Ketchikan Gateway Borough Quitclaim Deed (Trustee Grantee) Form

The grantee entry is what sets this deed apart: it names a trustee, together with the trust's name and the date of the trust instrument, so record title lands in a fiduciary capacity rather than in an individual's own right. This is the Alaska quitclaim deed configured for a trustee grantee, the conveyance pattern that moves Alaska real property into a trust with no warranty of title. The deed itself then says what the entry means, stating on its face that the grantee takes title as trustee of the identified trust and not individually.

A Grantee Who Takes Title as Trustee

The form recites one grantor and one trustee grantee. Its grantee section carries three identifying entries, the trustee's name with the trustee designation, the trustee's mailing address, and the trust's name and date, followed by the printed capacity sentence. One signature block serves the grantor, with a conditional joinder block for a grantor's spouse when the property conveyed is the family home or homestead under Alaska Statutes Section 34.15.010(b); the form carries a separate acknowledgment certificate for each of those two signatures. The pattern that presents this configuration most often in the record is an owner funding a revocable living trust, signing as grantor and taking title again on the same page as trustee. Conveyances into family trusts and land trusts present the same single-grantor, single-trustee structure. What the form is not set up as: a deed out of a trust, where the trustee signs as grantor in a stated fiduciary capacity, follows a different execution pattern, and a conveyance by multiple record owners or to co-trustees exceeds the party blocks this form carries.

Why a Quitclaim Into a Trust

Alaska Statutes Section 34.15.040 supplies the statutory quitclaim form, built on the words conveys and quitclaims. A deed substantially in that form passes all existing legal and equitable rights of the grantor, in fee, and Section 34.15.080 bars implied covenants, so nothing in the instrument warrants the state of title. Between an owner and that owner's own trust, title covenants have no work to do, which is why the quitclaim form, also searched as a quit claim deed or non-warranty deed, is the instrument that appears again and again in trust funding transfers. The trustee takes exactly the interest the grantor held, and the property's existing title insurance, liens, and recorded restrictions carry forward unchanged.

The Trust Stays Off the Record

Alaska requires neither the trust's beneficiaries nor its terms to appear in the deed, and no certificate of trust is recorded with it. The deed identifies the trust by name and date, and the trust instrument itself stays private. When a later transaction calls for proof of the trustee's authority, Alaska Statutes Section 13.36.079 lets the trustee furnish a certification of trust, a short statement of the trust's existence, the acting trustee, and the trustee's powers that third parties may rely on in good faith; that certification is prepared separately when needed and is not included in this package. The statute even backs the privacy with a penalty for a person who demands the full trust instrument without good faith.

Recording With the District Recorder

The completed deed identifies the recording district where the property is located and is submitted, with the recording fee, to Alaska's statewide recording system administered by the Department of Natural Resources. The state's format rules in 11 AAC 06.040 reserve two inches at the top of the first page for the recorder and set one inch margins elsewhere, and this form is built to those measurements. Alaska imposes no statewide transfer tax on an ordinary deed, and a trustee grantee adds no extra filing: the recorder asks the same things of this deed as of any conveyance, including the trustee's complete mailing address as the acquiring party and a return address for the recorded original. Under the recording statute, AS 40.17.080, the deed is valid between the parties on delivery, but recording is what protects the trustee's title against a later purchaser without notice.

The download package contains the fillable quitclaim deed form built to Alaska's recording standards, a completed example showing a trust funding transfer recorded in the Anchorage Recording District, and a guide that walks through every section of the form and the recording process. The materials are informational and are not legal advice; an Alaska attorney can address how these rules operate on a specific title or trust.