Alaska Transfer on Death Deed

An Alaska transfer on death deed names who receives an owner's real property at death, and it does its work only if it reaches the Recorder's Office while the owner is alive. This form prepares that deed under AS 13.48, the Alaska Uniform Real Property Transfer on Death Act, for one or two owners of Alaska real property, with a free-form beneficiary section and a single operative sentence drawn from the statute's own form.

Recorded by district, before death, or not at all

Alaska has no county recorders. The Department of Natural Resources Recorder's Office records instruments through recording districts, and AS 13.48.050(4) ties this deed's effect to recording in the district where the property lies before the transferor dies. A signed, notarized deed left in a drawer transfers nothing. The form names the recording district in its property section, meets the AS 40.17.030 prerequisites the recorder checks, and prints the recording requirement on its face above the first section.

One sentence from the statute carries the transfer

AS 13.48.120 prints an optional form, and its operative sentence reads: At my death, I transfer my interest in the described property to the beneficiaries as designated above. This form carries that sentence word for word, with the statute's companion line that the owner may revoke the deed before death and the AS 13.48.090(d) rule that the transfer carries no covenant or warranty of title. Nothing passes during life; under AS 13.48.080 the owner keeps the right to sell or encumber the property. Revocation follows AS 13.48.070: a later transfer on death deed, a recorded instrument of revocation, or a lifetime deed, each acknowledged after the deed it revokes and recorded before death in the same district. A will does not revoke the deed.

Beneficiaries named one by one

Alaska adds a rule that generic beneficiary deed forms miss. Under AS 13.48.050(3) a deed that identifies beneficiaries only as members of a class, in the style my children, is void. This form's beneficiary section receives each beneficiary individually, with a mailing address, whether a natural person, a trust by its name and trustee, or an entity by its legal name. An optional alternate section receives who takes if a primary beneficiary does not survive, as AS 13.48.090(a)(5) permits, and where two or more primary beneficiaries are named and the deed says nothing more, AS 13.48.090(a)(3) transfers equal undivided shares with no right of survivorship among them. The form also carries the statutory form's optional grant of authority to a designated agent to revoke the deed under AS 13.48.070(e).

One or two owners on one instrument

The form recites nothing about marital status or how title is held. Its owner section receives one or two natural persons with whatever recital the title record carries, two signature blocks headed OWNER and SECOND OWNER follow, and a separate acknowledgment certificate in the AS 09.63.100 short form, with the Alaska judicial district venue line, is printed for each signer, so two owners may acknowledge on different dates or before different officers. A single owner leaves the second block and certificate blank. A sole owner naming an adult child, and spouses holding as tenants by the entirety naming their children, present the count patterns this deed accommodates; the guide describes how AS 13.48.090(c) treats a deed signed by a joint owner who is survived by the other. An entity owner, a trustee, an attorney-in-fact, and three or more owners on one deed are configurations this form is not set up as.

Built to the Alaska recording standard

The instrument is letter size, renders at 12 point against the 10 point minimum in 11 AAC 06.040, reserves the top two inches of the first page for the recorder, and keeps one-inch margins elsewhere. Alaska charges a per-page recording fee and no transfer tax, so the deed and the fee are the whole package at the counter.

The package includes the fillable transfer on death deed, a completed example filled in for an Anchorage Recording District fact pattern with two owners and two beneficiaries, and a guide that walks through every numbered section, the signing and survivorship rules, and the recording process. This description and the guide describe the form and the governing statutes in general terms; they are not legal advice.