La Plata County Warranty Deed Form

A single owner conveying Colorado real property with the fullest statutory title assurance signs a warranty deed, and this form prepares that deed for exactly one individual grantor. The Colorado Warranty Deed (Individual Grantor) carries the short form of Colorado Revised Statutes Section 38-30-113(1)(a), whose operative words, sells and conveys, and, warrants the title to the same, make the instrument a warranty deed with full covenants of warranty.

A warranty that reaches the whole chain of title

The statutory warranty words carry defined content. Under Section 38-30-113(4)(a), the grantor covenants that at the time of the deed the grantor held an indefeasible fee simple estate with good right and full power to convey, that the property was free from encumbrances except those the deed states, that the grantee shall have quiet and peaceable possession, and that the grantor will defend the title against all lawful claims. Those covenants reach defects arising before the grantor's own ownership as well as during it, the feature that separates a full warranty from more limited statutory assurances, and under Section 38-30-121 they run with the premises to later owners.

The deed's exceptions section is where the warranty takes its agreed shape. Colorado's 2019 deed legislation defined the phrase, subject to statutory exceptions: current-year property taxes not yet due, matters a survey or inspection would reveal that the grantor neither created nor knew of, and matters of record in the county. The form provides an exceptions box for that phrase, for specific recorded matters such as a surviving deed of trust, or for both, and the completed example shows a conventional entry.

One grantor, one signature, one certificate

The form recites exactly one individual grantor: one party block, one signature line, and one acknowledgment certificate in the wording of Colorado's notarial short form statute, which reads that the record was acknowledged before the officer on a stated date by the named individual. A sole owner conveying to a buyer, a parent deeding to a child at a stated price, and an unmarried seller closing without a title company present the one-owner record this deed recites. Co-owned property, entity ownership, and conveyances by trustees or agents present different record patterns, with different party recitals and certificate counts, and this form is not set up as any of those.

Colorado law keeps the single signature clean for most married sellers as well. An owner conveying property that is homesteaded automatically may convey it free and clear of homestead rights without any other person's signature under Section 38-41-202(3); only a recorded homestead declaration changes that, requiring both spouses' signatures, a two-signature configuration outside this form. Colorado abolished dower and curtesy and does not recognize tenancy by the entirety, so the non-owner spouse's signature has no general statutory role on an ordinary Colorado deed.

Recording rules that decide whether the deed is accepted

Two Colorado content rules matter at the counter. A deed presented without the grantee's legal address is not recorded and is returned under Section 38-35-109(2), so the grantee section of the form asks for the name and legal address together. And a conveyance for consideration above five hundred dollars carries the state documentary fee, one cent per one hundred dollars of consideration, which the clerk collects and notes on the instrument before recording; a Real Property Transfer Declaration accompanies the deed for the assessor and is not itself recorded. The form reserves the statutory top margin of page one for recording information and exceeds the half-inch side and bottom margins Colorado requires, and the guide walks through the county fee, the declaration, and the municipal transfer taxes that survive in a handful of resort towns.

The package delivers the blank warranty deed as a fillable PDF, a completed example prepared on a realistic Larimer County sale, and a plain-language guide that describes every numbered section, the statutory covenants, the grantee vesting alternatives Colorado recognizes, and the recording process. The materials describe Colorado law in general terms and are not legal advice.