Ketchikan Gateway Borough Quitclaim Deed (Reserving Life Estate) Form

This Alaska quitclaim deed conveys the remainder interest in real property to the grantee and, in the same recorded instrument, reserves a life estate that keeps possession with the grantor for life. It is the Alaska form of the arrangement commonly searched as a life estate deed: one owner signs as grantor and life tenant, one grantee takes the remainder, and at the grantor's death the life estate ends and possession vests in the grantee outside probate.

A Deed That Divides Ownership in Time

Alaska law presumes a deed passes the grantor's entire interest, and AS 34.15.070 lets a deed carry a lesser estate when that lesser estate appears by express terms. The reservation clause in this form is that express term. It splits ownership in time: the grantor holds a life estate, with the exclusive right to occupy the property and collect its rents and income for life, while the grantee holds the remainder, a present ownership interest whose possession waits for the life estate to end. Because the remainder passes by a deed delivered and recorded during the grantor's life, the property does not move through the grantor's probate estate at death; the recorded deed and a death certificate complete the title picture.

An Ordinary Life Estate, Stated on the Face of the Deed

The form reserves an ordinary life estate and says so in terms: the reserved estate carries no power to sell, convey, mortgage, or encumber the remainder without the grantee's joinder, and no power to revoke the deed or substitute a different grantee. Alaska has no statute and no controlling appellate decision recognizing the enhanced life estate, or lady bird, deed used in a handful of other states, so retained-power drafting imported from those states has no Alaska authority behind it. Stating the ordinary character on the instrument keeps a later title examiner from guessing which pattern the parties intended.

How This Form Is Set Up

The form recites one grantor, the life tenant, and one grantee, the remainder owner, with a marital status section that shows on the record whether the spousal joinder rule is in play. The conveyance section carries the statutory operative words of AS 34.15.040, conveys and quitclaims, excepting and reserving the life estate, so the deed passes whatever interest the grantor holds with no warranty of title. Because a lifetime conveyance of a married grantor's family home or homestead takes both spouses' signatures under AS 34.15.010(b), the form carries a spousal joinder section with its own signature line and acknowledgment certificate; where the property is not a married grantor's family home, those blocks go unused and the grantor signs alone. A parent placing the family house in an adult child's name while continuing to live in it, and an owner settling the eventual ownership of a cabin while keeping its use for life, present the pattern this deed recites. Title already held by two or more owners presents a different configuration from the single-grantor recital this form carries.

Recording With Alaska's District Recorder

The deed names its recording district on the face of the instrument, one of the 34 districts through which the Department of Natural Resources records Alaska land instruments, and it goes to the recorder serving that district. The statewide charge is $20 for the first page and $5 for each additional page, with no Alaska transfer tax on the conveyance. The layout reserves the top two inches of the first page for the recording stamp and collects what the recorder's eligibility rules ask of a deed: grantor and grantee mailing addresses, clear return-to information, and the district identification. Prompt recording is what gives the remainder its priority; under AS 40.17.080 a recorded conveyance gives constructive notice from the moment of recording.

The download includes the quitclaim deed reserving a life estate as a fillable PDF formatted to Alaska's recording standards, a completed example filled in for an Anchorage Recording District fact pattern, and a plain-language guide that walks through every section, the spousal joinder rule, and the recording steps. The materials are informational and are not legal advice.