Free warranty deed template

How to fill it in

Work through the bracketed fields top to bottom. Three of them do the heavy lifting: the legal description, the warranty type, and the permitted exceptions.

• Grantor and grantee: full legal names and addresses. If a married couple holds title together, both are grantors, and some states also require a non-owning spouse to join.
• Vesting: state how the grantee takes title, since that decides what happens if a co-owner dies.
• Legal description: copy it word for word from the most recent recorded deed, not from a tax bill or listing, and include the parcel number.
• Warranty type: choose general or special deliberately. This is the single biggest decision in the document.
• Permitted exceptions: list every easement, restriction, or lien that will survive. Anything you leave off is something you are warranting against.
• Recording header: fill in the return-to address, preparer, and the transfer-tax amount or exemption.
• Leave the signature, witness, and notary blocks blank until you are in front of the notary.

General vs. special warranty deed

Both deeds transfer the same property. What differs is how far back the seller's guarantee reaches. A general warranty deed warrants the title against defects arising at any point in the chain of title, including long before the grantor ever owned the place. If a forged deed from 1974 surfaces, the grantor is still on the hook. A special warranty deed, sometimes called a limited warranty deed, warrants only against defects that arose by, through, or under the grantor during their own ownership. Anything predating them is the buyer's problem. Sellers who never lived in the property push for the special version, which is why you see it from banks selling foreclosures, executors, trustees, and corporate sellers. As a buyer, a special warranty deed is not automatically a red flag, but it does mean the pre-ownership risk sits with you and your title insurer rather than with the seller. Related, and worth knowing if you are in California: a grant deed carries only two implied covenants, that the grantor has not already conveyed the same estate to someone else and that the grantor has not themselves encumbered it. That is closer to a limited warranty than to a general one.

The six covenants of title, and which ones survive

A general warranty deed traditionally carries six covenants, and this template writes all six out rather than assuming them. They split into two groups, which is the part almost no free template explains and the part that decides who can actually sue. The three present covenants are seisin (the grantor genuinely owns the estate), right to convey (the grantor has authority to sell), and against encumbrances (there are no undisclosed liens or easements). These are breached at the moment the deed is delivered, if they are breached at all. The three future covenants are quiet enjoyment (no one with a superior claim will disturb the grantee), warranty (the grantor will defend the title and make good the loss), and further assurances (the grantor will sign whatever is needed later to perfect title). These are breached only when someone is actually disturbed, through an eviction or a successful adverse claim.

• Present covenants are generally treated as breached on delivery, and under the traditional rule they do not run with the land, so a later buyer down the chain usually cannot sue the original grantor on them.
• Future covenants run with the land, so a remote grantee can generally enforce them against an earlier grantor when a disturbance actually happens.
• The practical consequence: if you discover an old encumbrance years later, whether you have anyone to sue may turn on which covenant it falls under and how long ago the deed was delivered.
• This is common-law doctrine and states vary, and a minority of states let some present covenants run with the land. Check your state before relying on it.

Warranty deed vs. quitclaim deed

The difference is the promise, not the property. A quitclaim deed conveys whatever present interest the grantor has, if any, without representing, covenanting, or warranting that the title is good. If it turns out the grantor owned nothing, the grantee gets nothing and has no claim against them. A warranty deed does the opposite: the grantor guarantees the title and agrees to defend it. As a matter of convention rather than law, quitclaims are used where the parties already trust each other or where no one is really buying anything, such as transfers between family members, adding or removing a spouse after marriage or divorce, moving property into a trust or an LLC, or clearing a possible cloud on title. Warranty deeds are used where money changes hands at market value. Nothing in the law stops a quitclaim being used in a sale, which is exactly why buyers should insist on the right instrument. If you are paying market price, a quitclaim deed gives you no recourse at all.

A warranty deed is not title insurance

These do different jobs and buyers generally want both. A warranty deed gives you a contractual claim against the seller if the title fails. Title insurance gives you a claim against an insurance company. The reason experienced buyers do not rely on the deed alone is practical rather than legal: a contractual claim is only worth as much as the person you would be suing, and a seller who has moved away, spent the money, or has no assets is a poor guarantee. Title insurance also covers the cost of defending the claim, which is often the bigger expense. The two common policies work differently. A lender's policy protects the lender's loan amount, and most lenders require one. An owner's policy protects the homeowner against claims that predate the purchase, such as a previous owner's unpaid taxes or an unpaid contractor asserting a lien, and it is optional. The honest summary: the warranty deed puts the seller's promise in writing, the title search tries to find problems before closing, and title insurance covers what the search missed.

What makes a deed valid, and who signs it

A deed has to be in writing, since a transfer of land falls under the statute of frauds. It must identify the grantor and the grantee, describe the property by legal description, contain words of conveyance, and be signed by the grantor and delivered. Texas puts the rule cleanly: a conveyance of an estate of inheritance or freehold must be in writing and must be subscribed and delivered by the conveyor or an authorized agent. Note who that is. The grantor signs a deed; the grantee normally does not need to. Grantees do sometimes sign, for collateral reasons such as accepting obligations, a spousal joinder, or a transfer-tax declaration the county requires, and this template includes a grantee line for those cases, but the grantor's signature is the one that makes the conveyance. Witnesses are a state-by-state question. Florida requires two subscribing witnesses for an instrument creating a freehold estate. Georgia requires attestation by an officer such as a notary plus one other witness. Many states require none at all. Separately, the grantor's signature has to be acknowledged before a notary or other authorized officer before a county will record the deed; the exact form of acknowledgment is set by state statute. Confirm your state's rule before you sign, and sign in front of the notary rather than in advance.

Recording, and why the order matters

Recording is how the world finds out. A deed can be effective between the grantor and the grantee once signed and delivered, but recording is what protects the buyer against everyone else. Florida's statute is typical in shape: a conveyance is not good against creditors or subsequent purchasers for value and without notice unless it is recorded. Which competing claim wins depends on your state's recording act, and there are three types worth knowing.

• Race: whoever records first wins, even if they knew about an earlier unrecorded deed. North Carolina is a pure race state, where a conveyance is valid against lien creditors and purchasers only from the time it is registered in the county where the land lies.
• Notice: a later buyer who pays value and has no notice of the earlier claim wins, even if the earlier buyer records first. Florida is a notice state.
• Race-notice: the later buyer wins only if they took in good faith for value and also recorded first. California is a race-notice state, requiring both the good-faith purchase and the first recording.
• The practical rule is the same under all three: record the deed promptly, in the county where the property sits. Delay is the only thing all three statutes punish.

Transfer taxes and what recording costs

Recording a deed usually triggers a state or local tax on the transfer, and the rate depends entirely on where the property is. Florida charges documentary stamp tax on deeds at 70 cents per $100 of consideration or portion of it, with Miami-Dade using a different structure of 60 cents per $100 plus a 45-cent surtax that does not apply to a transfer of a single-family dwelling. Pennsylvania charges a state realty transfer tax of 1 percent of the value transferred, plus a local transfer tax, collected by county recorders of deeds. Exemptions are common and worth checking before you assume you owe the tax; Pennsylvania, for instance, exempts certain transfers among family members, transfers to governmental units, and property passing by will or intestacy. Beyond the tax there is a recording fee set locally, which varies by county and by page count, so ask your recorder rather than budgeting from a number you read online. Many counties also want a transfer-tax declaration or statement of value filed alongside the deed, which is why this template includes a declaration line in the recording header.

Can a deed be signed electronically?

This is the question we get asked most, and the common answer online is wrong. The federal ESIGN Act does list transactions it does not cover, including wills, family-law matters, court documents, and certain foreclosure and insurance notices, but real property deeds are not on that list. State versions of the Uniform Electronic Transactions Act generally do not exclude real property either, and ESIGN expressly provides that a notarization requirement is satisfied when the authorized person's electronic signature is attached to or logically associated with the record. So the barrier is not the e-signature statutes. The real constraint sits downstream, at the county recorder, because recording statutes were written around an original paper instrument with a wet signature and seal. That gap is what the Uniform Real Property Electronic Recording Act was drafted to close, by letting recording offices accept and index documents in electronic form. Most states have now adopted that act or something like it, and most states authorize remote online notarization, but the details differ a great deal: effective dates vary, some rules cover notarization generally while others carve out real estate closings, and whether your particular county actually accepts electronic recordings is a separate question from whether your state allows it. Florida shows how far a state can go, allowing the two required witnesses to sign by audio-video communication technology. The practical advice: a deed can often be prepared and signed electronically, but confirm with the county recorder where the property sits before you rely on it, because a validly signed deed can still be turned away at the recording counter.

Common mistakes to avoid

Deeds get rejected, or cause trouble years later, over a short list of errors.

• Using the street address instead of the full legal description, which is the most common reason a deed is bounced or a title is clouded.
• Choosing a special warranty deed without realizing it leaves every pre-ownership defect with the buyer.
• Leaving a known easement or lien off the permitted exceptions, which turns it into something the grantor is warranting against.
• Getting the vesting wrong, such as writing tenants in common when joint tenants with right of survivorship was intended.
• Signing before you reach the notary, or skipping witnesses in a state that requires them.
• Never recording the signed deed, which leaves the buyer exposed to a later claim under every type of recording act.
• Assuming a warranty deed removes the need for a title search and title insurance. It does not.

When to bring in a real estate attorney

A clean transfer between people who know the property well can often be handled with a template, a notary, and a trip to the recorder. Get a real estate attorney involved when the stakes climb: the property carries a mortgage or liens, the chain of title is unclear or has a gap, you are giving or receiving a general warranty on a property you have not owned long, there is a survey or boundary question, the transfer is part of a divorce or an estate, or a business entity or trust is on either side. In several states an attorney is customarily involved in closings anyway. The cost of an hour of advice is small next to a correction deed, a quiet-title action, or a warranty claim that lands on you years after you thought the sale was finished.