Colorado Beneficiary Deed

A Colorado beneficiary deed names who takes the owner's real property at death and does nothing else until then. The owner keeps the property, the right to sell or mortgage it, and the right to change the designation, because under C.R.S. 15-15-402 a beneficiary deed transfers an interest effective only on the death of the owner. This form prepares that deed, the Colorado counterpart of what other states call a transfer on death deed or TOD deed, for one or two owners of Colorado real property.

A deed that waits

C.R.S. 15-15-401 to 15-15-415 built the beneficiary deed as a will substitute for land. The deed needs no consideration, and the grantee-beneficiary neither signs it nor has to know it exists. Title vests only at death, subject to every mortgage, lien, easement, and other interest then affecting the property. Unless the owner designates otherwise, the deed carries no warranties of title and operates as a bargain and sale conveyance under C.R.S. 15-15-404(2).

Recorded before death, or not at all

The statute's one unforgiving rule is timing. C.R.S. 15-15-404(1) makes the deed effective only if it contains words such as conveys on death or transfers on death and is recorded, before the owner's death, with the clerk and recorder of the county where the property sits. The statutory form prints that condition as a caution at the top of the deed, carried here verbatim. Revocation works the same way: a recorded revocation or a later beneficiary deed, recorded before death, and never a will (C.R.S. 15-15-405).

Joint tenants and the last death

Colorado answers the co-owner question inside the statute rather than on the deed. Under C.R.S. 15-15-408, a joint tenant's beneficiary deed does not sever the joint tenancy, and title vests in the grantee-beneficiary only if the joint tenant-grantor is the last of all the joint tenants to die. Two joint tenants who sign one deed are each a joint tenant-grantor, so the first death passes that interest to the survivor and the deed operates at the second. Tenants in common each convey their own undivided interest. The deed carries the statutory form's single trigger, on grantor's death, and the chapter supplies the rest.

One or two owners, in their own names

This form is the general configuration of the Colorado beneficiary deed. The owner section is one open block that takes one or two natural-person owners by name, with whatever status recital the owners carry; nothing about marital status or how title is held is preprinted. The execution section carries two signature blocks, OWNER and SECOND OWNER (if applicable), and two acknowledgment certificates, one for each signer, so two owners can acknowledge on different days or before different notaries; a one-owner deed leaves the second block and certificate blank. The grantee-beneficiary block accepts one or more persons, a trust named as the trust under C.R.S. 38-30-108.5, or an entity, each with the mailing address C.R.S. 38-35-109(2) requires, and an optional section carries the statutory form's own successor clause. The form is not set up as a deed by a trust, an entity, a personal representative, or an attorney-in-fact, and it carries no block for a third owner.

What the record looks like afterward

At the owner's death the grantee-beneficiary proves the death as a surviving joint tenant does under C.R.S. 15-15-413 and 38-31-102, with a death record and a supplementary affidavit prepared separately and not included in this package. An unrecorded interest of the kind C.R.S. 15-15-407 describes is recorded within four months after the death or barred against persons without notice, and the same section preserves the state's Medicaid recovery claim, which is why the statutory form's Medicaid and probate warnings appear on the deed in capital letters.

Recording costs the same for every page count: a flat fee under C.R.S. 30-1-103 as amended in 2025, commonly quoted at forty-three dollars with surcharges, and no documentary fee because the deed carries no consideration. The deed is formatted to the margin rule of C.R.S. 30-10-406(3)(a), and each notary certificate reserves an open area for Colorado's rectangular official stamp. The package includes the fillable beneficiary deed, a completed example filled in for a Larimer County fact pattern, and the guide that walks through every numbered section, the statute, and the recording steps. This description and the guide describe the form and the governing Colorado statutes in general terms; they are not legal advice.