Effingham County Quitclaim Deed (Individual Grantor by Attorney-in-Fact) Form

The Grantor named in this Georgia quitclaim deed never signs it. An attorney-in-fact signs the owner's name under a power of attorney, and the deed is arranged to show a title examiner where that authority came from: the date of the power of attorney, its recording reference, and a signature made in the record owner's name by another person's hand.

One signature, made in the owner's name

Georgia executes deeds by attestation. O.C.G.A. Section 44-5-30 has the maker's signature attested by an officer named in O.C.G.A. Section 44-2-15, ordinarily a Georgia notary public, and by one additional witness, the unofficial witness. Where an agent signs, the record owner remains the maker and the agent is only the hand, so the deed carries one grantor signature block rather than two: the officer and the unofficial witness attest the agent's pen, and the principal never appears. O.C.G.A. Section 10-6B-40(g) supplies the effect, providing that an act performed by an agent under a power of attorney binds the principal and the principal's successors in interest as if the principal had performed it. The certificate below is captioned as an attestation, and the printed name line shows the capacity in which the signer signed.

Where the agent's authority comes from

Not from the deed. A quitclaim of the principal's own land is not among the acts O.C.G.A. Section 10-6B-40(a) reserves to an express grant; it rides on a grant of general authority over the subject of real property, and O.C.G.A. Section 10-6B-43 spells out what that grant carries, naming quitclaim and release among the dispositions an agent may make. Two further rules govern the document standing behind the signature. O.C.G.A. Section 10-6-2 has an agency created in writing wherever the act itself is performed in writing, and O.C.G.A. Section 10-6B-5 has the principal's signature on the power of attorney attested by a competent witness who is not a named agent and, separately, attested by an officer under O.C.G.A. Section 44-2-15, the same execution shape a Georgia deed carries.

The power of attorney travels with the deed

No Georgia statute located for this form conditions recording of the deed on recording the power of attorney: O.C.G.A. Section 15-6-61(a)(10) and O.C.G.A. Section 44-2-14 set the paper, margin, preparation, and return-address conditions on recordation, and neither names it. County practice files the two together anyway, so the chain of title shows the authority, and that is why Section 3 takes a recording reference beside the date of the power of attorney. Under O.C.G.A. Section 10-6B-10 a power of attorney terminates at the principal's death and upon revocation, and a principal who revokes may file the notice, with evidence of the agent's receipt, with the clerk of superior court in the county of the principal's domicile. A person accepting an attested power of attorney in good faith has the reliance protection of O.C.G.A. Section 10-6B-19, and may request the agent's certification of facts on the optional statutory form at O.C.G.A. Section 10-6B-71, which is prepared separately.

A release with no warranty, and a first page built for the clerk

The operative words remise, release, and forever quitclaim the record owner's right, title, interest, claim, and demand, and because O.C.G.A. Section 44-5-61 reads no warranty into a Georgia deed, this instrument states plainly that it gives none, leaving every security deed and lien of record in place. Georgia publishes no prescribed deed form (O.C.G.A. Section 44-5-33), and the instrument is searched as a quit claim deed or a non-warranty deed. The completed example fills the form for a Bibb County release in which a Macon agent signs for a principal living in Arizona, on stated consideration of $42,000.00, producing $42.00 of Georgia transfer tax on the PT-61 that travels with the deed (O.C.G.A. Sections 48-6-1 and 48-6-4). Recording runs a flat $25.00 (O.C.G.A. Section 15-6-77), the first three inches of the page stay clear for the clerk's notation, and the return-to name and mailing address open the page where O.C.G.A. Section 44-2-14(b) places them, above a tax parcel line answering DeKalb County's local first-page rule.

Three files arrive with the purchase: the blank deed as a fillable PDF, the completed Bibb County example, and a plain language guide covering all ten numbered sections, the attestation and witness formalities, the grantee's ownership choices, and the PT-61 and electronic filing path. The power of attorney itself is a separate instrument, executed by the principal and not included. These materials describe Georgia law in general terms and are not legal advice.