Will your investigator testify in the 15th Judicial Circuit?

Yes, when our evidence is offered. Photos and video must be authenticated under s. 90.901 of the Florida Evidence Code, and the investigator who recorded them can testify to when, where and how they were captured.

Which courthouse will hear my Palm Beach County case?

That depends on the division and case type. The 15th Circuit sits at the Hurley Courthouse and the Criminal Justice Complex in West Palm Beach and at branch courthouses in Palm Beach Gardens, Delray Beach and Belle Glade. Your summons or attorney will name the location.

How do I look up a Palm Beach County court case or recorded deed?

Court dockets are searchable on the Palm Beach County Clerk's eCaseView system. The Clerk is also the county recorder under s. 28.222, F.S., so deeds, liens and mortgages are kept in its Official Records.

Does traveling from Miami-Dade change the cost?

Travel time is one of the factors in the scope, along with hours, days, the number of investigators and vehicles, records work and court needs. We explain those factors and agree the scope in writing before fieldwork starts.

Can the investigation be done in Spanish?

Yes. We are bilingual, so the consultation, witness interviews and updates can be in Spanish or English, and reports can keep a witness's original Spanish wording where it matters.

What if the person I need watched drives into Broward or Miami-Dade?

The same team works all three counties, so the investigation continues across the county line without handing the file to another agency, and the report stays one continuous record.

How do I confirm your license?

Search our agency on the FDACS Division of Licensing agency lookup at licensing.fdacs.gov. Our Florida agency license number is A1800135.

Private Investigator Palm Beach County, FL

Q: Do you have an office in Palm Beach County?

No. Palm Beach County is a service area. Every case there is handled from our office at 4000 Ponce de Leon Blvd, Suite 470, Coral Gables, FL 33146, and investigators travel north for the fieldwork. Call (305) 686-7826.

Palm Beach County at a glance

Where we work from: our office at 4000 Ponce de Leon Blvd, Suite 470, Coral Gables. Palm Beach County is a service area, and we keep no office there.
County: Palm Beach, 1,492,191 residents in the 2020 Census.
Trial court: the 15th Judicial Circuit. Appeals go to the 4th District Court of Appeal, seated in West Palm Beach.
Main courthouse: Judge Daniel T. K. Hurley Courthouse, 205 North Dixie Hwy., West Palm Beach.
Records: the Palm Beach County Clerk of the Circuit Court & Comptroller, with case dockets on eCaseView.
Credentials: Florida agency license A1800135, veteran-led, bilingual in English and Spanish.

Palm Beach County stretches from Boca Raton at the Broward line up to Tequesta and Jupiter in the north, and west past Wellington toward Belle Glade. Population figures on this page are 2020 Census counts from the Census Bureau's redistricting file.

Who handles a Palm Beach County case, and from where?

Our office is in Coral Gables, and our investigators work cases throughout Palm Beach County. There is no Palm Beach branch and no local number; (305) 686-7826 reaches us for every county.

A single team matters because Palm Beach cases rarely stay inside the county. A spouse who lives in Boca Raton may work in Fort Lauderdale. A debtor may hold property in two counties. The same investigators work Palm Beach, Broward and Miami-Dade, so the file never changes hands at a county line. For work closer to the Broward border see our Aventura page; for the office itself see Coral Gables.

What do Palm Beach County clients ask an investigator to find out?

Divorce, alimony and hidden spending

Florida dissolves a marriage only because it is "irretrievably broken" or for a narrow form of incapacity (s. 61.052), so proof of an affair does not decide a 15th Circuit divorce by itself. It can still matter to money: the court "may consider the adultery of either spouse and any resulting economic impact" when setting alimony (s. 61.08), and marital assets wasted within two years before filing can justify an unequal split (s. 61.075(1)(i)). When a spouse keeps a second home or spends part of the year out of state, the useful question is usually where the time and the money actually go. Our infidelity investigations are scoped to those points.

Custody and time-sharing

Florida starts from a rebuttable presumption that equal time-sharing serves the child (s. 61.13(2)(c)1). Overcoming it takes evidence tied to the statutory factors, such as a parent's moral fitness, domestic violence, or substance abuse in the home. Our child custody investigations document conduct during exchanges and parenting time without contacting the child.

Insurance, injury and workers' compensation claims

Carriers and defense firms use our claim investigations for auto, property, disability and workers' compensation files anywhere in the county. We document public activity; medical conclusions belong to doctors and the court. Anyone can report suspected fraud to the state's Criminal Investigations Division at the Department of Financial Services. On the plaintiff side, our personal injury investigations locate witnesses and document scenes.

Estates, judgments and business disputes

Where an estate, a judgment or a partnership is at stake, asset checks begin with recorded deeds, liens and mortgages and with corporate filings on Sunbiz. Companies in the county also use our corporate due diligence for executive screening and internal fraud questions, and background investigations before a hire or a deal.

Criminal defense and hard-to-serve parties

Defense counsel bring us state cases in the 15th Circuit and federal cases in the Southern District of Florida, which by statute holds court in West Palm Beach (28 U.S.C. § 89(c)). See our criminal defense investigations. When a defendant is avoiding service behind a gate, our process service for difficult cases works from public approaches and permitted access, never by slipping past security.

What should you know about the main cities we cover?

Courthouse addresses below come from the 15th Circuit courthouse list.

West Palm Beach

The city counted 117,415 residents. It holds the Hurley Courthouse, the Criminal Justice Complex at 3228 Gun Club Road, and the seat of the 4th DCA. Next door are the town of Palm Beach (9,245), Lake Worth Beach (42,219), Greenacres (43,990) and Royal Palm Beach (38,932). To the north, Riviera Beach (37,604) is home to the Port of Palm Beach, which the port describes as the fourth-busiest container port in Florida, handling more than 280,000 TEUs a year (Port of Palm Beach).

Boca Raton

Boca Raton counted 97,422 residents, the second-largest city in the county after West Palm Beach. Florida Atlantic University's main campus sits at 777 Glades Road, covering more than 850 acres since it opened in 1964 (FAU). The closest branch courthouse is the South County Courthouse in Delray Beach; the main Hurley Courthouse is in West Palm Beach. Highland Beach (4,295) lies along the coast just north.

Delray Beach

Delray Beach counted 66,846 residents and has the South County Courthouse inside city limits at 200 West Atlantic Ave. The small coastal towns nearby, Gulf Stream (954), Ocean Ridge (1,830) and Briny Breezes (502), are separate municipalities.

Boynton Beach

Boynton Beach counted 80,380 residents. Its neighbors include Lantana (11,504), Hypoluxo (2,687) and the village of Golf (255). The South County Courthouse in Delray is the closest branch.

Jupiter

The town of Jupiter counted 61,047 residents, with Tequesta (6,158) and Juno Beach (3,858) beside it. The circuit's North County Courthouse is at 3188 PGA Blvd. in Palm Beach Gardens, a city of 59,182.

Wellington

The village of Wellington counted 61,637 residents, in the central-western part of the county beside Royal Palm Beach. Farther west, the circuit runs its West County Courthouse at 2950 State Rd 15 in Belle Glade.

Which courts and records does a Palm Beach County case use?

All of Palm Beach County forms the 15th Judicial Circuit. Its five courthouses are the Hurley Courthouse and the Criminal Justice Complex in West Palm Beach, plus the North County (Palm Beach Gardens), South County (Delray Beach) and West County (Belle Glade) courthouses. Your summons or attorney names the right one.

Court files are kept by the Palm Beach County Clerk of the Circuit Court & Comptroller, and dockets can be searched on eCaseView. Florida law also makes each clerk the county recorder, keeping deeds and other instruments in a series called "Official Records" (s. 28.222). We read those systems before any surveillance hour is booked, because an old lawsuit, a lien or a prior claim can reshape the plan.

What can a Florida PI legally do here, and what can't they?

Chapter 493 defines private investigation to include gathering information on a person's "identity, habits, conduct, movements, whereabouts," the credibility of witnesses, and "securing evidence" for trials (s. 493.6101). In practice we can observe and photograph from places open to the public, search public records, locate and interview people who agree to talk, and testify to what we saw.

The same law gives an investigator no police powers, and Florida's criminal statutes set hard limits:

Conversations: intercepting a private conversation requires the prior consent of every party (s. 934.03); an illegal recording and anything derived from it are barred from evidence (s. 934.06).
Trackers: placing a tracking device on another person's property without consent is a felony, private investigators get no general exception, and filing for divorce is presumed to revoke a spouse's earlier consent (s. 934.425).
Gated and private property: no entering without authorization, which rules out tailgating through a community gate (s. 810.08, s. 810.09).
Records by deception: no false statements to get someone's bank information (15 U.S.C. § 6821) and no posing as law enforcement (s. 493.6118(1)(i)).

More detail is in our Florida Statute 493 guide.

Verify before you hire. Florida agencies must show their license number in advertising (s. 493.6111), and the FDACS agency search confirms it. Ours is A1800135.

How is evidence documented for a 15th Circuit hearing?

Evidence gets in only if it is relevant (s. 90.401) and authenticated as what it claims to be (s. 90.901). A subject's own statements, offered against that party, fall within a hearsay exception (s. 90.803(18)(a)). So each Palm Beach report carries timestamped photos and video, a narrative log naming the investigator who observed each entry, original files kept unedited, and a plain summary for counsel. If the matter reaches a Hurley Courthouse courtroom, the investigator who recorded the footage can explain how, when and where it was captured. Attorneys quote that work on our testimonials page.

What drives the timeline and cost of a Palm Beach County case?

Scope, and therefore time and cost, turns on:

Travel: investigators drive up from Coral Gables, so the distance to Boca Raton versus Jupiter or Belle Glade counts.
Hours and days: a known window, such as one weekend of parenting time, needs far fewer hours than an open-ended pattern.
Team size: a subject who drives the interstate between counties may need two investigators and two vehicles.
Records work: how many dockets, recorded documents and company filings must be pulled and read.
Language: interviews in Spanish are run by bilingual staff rather than through an interpreter.
Court needs: depositions, hearings and testimony add preparation and time.

The engagement follows four steps: a confidential call, a records review, a written scope you approve, and fieldwork ending in a report. Disclosing what a client shares without authorization is a disciplinary ground for any Florida licensee (s. 493.6118(1)(e)).