In a real estate transaction, the grantor and grantee are the two sides of the transfer: the grantor is the party conveying the property (typically the seller), and the grantee is the party receiving it (typically the buyer). Both names appear on the deed, and the role each one plays determines who makes promises about the title, who takes on the property’s risks, and whose signature is needed to make the transfer stick.
What the Grantor Must Do
The grantor is the party initiating the transfer. The core requirement is simple to state and easy to overlook: the grantor must actually have the legal authority to convey what the deed describes. You can’t grant what you don’t own. A person who signs a deed to land they never held title to hasn’t accomplished anything legally, even if the paperwork looks perfect.
Beyond ownership, a grantor needs legal capacity. That means being of legal age (18 in most states) and of sound mind at the time of the transfer. When the grantor is a business entity rather than an individual, only an authorized officer or agent can sign on the entity’s behalf. A random employee can’t walk into a closing and deed away company property.
The grantor is also responsible for drafting or approving the deed, signing it, having the signature notarized, and delivering the document to the grantee. Delivery is the step that completes the transfer. Until it happens, no title has passed, no matter what the deed itself says.
What the Grantee Receives
The grantee receives whatever right, interest, or property the grantor conveys. The grantee’s name appears explicitly in the deed, and that identification must be clear enough that someone reading the instrument can tell exactly who took title.
A transfer isn’t truly complete until the grantee accepts it. In most sales, acceptance is implied by conduct: the buyer takes possession, pays the price, moves in. But acceptance is still a legal requirement, and a grantee can refuse a transfer. That occasionally matters when the property comes with liabilities, like environmental contamination or unpaid taxes, that make ownership more burden than benefit.
Once the grantee accepts, they take on all the rights and responsibilities of ownership, including any conditions or restrictions written into the deed itself.
How the Type of Deed Changes What the Grantee Gets
Not all deeds are created equal. The deed the grantor uses determines how much protection the grantee has if a problem with the title turns up later.
- General warranty deed. This gives the grantee the strongest protection available. The grantor makes several legally binding promises: that they own the property and have the right to sell it, that the title is free from liens or encumbrances not disclosed in the deed, that no third party will show up with a valid competing claim, and that the grantor will take steps to fix any title problems that surface. These promises cover the entire history of the property, not just the grantor’s period of ownership.
- Special warranty deed. The grantor only guarantees that nothing went wrong with the title during the time they personally owned the property. An old lien or boundary dispute that predates their ownership is not their problem. Commercial transactions and bank-owned property sales frequently use this form.
- Quitclaim deed. The grantor transfers whatever interest they happen to have, with zero guarantees about whether that interest is valid, complete, or free of defects. If the grantor owns nothing, the grantee gets nothing. Quitclaim deeds are common between family members, between divorcing spouses, and for clearing up minor title issues. They’re a bad choice for an arm’s-length purchase from a stranger.
The choice of deed is one of the most consequential decisions in any real estate transaction. A grantee who accepts a quitclaim deed from someone they don’t know well is taking a significant gamble.
When More Than One Grantee Is Named
When a deed names more than one grantee, how they hold title together has major consequences for what happens if one of them dies, wants to sell, or gets sued.
- Tenancy in common. Each grantee owns a separate share that can be unequal. There’s no right of survivorship, so when one owner dies, their share passes through their estate rather than automatically to the other owners. This is the default form of co-ownership in most states when the deed doesn’t specify otherwise.
- Joint tenancy with right of survivorship. Each grantee owns an equal share, and when one dies, their share passes automatically to the surviving owners, bypassing probate. The deed must specifically state the intent, using language like “as joint tenants with right of survivorship.” Without those words, most states presume a tenancy in common.
- Tenancy by the entirety. Available only to married couples in states that recognize it, this form works like joint tenancy but with added protection: a creditor of one spouse generally cannot force a sale of the property to collect a debt.
Grantees need to make this choice deliberately. Defaulting into a tenancy in common when you intended survivorship rights can create exactly the probate situation you were trying to avoid.
Why the Borrower Is the Grantor on a Mortgage
Mortgage terminology flips the intuition most people have about who is giving and who is getting. The borrower is the grantor, because they are granting a security interest (a lien) on their property to the lender. The lender is the grantee, because it receives that lien as collateral for the loan. In formal mortgage language, the borrower is the mortgagor and the lender is the mortgagee.
This catches people off guard because the borrower is also receiving money. But the grantor-grantee labels on a mortgage don’t describe the loan. They describe the security instrument, which is the document that lets the lender foreclose if the borrower stops paying. From the perspective of that document, the borrower gives a right and the lender receives it. If you search a county’s grantor index for a property owner’s name, mortgage documents will appear alongside deeds for the same reason.
Recording and the Grantor-Grantee Index
County recorder offices maintain grantor-grantee indexes that catalog every recorded transfer of real property. When a deed is recorded, it gets indexed under both the grantor’s name and the grantee’s name, along with the date. This system is what makes it possible to trace a property’s chain of title back through every prior owner.
Recording a deed does more than keep records tidy. It provides constructive notice to the world that the transfer happened. Even someone who never sees the deed is legally treated as if they knew about it once it hits the public record. That protects the grantee from later buyers or lenders who might otherwise claim they had no idea the property had changed hands.
A deed sitting in a drawer unrecorded is still valid between the grantor and grantee, but it is vulnerable. If the grantor turns around and deeds the same property to a second buyer who records first, the first grantee can lose out in many jurisdictions. Recording promptly is one of the simplest and most important things a grantee can do after closing.
Fixing an Error on a Recorded Deed
Misspelled names, incorrect legal descriptions, and other errors on recorded deeds are more common than most people realize, and they can create serious title problems later. The fix is not as simple as crossing out the mistake and re-filing.
A corrective deed is the standard remedy. The original grantor executes a new deed that references the flawed original and states the correction. The corrective deed must meet all the same requirements as any other deed: proper execution, notarization, and recording. Marking up the old deed and re-recording it without the grantor’s fresh signature won’t pass title and won’t be treated as a valid correction.
Things get harder if the error caused title to pass to the wrong person. If a deed conveyed property to “John Smith” when it should have gone to “John Smith and Jane Smith,” a corrective deed from the original grantor won’t help, because the grantor no longer holds any title to convey. John would need to execute a new deed transferring an interest to Jane. These errors compound over time, so catching mistakes early is far cheaper than untangling a defective chain of title years later.
Taxes and Fees at Transfer
Many states and localities impose a transfer tax when real property changes hands, calculated as a percentage of the sale price or the property’s assessed value. Whether the grantor or grantee pays this tax varies by jurisdiction and is often negotiable at closing. Recording fees are separate, typically ranging from $50 to $150 depending on the jurisdiction and the length of the document.
When a grantor transfers property to a grantee without receiving fair market value in return, such as a parent deeding a house to a child, the IRS may treat the transfer as a taxable gift. The annual gift tax exclusion for 2026 is $19,000 per recipient.1Internal Revenue Service. What’s New – Estate and Gift Tax Gifts of real estate almost always exceed that threshold, so the grantor will need to file a gift tax return reporting the transfer. The grantor won’t necessarily owe tax because of the lifetime exemption, but the filing requirement is mandatory.2Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 26 USC 2503 – Taxable Gifts