San Juan County Quitclaim Deed (Reserving Life Estate) Form

One Colorado deed can move ownership and keep the right to live on the land, and this fillable form does both at once. An individual grantor releases the described property to one grantee and, in the same instrument, reserves a life estate: the grantor stays in possession for life, and the grantee holds a remainder interest that becomes possessory when that life estate ends.

Two estates out of one conveyance

Section 8 is where the ownership divides. The grantor reserves, for the term of the grantor's natural life, a life estate carrying the exclusive right of possession, use, control, rents, and income; what reaches the grantee is the remainder. C.R.S. 38-30-107 deems the estate granted a fee simple unless a lesser estate is limited by express words, and those words of reservation are what hold the grantee's estate to a remainder. No Colorado statute prescribes a form for this deed, so the arrangement rests on that section, on the possession rule below, and on common law about life tenants and remaindermen. Colorado Bar Association committee forms include a deed reserving a life estate, showing the pattern in practice.

Why a possession statute does real work here

C.R.S. 38-30-120 provides that a duly executed and delivered conveyance carries the right to immediate possession of the interest conveyed unless a future day for possession is specified in the instrument. This one specifies that future time on its face: at the termination of the reserved life estate and not before. What completes the record is C.R.S. 38-31-102, under which a certificate of death or a verification of death document, recorded with the supplementary affidavit that section describes, stands as prima facie proof of the death of a life tenant. Those documents are prepared separately and are not part of this package.

A release, with nothing promised about it

The conveyance is Colorado's statutory quitclaim under C.R.S. 38-30-113(1)(d), reached by dropping the words of warranty and putting quitclaim where convey would otherwise stand. It carries no covenant of title and picks up no interest the grantor acquires later, and the deed prints that character in capital letters beside the statement that the grantee takes the remainder interest only. Section 7 holds an informational listing of encumbrances, with a printed sentence keeping it from reading as a warranty.

One grantor, one grantee, one certificate

The form recites exactly one grantor, a natural person conveying in an individual capacity who is also the life tenant the reservation names, and exactly one grantee taking the remainder, whose legal address the grantee entry collects because C.R.S. 38-35-109(2) has a deed lacking it returned instead of recorded. One signature line and one acknowledgment certificate follow, on the individual short form at C.R.S. 24-21-516(1)(a). An owner passing the family home to an adult child while keeping the right to occupy it for life, an owner conveying a cabin to a relative while retaining seasonal use and rental income, and an owner placing a remainder of record so that possession consolidates in one grantee at the end of the term present the pattern this deed recites. The form is not set up for a life estate reserved in someone other than the signing grantor, for a deed granting the life estate to one person and the remainder to another, for two grantors or two grantees, or for an entity, trustee, or attorney-in-fact signature. Section 9 takes any terms stated about the life estate itself, such as who carries taxes, insurance, and upkeep, which Colorado leaves to common law and to the parties.

Fees and paperwork at the clerk and recorder

Recording happens in the county holding the land, at the flat statutory charge quoted as 43 dollars on county fee schedules; Colorado's statewide charge on a conveyance is the documentary fee, not a transfer tax. Section 6 carries the figure or the exemption, which C.R.S. 39-13-104(2) has claimed when the deed is offered for recording; that exemption list reaches a document granting or conveying a future interest in real property, while the example instead records that no fee is due on nominal consideration. A Real Property Transfer Declaration travels in with the deed under C.R.S. 39-14-102.

The purchase delivers this deed as a fillable PDF, a completed example filled in for a Montrose County conveyance reserving a life estate to one remainder grantee, and a guide covering every numbered section, the reservation, the notarization, and the recording steps. The materials are informational and are not legal advice.