District Of Columbia Warranty Deed

The District of Columbia still writes its deeds under seal. Section 42-306(b) of the D.C. Code provides that no estate of inheritance, no estate for life, and no estate for a term longer than one year in District real property takes effect except by a deed signed and sealed by the grantor, which puts the seal inside the conveyance rather than among the filing formalities. This District of Columbia warranty deed therefore prints the bracketed scroll from the statutory forms of Section 42-601 at the end of every grantor signature rule, and nowhere else on the page.

What the words with general warranty add

Title covenants in the District are opt-in, and this deed opts in twice. Its granting clause carries the phrase with general warranty, and a separate sentence states the express covenant that the grantor will warrant generally the property hereby conveyed. Section 42-604 gives either route the same effect: the grantor, and the grantor's heirs, devisees, and personal representatives, undertake to warrant and defend the property to the grantee against the claims and demands of all persons whomsoever. Nothing limits when the defect arose, which is the whole distance between this covenant and the narrower special warranty of Section 42-605. Exceptions written into the subject-to section pull a recorded easement or restriction back out of the promise.

One instrument, one or two individuals on each side

This is the base configuration of the District warranty deed, and its party blocks are open blanks rather than preprinted patterns. The grantor block accepts one or two individual names with whatever status recital the record calls for; the grantee block accepts one or two names followed by the words that fix the form of co-ownership. Below them sit two signature blocks, labeled GRANTOR and SECOND GRANTOR (if applicable), and two acknowledgment certificates, so a deed signed by one grantor leaves the second block and the second certificate blank, and a deed signed by two carries a certificate for each. Four count patterns run through the one instrument: one grantor to one grantee, one to two, two to one, and two to two, in any combination of individuals signing in their own right. Marital status, capacity, and vesting are printed nowhere on the deed, and the guide rather than the form describes what those blanks hold. The form is not set up for a company or other entity grantor, whose deed executes through the officer and attestation route of Section 42-602, nor for a trustee or attorney-in-fact signing in a representative capacity, nor for three or more owners on either side.

The grantee line is where survivorship is won

District law is emphatic here. Section 42-516(a) makes a grant to two or more persons a tenancy in common unless a joint tenancy is expressly declared, and it says so even for a grant to spouses or domestic partners, so nothing survivorship-shaped follows from silence. The entireties estate open to spouses and registered domestic partners under Section 42-516(c) needs its express words too. Left out, the vesting words yield fractional shares that pass through each owner's own estate, a result worth choosing on purpose rather than inheriting by omission.

What travels with the deed to the Recorder

There are no counties here, so a Washington DC warranty deed goes to a single office: the Recorder of Deeds, a part of the Office of Tax and Revenue that also takes electronic filings through e-recording providers. Form FP-7/C, the recordation and transfer tax return, is sworn to by the parties and presented with the deed, carrying the rate line, the exemption claim, and the property's square, suffix, and lot. The deed itself must show the lot and square under Section 47-1431(a), which is why those identifiers get their own blanks ahead of the legal description. Two gates then close: Section 42-407 blocks acceptance of an instrument not executed and acknowledged according to law, and blocks it again where District taxes, assessments, or charges are unpaid on the property. Transferees have 30 days from execution to get the deed recorded.

The package includes this general warranty deed as a fillable PDF, a completed example filled in for a two-grantor sale of a Brookland house in Northeast Washington, and a plain-language guide covering the statutory framework, each section of the form, the vesting options open to grantees, signing and sealing, and the recording package. The materials are informational and describe District of Columbia law in general terms; they are not legal advice.