Lee County Quitclaim Deed (Trustee Grantor) Form

A trust cannot sign its own name. On this Iowa quitclaim deed the property belongs to a trust, and the signature that moves it is the trustee's, given in that capacity and not in the trustee's own right. The form is built for exactly that conveyance: one trustee as grantor, one signature block, and a section of its own that names the trust and the date of the trust instrument.

The capacity the signature line carries

The trustee signs once, with a printed name line beneath the signature that answers Iowa Code section 331.606B(1)(e), a rejection ground rather than a fee item for documents dated on or after July 1, 2009. The certificate that follows is the representative capacity short form of Iowa Code section 9B.16, whose blank after the date takes three things together: the individual's name, the type of authority, and the party on whose behalf the record was executed, which here means the trustee, the trustee capacity, and the trust. No spousal relinquishment block is printed, because what passes is an interest held in trust rather than an interest a married person holds individually. The form is not set up for two cotrustees, for a corporate trustee signing through an officer, or for an owner conveying in the owner's own right.

What a quitclaim out of a trust passes

The operative words track the statutory quitclaim of Iowa Code section 558.19: for the consideration stated in the deed, all of the interest the trust holds in the described real estate. Quality of title is not addressed, which is the character of a quit claim deed, or trustee's quitclaim deed as it is also searched. Every mortgage, judgment lien, easement, restrictive covenant, special assessment, and unpaid tax survives the transfer untouched. Two printed sentences close it: the trustee signs as trustee and incurs no personal obligation, and an entry in the additional provisions section becomes part of the deed.

The trust on the face of the deed, and the paper that comes after

Two blanks carry the trust: its name as the trust instrument states it, and the date of that instrument. Iowa Code section 633A.4402 starts with the powers the terms of the trust confer and adds a statutory list, among them executing instruments useful to the trustee's powers and, on termination, distributing trust property to those entitled to it. The deed recites a capacity, and that recital does not by itself establish the trustee's appointment or the reach of the trustee's authority; Iowa Code section 633A.4604 supplies the certification of trust a buyer, lender, or title examiner commonly asks to see, prepared separately and not part of this package.

An exemption that still travels with a declaration of value

Iowa charges eighty cents for each five hundred dollars of consideration above the first five hundred, and Iowa Code section 428A.4 accepts a signed statement of an exception in place of payment; Section 10 of this deed is that statement. Subsection 22 of Iowa Code section 428A.2 covers a deed transferring distributions of assets to beneficiaries of a trust when conveyed without consideration, the ground the included example claims. The declaration of value answers to a different list: the statute releases only the exceptions it numbers 2 through 5, 7 through 13, and 16 through 21, and subsection 22 sits outside them, so the example records with no tax and a declaration of value both. That is what puts the first page groundwater sentence to work, since a deed carrying a declaration of value needs either that sentence or the Iowa Department of Natural Resources form.

Where deeds in this shape come from

A successor trustee distributing a parcel to those entitled to the trust property after the settlor's death, a trustee deeding ground back to a living settlor to undo an earlier funding transfer, a trustee closing a sale of trust real estate, and a trustee releasing the trust's record interest in an undivided share to the other co-owner all leave records in this shape. The grantee entry holds one grantee or several, with a co-ownership designation for two or more; Iowa Code section 557.15 supplies a tenancy in common when a deed to co-grantees names none.

The purchase delivers three files: the fillable blank deed, a completed example prepared as a Story County distribution from a successor trustee to two beneficiaries, and a plain language guide to the sections, the signing, and the recording. The materials are informational and are not legal advice.