Kentucky Quitclaim Deed (Interspousal)

On a Kentucky quitclaim deed between spouses, the party receiving the property is the party whose marital claim already sits on it. One married record owner quitclaims to the other spouse as the only grantee, so the KRS 392.020 surviving spouse interest and the record title land in the same pair of hands. Sometimes searched as an interspousal transfer deed or a quit claim deed between husband and wife, the form passes the grantor's interest as it stands at delivery and promises nothing about the title.

The marital claim and the conveyance meet inside one marriage

Kentucky still keeps dower and curtesy, which is what sets a deed between spouses apart from every other release of interest. KRS 392.020, as amended effective July 15, 2026, leaves a surviving spouse the KRS 391.010 intestate share of real estate the deceased spouse held at death, plus a one third life estate in real estate that spouse held in fee during the marriage and no longer held at death, unless that right has been barred, forfeited, or relinquished. On a deed from one spouse to the other, the holder of that claim in the grantor's land is the grantee, who takes the fee it attached to. What remains is the interest arising on the grantor's side once the grantee owns, and the operative section answers it in terms: the grantor releases every interest of a surviving spouse in the property under KRS 392.020, dower and curtesy included, together with any homestead exemption right KRS 427.060 supplies, and it recites the four conditions KRS 427.100 attaches to releasing that exemption.

A transfer the tax statute lifts out by name

Most Kentucky deeds meet the transfer tax at the clerk's counter: KRS 142.050 charges the grantor fifty cents for each five hundred dollars of value, and KRS 382.260 keeps the deed from being lodged until it is paid. A conveyance between spouses is one of the transfers the statute names and excludes: KRS 142.050(7)(e) provides that the tax does not apply to a transfer of title between husband and wife, or between former spouses as part of a divorce proceeding. The exemption reaches the tax and nothing else. KRS 382.135 still puts a sworn consideration certificate inside the deed, signed by both spouses, and this form carries both statutory branches, an entry for full consideration paid and an entry for estimated fair cash value where the transfer is a gift, since that figure is what a clerk reads to see which treatment the deed claims.

What this form recites, and what it is not set up as

The deed recites exactly one grantor, a married record owner; exactly one grantee, the grantor's spouse; and an operative recital that the two are married to each other. Two signature blocks follow, the grantor signing the deed together with its certificate and the grantee signing the certificate, each under a notarial certificate of its own worded to carry the oath and the acknowledgment at once. Property one spouse bought before the marriage moving into the other spouse's name, a couple placing a jointly held parcel in one name alone, and one spouse releasing an undivided interest to the other present the patterns this deed recites. It is not arranged for two owners on the granting side, for a conveyance to both spouses together, for an unmarried owner, or for an entity signing through a representative, and it carries no joinder block, since no non-owner spouse stands outside this deed to join it.

No warranty, and the content list a clerk checks

Kentucky attaches title covenants to particular words: KRS 382.030 for general warranty and KRS 382.040 for special warranty. This deed uses neither phrase and states as much, remising, releasing, and forever quitclaiming whatever the grantor holds, so liens, easements, and gaps in the chain ride along untouched. Around that conveyance sit the entries a county clerk checks: the source of title recital of KRS 382.110, the names, mailing addresses, and in care of tax bill address of KRS 382.135, the signed preparer endorsement of KRS 382.335, and an entry for the parcel identification number a county may require under KRS 382.335(3), which Kenton County requires.

The download delivers the interspousal quitclaim deed as a fillable PDF, a completed Kenton County example with every entry made, and a plain language guide covering each section, the marital release, both signatures, and recording with the county clerk. The materials are informational and are not legal advice.