Iowa Warranty Deed

Iowa gives legal weight to the words a deed uses for its parties, and this Iowa warranty deed leaves those words to the people signing it. The grantor and grantee sections are open, multi-line spaces rather than preprinted patterns: one or two individuals on each side, named with whatever marital recital the transaction calls for, the grantee names followed by the co-ownership designation the buyers select. Behind the blanks sits the full covenant of Iowa Code section 558.19.

Why the ownership words are left blank

Iowa Code section 557.15 attaches consequences to the phrasing in the grantee clause. A conveyance to two or more people creates a tenancy in common unless a contrary intent is expressed. Three drafting choices flip that default into a joint tenancy with right of survivorship: describing the grantees as joint tenants, describing them with reference to the grantees or their survivor, or identifying two grantees as married to each other when the instrument is executed. A form that preprinted one of those phrasings would settle a question the parties get to settle, so this one prints none, and the guide sets out each ownership form Iowa recognizes and the two it does not, entirety estates and community property.

A conveyance in fee, plus one sentence

Iowa keeps its deed forms inside the Code. Section 558.19 supplies a short conveyance in fee, then makes it a warranty deed by adding the words: And I warrant the title against all persons whomsoever. That covenant reaches the entire chain of title rather than the grantor's own years of ownership, which is what buyers mean when they search for a general warranty deed. Two neighboring sections keep it brief: 557.2 dispenses with technical words of inheritance, and 557.3 passes the grantor's whole interest unless the deed says otherwise.

One or two owners on each side

The form is arranged for natural persons signing in their own capacity, in four count patterns: one grantor or two, conveying to one grantee or two. Two signature blocks close the instrument, each with the printed name line that Iowa Code section 331.606B requires under an original signature, followed by one certificate per signer in the individual short form of Iowa Code section 9B.16. Two owners may therefore sign the same deed and still acknowledge on separate dates or before separate notarial officers, while a conveyance by a lone owner leaves the second block and second certificate empty. That capacity also carries the joinder of Iowa Code section 561.13: a married owner's conveyance of the homestead is not valid unless the spouse executes the same or a like instrument, the rule applied in Martin v. Martin, 720 N.W.2d 732 (Iowa 2006). Configurations the form is not set up as: an entity or trustee grantor, each acknowledging in a representative capacity, a signer under a power of attorney, and three or more owners on either side.

A first page built for the recorder

Iowa Code section 331.606B gives county recorders exacting first-page rules, some of them deciding whether a deed is accepted at all. The top three inches of page one stay empty for the recorder. Below that band the form prints the preparer's name, address, and telephone number, the taxpayer name and mailing address for the tax statement, and the return address. The same page carries the sentence Iowa Code section 558.69 accepts in place of the Iowa Department of Natural Resources groundwater hazard statement form when the property holds none of the listed conditions, such as a well or a private sewage disposal system.

What travels with the deed to the counter

A sale above five hundred dollars pays Iowa real estate transfer tax at eighty cents for each five hundred dollars of consideration over the first five hundred, collected by the recorder, and a declaration of value on the Iowa Department of Revenue form accompanies it unless the deed clearly shows an exempt transaction. Recording runs five dollars per page plus two dollars per transaction, a nonconforming document costs ten dollars more, and the county auditor's transfer books add five dollars per transaction to a fifty dollar ceiling. Counter filing and electronic submission through Iowa Land Records both reach all ninety-nine counties.

The download contains three items: the fillable Iowa warranty deed, a completed example worked through a Dallas County sale, and a guide covering the statutes, the section-by-section entries, signing, and recording. Nothing further is included, and the materials describe Iowa law in general terms rather than serving as legal advice.