To fill out a quitclaim deed that removes your spouse from the title, you enter your spouse as the grantor and yourself as the grantee “as sole and separate property,” fill in the property’s exact legal description and parcel number, list the consideration (usually zero or a nominal amount in a divorce), have your spouse sign in front of a notary along with any witnesses your state requires, and record the completed deed with your county recorder. The form itself is short. The trap is assuming that signing it also removes your spouse from the mortgage. It does not.
What to Gather Before You Start
Every field on the deed has to match public records. A missing middle initial or a wrong parcel number can send the filing back from the recorder’s office and set you back weeks.
- Full legal names of both spouses, exactly as they appear on the current recorded deed.
- The legal description of the property. This is not the street address. It uses lot and block numbers, subdivision names, or metes-and-bounds references. You’ll find it on the most recent recorded deed, or you can request it from the county recorder or assessor.
- The Assessor’s Parcel Number (APN) or tax ID. It appears on the property tax bill and in the assessor’s online records.
- The current form of ownership. Joint tenancy, tenancy by the entirety, tenancy in common, and community property each carry different rights, especially around survivorship. The deed should reference the existing form and state that the receiving spouse will hold title as their sole and separate property.
If you can’t locate the original deed, your county recorder maintains public records you can search online or request in person. Getting the legal description wrong is one of the most common errors and one of the hardest to fix after recording.
Filling In the Form
Use your county’s own quitclaim deed form whenever possible. Formatting requirements vary, and some counties are strict about margins, font size, and the placement of the notary block.
Enter the spouse giving up ownership in the grantor field. Enter the spouse keeping the property in the grantee field. Check both names against the current deed, character by character. Follow the grantee’s name with language such as “as their sole and separate property” so the new ownership status is clear on the record.
The consideration field asks for the price paid. In a divorce or separation, this is almost always zero or a nominal amount like ten dollars, because the transfer is part of dividing marital assets rather than a market sale. What you enter here also affects whether you owe transfer taxes.
Transfer Tax and Divorce
Most jurisdictions exempt spousal property transfers made as part of a divorce from documentary transfer taxes. How you claim the exemption varies. Some counties want it written on the face of the deed; others require a separate form. Call the recorder or check their website for the exact procedure. If the exemption applies, you’ll owe nothing beyond the recording fee. If it doesn’t, transfer tax can range from a flat fee of a few dollars to a percentage of the property’s value, depending on state and county.
Signing and Notarization
Only the grantor, the spouse giving up ownership, needs to sign the deed in most jurisdictions. Some local forms include a line for the grantee, but the grantee’s signature is generally not required. The grantor must sign in front of a notary public, who verifies identity with a government-issued photo ID and then attaches an official seal or stamp confirming the signature is authentic and voluntary.
Some states also require one or two witnesses to watch the signing and add their signatures. Witnesses should be people with no financial interest in the property or the outcome. If your state requires witnesses and you skip them, the deed is unenforceable. The recorder’s website or a quick phone call will confirm what your state requires.
Notary fees for a single signature acknowledgment are set by state law and typically run between $5 and $25, though a handful of states have no statutory cap. Mobile notaries who travel to you usually charge an additional trip fee.
Recording the Deed
A signed, notarized quitclaim deed is legally valid between you and your spouse the moment it’s executed. But until it’s filed with the county, the rest of the world has no way to know ownership changed. An unrecorded deed leaves the receiving spouse exposed: if the grantor were to transfer the same property to someone else, that later buyer could end up with the stronger claim if they record first. Record promptly.
Submit the deed to the county recorder or register of deeds, in person, by mail, or through an electronic recording service. Recording fees generally run about $15 to $50 for the first page, with a small per-page charge for additional pages. Some offices also require a property transfer declaration or a similar tax form at the time of recording.
Once accepted, the recorder indexes the deed, stamps it with the recording date and a document or book-and-page number, and returns the original or a certified copy to the grantee. That returned document is your primary proof of the completed transfer. Store it somewhere safe.
Fixing Mistakes After Recording
If you find a typo in a name, a wrong parcel number, or an error in the legal description after the deed is already recorded, the standard fix is a corrective deed. It’s a new deed with “Corrective” added to its title (for example, “Corrective Quitclaim Deed”) that identifies the original document by recording date and instrument number, states what was wrong, and provides the correct information. The grantor signs and notarizes the corrective deed, and it gets recorded the same way as the original.
The Deed Does Not Remove Your Spouse From the Mortgage
This is where most people get tripped up. A quitclaim deed transfers ownership. Your mortgage is a separate contract between the borrower and the lender. Signing the deed does not remove the grantor from the loan, and the lender can still hold both spouses responsible for payments regardless of who is on title. If the spouse who kept the house stops paying, the lender can pursue the other spouse for the full balance, damage their credit, and foreclose on the property.
There are three ways to actually sever the mortgage tie:
- Refinance. The spouse keeping the property takes out a new loan in their own name, paying off the existing mortgage. It’s the cleanest option, but it requires that spouse to qualify on their own income and credit.
- Loan assumption. Some lenders allow one spouse to formally assume the entire mortgage, releasing the other from liability. It also requires financial qualification and isn’t available on every loan.
- Sale. If neither spouse can qualify alone, selling the home and splitting the proceeds eliminates the mortgage.
Federal law does at least protect you from one worry. The Garn-St. Germain Act bars lenders from enforcing a due-on-sale clause when a spouse or child becomes an owner, or when the transfer results from a divorce decree or separation agreement, as long as the property has fewer than five dwelling units.1Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 12 USC 1701j-3 – Preemption of Due-on-Sale Prohibitions So the transfer itself won’t accelerate the loan. But the original borrowers both remain on the note until it’s refinanced, assumed, or paid off.
Federal Tax Treatment
Transferring property between spouses through a quitclaim deed during marriage or as part of a divorce is not a taxable event. Federal law treats the transfer as a gift for income tax purposes, so no capital gains tax is owed at the time of the transfer. The receiving spouse inherits the original owner’s tax basis, and any gain or loss is deferred until that spouse eventually sells.2Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 26 USC 1041 – Transfers of Property Between Spouses or Incident to Divorce
For a transfer to a former spouse, this protection applies only if the transfer happens within one year after the marriage ends or is otherwise related to the divorce, such as being required by the decree. Transfers that happen years later and aren’t connected to the settlement may not qualify.
What Happens to Title Insurance
An existing owner’s title insurance policy may not survive the transfer. Most policies continue coverage only as long as the insured party retains liability through covenants or warranties in the deed. A quitclaim deed, by definition, contains no warranties. That means the original policy coverage may terminate when the property changes hands, even between spouses.
The spouse who ends up as sole owner should consider buying a new owner’s title insurance policy. It protects against defects in the title chain that might surface later, such as old liens, recording errors, or boundary disputes. The cost is a fraction of the property’s value and a one-time expense.
Coordinating With the Divorce
The quitclaim deed usually sits inside a larger picture. In most divorce cases, the property transfer is spelled out in a settlement agreement or court order. Filing the deed before the divorce is finalized isn’t automatically a problem, but it can create complications if the settlement terms change or the court orders a different division of assets.
The safer sequence is to have the divorce decree or settlement agreement specify the property transfer, then execute and record the quitclaim deed promptly after. If your ex was ordered to sign and refuses, you can return to the court that granted the divorce for enforcement. Some states allow the court to sign the deed on a non-cooperating spouse’s behalf.
Aligning the deed with the divorce decree also protects the tax treatment. Section 1041’s income tax protections require that the transfer be “incident to the divorce,” and the paper trail is what proves it.2Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 26 USC 1041 – Transfers of Property Between Spouses or Incident to Divorce