy follows.
Forty-five minutes down one road
US-1 runs from our door to the courthouse door.
The Clerk records at 201 South Indian River Drive, 28 miles south of us on the same road. Tradition is about an hour by I-95. You sign in Sebastian either way.
Questions we get from St. Lucie County
Why would a Sebastian property have records in Fort Pierce?
Because Sebastian sat in St. Lucie County until Indian River County was created in 1925, so anything recorded between 1905 and then is at the Fort Pierce courthouse.
What is the second half of a St. Lucie County tax bill?
Non-ad valorem assessments — district operations and debt, stormwater, solid waste, an MSBU or a water control district. None of them appear in an official records search.
I am buying in Tradition or St. Lucie West. What is different?
The assessments sit on the tax bill rather than in the records, you may need three estoppels rather than one, and the water may come from the district, not the city.
I am buying a vacant lot in St. Lucie County. What will the search find?
Often an installment chain running through General Development Corporation, an out-of-state estate and a tax deed, sometimes with unpaid city mowing assessed against the lot.
I am buying a grove or pasture. Does the agricultural classification come with it?
No. The St. Lucie County Property Appraiser requires the new owner to reapply, between 1 January and 1 March.
Question
Answer
Why Paradise Title
Who actually handles your St. Lucie County file.
Paradise Title has been closing from the 1919 brick house at 1208 US-1 in Sebastian since 2005. Diane Shampine and Kim Muir run the closings, and Sandy Carpenito searches and examines the title here in our own office rather than sending it to a vendor three states away. Between the three of them there is more than 75 years of title work. We are an independently owned title and escrow company, and an agent for Chicago Title Insurance Company, part of Fidelity National Financial.
Call Today for a Title!
There is no form on this website. Monday to Friday, 9 to 5, a person here answers the phone. Tell them the address and the closing date and they will tell you what happens next.