Sonoma County Revocable Transfer on Death Deed (One Individual Beneficiary) Form

Putting one person on the beneficiary line is the quietest configuration this instrument has, and the one where most of the Probate Code's beneficiary machinery never starts. The form is the statutory deed at Probate Code Section 5642, set up for one owner and one individual beneficiary: one name on the beneficiary entry, one captioned signature row, one certificate. Californians searching for a TOD deed or a beneficiary deed land here: the instrument moves residential property to the person named, at death, outside probate.

One name, and the sharing rules stay asleep

Probate Code Section 5652 carries the rules for several takers: equal shares as tenants in common, with a failed share redistributed among the survivors. None of that engages on a deed with a single named taker. There is no fraction to state, no cotenancy to explain, nothing to divide. Section 5652(a)(1) transfers the whole of the transferor's interest in accordance with the deed.

Survival becomes the only question

Section 5652(a)(2) conditions a beneficiary's interest on outliving the transferor: the interest of a beneficiary who does not lapses, notwithstanding the anti-lapse rule of Probate Code Section 21110. Where several people are named, that lapse is absorbed by the rest. Where one is named, the statute's own Common Questions answer it in a line: the deed has no effect, and the property passes under the transferor's will or by intestate succession. The statutory form prints no alternate or successor line, and its opening instruction forbids adding one, so this is a designation with one point of failure.

An entry that takes a name and nothing else

The beneficiary entry on this form is a single line, and the statute's convention for a person is what fills it: the full name, with a general term such as a reference to children ruled out, and the relationship to the transferor stated briefly or left off. Nothing else belongs there. Because the form directs that only the information it asks for be provided and nothing else inserted, there is no address entry, no capacity entry, and no condition to write in. The rest of the instrument keeps the same single-party shape: the statute's captioned row of date, signature, and printed name; two witness columns for the two witnesses Probate Code Section 5624 requires; and one acknowledgment certificate whose venue already reads State of California, because it certifies under California law. No second transferor block and no second beneficiary entry exists anywhere on the deed, and the statute's note under the signature row confines the transfer to the signer's own share. A parent naming one adult child, and a sole owner naming one relative, present the single-name pattern this deed recites; a trust taker, an entity taker, or several takers present a different configuration.

What comes attached to the one interest

Section 5652(e) transfers without covenant or warranty of title, and Section 5652(b) takes the property as encumbered: subject to every limitation of record at the transferor's death, a deed of trust included, and to limitations recorded up to 120 days after the beneficiary records the Section 5682(c) affidavit. Section 5664 sets the other boundary. If title stands in joint tenancy or as community property with right of survivorship when the transferor dies, the deed is void and survivorship carries the interest instead, an effect the statute attaches at death, not something drafting can reach.

Sixty days, and a page count that ignores the annex

Section 5626 makes recordation an effectiveness condition and runs the sixty day window from the date of the notarial acknowledgment. The Common Questions behind the certificate are the statute's own subsequent pages under Section 5642(b), and Section 5626(d)(1) does not require them to be recorded; leaving them at home changes nothing about the deed. They are paginated on a separate count for that reason, so the deed's footer reads the same two pages whether or not the annex goes to the counter. Recording happens at the county recorder where the property sits; fee schedules differ county to county.

Inside the package are the blank fillable deed, a completed example built on a Placer County fact pattern, and a guide that walks the form heading by heading. Both this page and that guide speak about the form and about California law in general terms only, and neither is legal advice.