Iowa Quitclaim Deed (Interspousal)

On an Iowa quitclaim deed between spouses, the person whose signature Iowa homestead law waits for is the grantee. This form is set up for exactly that conveyance: one married grantor quitclaims to one grantee, the grantee is the grantor's spouse, and the deed gathers both signatures on its own face. It is also searched as an interspousal deed or a quit claim deed between spouses.

Why the grantee signs the deed

Iowa Code section 561.13(1) provides that a conveyance of a homestead by a married owner is not valid unless and until the spouse of the owner executes the same or a like instrument. The statute lists four exceptions, and a transfer between spouses is not among them. This form answers it from inside the instrument: the grantee, being the spouse of the owner, signs a labeled block of the grantee's own, and the operative section recites that the two are married to each other on the date of the deed. Martin v. Martin, 720 N.W.2d 732 (Iowa 2006), is why that block is labeled rather than assumed. There the Iowa Supreme Court treated a homestead deed missing the spousal execution as invalid as to both spouses.

What the deed moves and what it leaves alone

The operative words track the quitclaim form of Iowa Code section 558.19: for the stated consideration, the grantor quitclaims to the grantee all of the interest of the grantor in the described real estate. Nothing is promised about the quality of that interest. A mortgage stays on the land while the borrower stays on the note, and easements, restrictions, unpaid taxes, and assessments follow the parcel. The grantor also relinquishes dower, homestead, and distributive share rights in the property, and the deed states that the grantee's own signature carries no interest of the grantee away. Records in this shape appear when spouses reallocate separately titled parcels so that each holds one alone, when one spouse takes the record title alone ahead of a refinance, and when a spouse who owned the residence before the marriage places it in the other spouse's name. One grantor and one grantee are recited, with no co-ownership designation, because a single grantee takes sole ownership in fee.

A gift between spouses that records without a declaration of value

Iowa Code section 428A.2, subsection 11, excepts deeds between husband and wife without actual consideration from the real estate transfer tax, and section 428A.4(1) lets an excepted deed record on a signed statement of the exception in place of payment. Section 8 of this deed is that statement, and the signatures at the end sign it. The exception reaches past the tax itself: section 428A.4(2) calls for a declaration of value only outside the exceptions numbered 2 through 5, 7 through 13, and 16 through 21, so subsection 11 releases the deed from that form too. Iowa Department of Natural Resources form 542-0960 closes the chain, stating that where no declaration of value is submitted no groundwater hazard statement is required either. The statutory no-condition sentence still prints on page one, where it does its work on a deed that does travel with a declaration of value. The included example is that exempt transaction; a deed between spouses for a price takes the other road, with tax at eighty cents for each five hundred dollars above the first five hundred.

Page one as an Iowa recorder reads it

Iowa Code section 331.606B holds the top three inches of page one for the recorder and places three items below that band on an instrument of conveyance: the preparer with a telephone number, the taxpayer name and complete mailing address, and the return address. All three print in labeled blocks above the title, the body text is set at 12 point against a 10 point statutory minimum, and a printed name line sits under each signature, a rejection ground for documents dated on or after July 1, 2009. The guide takes up the recording fees, the county auditor's five dollar transfer fee, the two acknowledgment certificates, and electronic submission through Iowa Land Records.

The purchase delivers three pieces: the fillable interspousal quitclaim deed, a completed example prepared as a Dallas County conveyance from a husband to his wife, and a plain language guide to the sections, the signing, and the recording with the county recorder. The materials are informational and are not legal advice.