Benton County Quitclaim Deed (Married Grantor with Non-Owner Spouse Joinder) Form

Arkansas title often stands in one spouse's name while the marriage gives the other spouse rights in the same land. This quitclaim deed is configured for that record: one married grantor conveys, and the grantor's spouse signs a joinder paragraph that releases dower or curtesy and homestead right without conveying any ownership. Whatever interest the grantor holds at delivery moves to the grantee, and no warranty of title travels with it.

The signature that conveys nothing

The spouse named in this deed holds no record interest, so that signature has no ownership to pass. It settles a marital claim instead. Arkansas Code Annotated section 18-12-402 lets a married person relinquish dower or curtesy in a spouse's real estate by joining with that spouse in the deed of conveyance, or by a separate instrument to the grantee, acknowledged as the law prescribes. This form takes the joinder path: one instrument, the conveyance in one paragraph and the relinquishment in the next.

Why Arkansas asks for the second signature

Two rules converge on it. Where the land is the homestead of a married person, section 18-12-403 makes an instrument affecting that homestead invalid unless the spouse joins in the execution or releases by separate acknowledged document. Off the homestead, section 28-11-301(b) still preserves a dower or curtesy right in land sold during the other spouse's lifetime without that spouse's consent in legal form, so an unjoined conveyance leaves the inchoate right standing. In O'Marra v. MacKool (2005), the Arkansas Supreme Court held the statute unsatisfied where the spouse never joined in the deed, restating that acknowledgment without joining is not enough and that the release runs to the grantee, not to the owner spouse. An owner's deed followed by a relinquishment paragraph and both spouses' signatures is the shape the cases approve.

One grantor, one joining spouse, two certificates

The form recites one record owner and one joining spouse, and the granting clause names the grantor alone. Below the operative sections sit a signature and date line for each signer, the two disinterested witness blocks of section 18-12-104, and one acknowledgment certificate per signer; Arkansas law does not require separate certificates, and the layout leaves the two signers free to acknowledge on different days or before different officers. The grantee block carries a vesting line, and the guide walks each form of ownership the state recognizes. Patterns that present this configuration include land one spouse acquired before the marriage or inherited during it, later quitclaimed to a relative, and a sale where the buyer's title examiner calls for the non-owner spouse's release before closing. A deed the spouse signs as a co-owner, and a deed by an owner who is not married, sit outside these recitals.

What the deed promises about the title

Nothing, deliberately: in Arkansas that is a matter of word choice. Section 18-12-102 reads statutory covenants into a deed using the words grant, bargain and sell, unless express words limit them, so a no warranty instrument stays away from the phrase. This deed conveys by remise, release, and quitclaim and states on its own face that no such covenant arises. Mortgages, tax liens, easements, subdivision restrictions, and severed mineral interests all survive the transfer.

At the recording window

The deed is filed with the circuit clerk of the county where the land lies. Its first page opens with the preparer statement section 14-15-403 requires and reserves the top two and one half inches for the file mark, with half inch side and bottom margins and two and one half inches held clear at the foot of the last page. Recording runs fifteen dollars for the first page and five dollars per page after it. Transfer tax reaches consideration above one hundred dollars at three dollars and thirty cents per thousand, and the deed prints the statutory certification for the grantee or the grantee's agent to sign. Since August 5, 2025, Act 752 has conditioned counter and mail filings on the grantor's photo identification, subject to statutory exceptions the guide lists.

What arrives with the download

The package holds this deed as a fillable PDF, a completed example filled in for a Faulkner County transfer, and a plain language guide to the blanks, the two signatures, and the recording steps. Customers reach it searching for a quit claim deed or quick claim deed with spousal joinder, or an Arkansas quitclaim deed signed by a spouse who is not on the title. The materials are informational and are not legal advice.