Sitka Borough Transfer on Death Deed (Trustee or Entity Beneficiary) Form

An Alaska transfer on death deed can name a trust or an organization, rather than a person, to receive real property when the owner dies. Drafted under Alaska's Uniform Real Property Transfer on Death Act, AS 13.48, this form is the deed for a single owner whose beneficiary is the trustee of a trust or an entity such as a corporation, a limited liability company, a nonprofit, or a governmental body.

A beneficiary that is a trust or an entity

AS 13.48.190(4) lets a trust, a corporation, a limited liability company, an association, a governmental body, or any other legal or commercial entity take under a TOD deed. This form's beneficiary section prints that class as fixed deed text: the beneficiary is a trust, designated by the name of its trustee, the name of the trust, and the date of the trust instrument, or an entity, designated by its legal name. A trust designation reads in the style Anna K. Lindqvist, as Trustee of the Lindqvist Family Revocable Trust under trust agreement dated March 3, 2019, so the record shows who holds the property for the trust after the transfer. An entity is named exactly as its formation records name it.

Designated individually, never as a class

AS 13.48.050(3) voids a deed whose designation identifies beneficiaries only as members of a class, and a designation to the members, the partners, or the congregation of an organization is exactly that. The fixed recital in this deed states that the beneficiary is designated individually and not as a member of a class. An optional alternate section receives who takes if the primary designation lapses or fails for any reason, the provision AS 13.48.090(a)(5) permits; a trust that has terminated or an entity that has dissolved before the owner's death is the kind of failure that section exists for.

What passes, and when

Nothing passes while the owner lives. AS 13.48.080 keeps the owner's right to sell or encumber the property and gives the trust or entity no interest, so the deed does not fund a trust during life. At death, under AS 13.48.090, the interest the owner then holds transfers to the beneficiary subject to every mortgage, lien, and other interest affecting title, without covenant or warranty of title. The operative section carries the transfer sentence and the statement of the right to revoke from the optional form in AS 13.48.120. Revocation takes a later instrument acknowledged and recorded under AS 13.48.070; a will cannot do it.

One owner, one signature, one certificate

The deed identifies one owner, a natural person signing alone, with no marital status printed and none asked for. One OWNER signature block follows the operative section, and one acknowledgment certificate in the AS 09.63.100 short form, with Alaska's judicial district venue line, follows the signature. A sole owner whose estate plan pours the home into a revocable living trust at death, an owner leaving a cabin to a conservation nonprofit, and an owner passing a rental parcel to a family limited liability company present the designation this deed recites. Two owners on one deed, a natural person as the primary beneficiary, several primary beneficiaries taking in shares, and an entity, a trustee, or an attorney-in-fact as the signer are configurations this form is not set up as.

Recorded in the district, while the owner lives

Alaska records through the Department of Natural Resources Recorder's Office and its recording districts rather than county offices, and AS 13.48.050(4) makes recording in the district where the property lies, before the owner's death, a condition of the deed's effect. The instrument is letter size at 12 point type, keeps the top two inches of page one clear for the recorder, and runs three recorded pages, so the fee under 11 AAC 05.200 is the $20 first page plus $5 for each page after it, with no transfer tax.

The package includes the fillable transfer on death deed, a completed example filled in for a Palmer Recording District fact pattern with a trust as beneficiary and a nonprofit as alternate, and a guide that walks through every numbered section, the trust and entity naming conventions, the signing rules, and the recording steps. The description and the guide explain the form and the statutes behind it in general terms only, and neither is legal advice.