Ketchikan Gateway Borough Grant Deed Form

An Alaska grant deed conveys real property with two limited covenants that the deed spells out on its face, and this fillable form prepares that conveyance for a single grantor. One owner, one signature line, one notarial certificate: the individual-grantor configuration, for Alaska property held in one name.

Express Covenants in a State That Implies None

Alaska's conveyancing statutes supply two deed forms, the statutory warranty deed of AS 34.15.030 and the statutory quitclaim deed of AS 34.15.040, and no grant deed statute sits between them. More important, AS 34.15.080 provides that no covenant is implied in a conveyance of Alaska real estate. In states with a grant deed statute, the grant deed's limited covenants ride along by implication; in Alaska they exist only where the deed states them. This form therefore prints its two covenants in the granting section itself: that the grantor has not previously conveyed the estate granted, or any interest in it, to anyone other than the grantee, and that the property is free from encumbrances made or suffered by the grantor or those claiming under the grantor, except the matters the deed lists.

The result occupies the familiar middle ground of the grant deed, territory elsewhere labeled a limited or special warranty: broader assurance than a quitclaim, which passes the grantor's interest with no covenants at all, and narrower than Alaska's statutory warranty deed, which warrants title against all persons. The deed says expressly that it is not a statutory warranty deed under AS 34.15.030, and its granting words, grants and conveys, are deliberately distinct from both statutory forms, so the covenant boundary stays exactly where the text draws it.

One Grantor, One Signature, One Certificate

The form carries a single grantor block, a single signature line, and a single acknowledgment certificate, printed as Alaska's statutory short form under AS 09.63.100 with the state's judicial-district venue lines. Title held in one name presents the pattern this deed carries: a sole owner conveying to a buyer, an individual passing property to a relative or into new ownership, an unmarried or married owner whose name alone appears on the vesting deed. The form is not set up as a two-grantor, entity, or trustee conveyance, and a married grantor conveying the family home presents Alaska's two-signature joinder rule under AS 34.15.010(b), a configuration outside this form's single signature line; the guide describes that rule and the court decisions construing it.

The grantee side is open: one grantee taking sole ownership, in the style of the completed example, or co-grantees with an ownership designation following their names. The guide walks the Alaska menu, including the tenancy by the entirety presumption for spouses and the statute that abolished ordinary joint tenancy in Alaska real property.

Built for Alaska's Recording District System

Alaska records deeds through a statewide system of 34 recording districts administered by the Department of Natural Resources Recorder's Office, not through county recorders, and the recorder's eligibility list drives this form's first page: a title reflecting the document's intent, a recording district line under AS 40.17.030(a)(9), complete mailing addresses for grantor and grantee, and a return-address block the recorder requires before accepting any document. The page reserves the statutory two inches at the top for recording information, with one-inch margins and 10 point or larger type throughout, matching 11 AAC 06.040. Alaska imposes no statewide transfer tax and no transfer declaration on an ordinary deed, so the deed and the recording fee, twenty dollars for the first page and five dollars for each additional page, are the complete package presented for recording.

Recording is what protects the new owner. Under AS 40.17.080 an unrecorded deed remains valid between the parties, but it is void against a later innocent purchaser for value whose conveyance reaches the record first, so a grant deed recorded in the district where the land lies is the step that fixes priority.

The download includes the blank grant deed as a fillable PDF, a completed example showing the form filled in for an Anchorage Recording District fact pattern, and a plain-language guide that walks through every numbered section, the notary block, and the recording process. The materials are informational and are not legal advice.