Ketchikan Gateway Borough Grant Deed (Married Couple as Grantors) Form

This grant deed form is built for two Alaska grantors who are married to each other: both spouses appear in the grantor section, both sign, and the deed carries a separate acknowledgment certificate for each spouse. It conveys the couple's interest in Alaska real property to the grantee with two limited covenants stated expressly on the face of the deed.

Express covenants in a state that implies none

Alaska treats deed covenants strictly as a matter of what the document says. Under AS 34.15.080, no covenant is implied in a conveyance of real estate, so a deed promises exactly what it writes out and nothing more. This grant deed states two covenants: that the grantors have not previously conveyed the same estate to anyone other than the grantee, and that the property is free from encumbrances the grantors made or suffered, other than the matters listed in the deed's exceptions section. Those promises reach the grantors' own acts only, and the deed says so plainly, reciting that it contains no covenant of general warranty. That posture places the instrument between Alaska's two statutory forms: the statutory warranty deed of AS 34.15.030, which warrants title against all persons, and the statutory quitclaim deed of AS 34.15.040, which carries no covenants at all.

The operative words GRANT AND CONVEY do the transfer work. Under AS 34.15.070, a conveyance passes all of the grantor's real estate in the property unless a lesser estate appears by express terms or necessary implication, and AS 34.15.060 makes words of inheritance unnecessary, so the granting clause passes the couple's full interest without archaic recitals.

Two spouses on the grantor line

The married-couple configuration shapes the execution side of the form. The grantor section names each spouse with a complete mailing address, the conveyance section recites that the grantors are married to each other and that both join in the deed, and the signature section carries a separate line and a separate notary certificate for each spouse, so the two can acknowledge on different dates, before different notaries, even in different states. Spouses selling a jointly titled parcel, a couple deeding the family residence to a buyer, and married owners moving title to a relative or a trust present the two-grantor pattern this deed recites. The form recites exactly two grantors who are married to each other; a sole owner, unmarried co-owners, and fiduciary grantors present different patterns with different recitals.

The both-spouses design also answers Alaska's joinder statute on the face of the record. AS 34.15.010(b) states that husband and wife must join in a deed or conveyance of the family home or homestead, and the Alaska Supreme Court has held a conveyance invalid where a spouse holding title did not join. With both spouses signing as grantors, the joinder question resolves on the face of the deed whether or not the parcel is the family home.

Recording in Alaska's district system

Alaska has no county recorders. Deeds are recorded with the state Recorder's Office, administered by the Department of Natural Resources through 34 recording districts, and this deed form names the recording district on its face, as AS 40.17.030 requires. The same statute and 11 AAC 06.040 supply the format rules the form is built to: opaque white paper, type no smaller than 10 point, a two inch top margin on the first page for the recorder's stamp, and one inch margins elsewhere. Recording fees run 20 dollars for the first page and 5 dollars for each additional page, and Alaska imposes no statewide transfer tax on deeds, so the recording package is ordinarily the deed and the fee. Once recorded, the deed gives constructive notice under AS 40.17.080 from the moment of recording in the district where the land lies.

The download delivers three pieces: the grant deed as a fillable PDF, completed on screen or printed and completed by hand; a completed example showing the deed filled in for an Anchorage Recording District fact pattern; and a plain-language guide that walks through every numbered section, the signing formalities for both spouses, and the recording process. The materials are informational and are not legal advice.