Harlan County Quitclaim Deed (Trustee Grantee) Form

A Kentucky quitclaim deed reads differently when the party receiving the property is a fiduciary. On this form the grantee is one trustee, named together with the trust and the date of the trust instrument, so the record carries the holder and the capacity at once. Sometimes searched as a quit claim deed into a trust, the form releases the grantor's interest as it stands and makes no promise about what that interest is.

Title that arrives in a fiduciary capacity

KRS 382.010 lets an owner convey any interest in Kentucky real property, and KRS 381.060 carries the whole estate without words of inheritance. The conveyance section passes title to the grantee as trustee and to the successors in trust of that trustee, then states plainly that the terms of the trust are not set out in the deed. A trustee's power to hold, manage, sell, or mortgage the property comes from the trust instrument and from the Kentucky Uniform Trust Code, KRS Chapter 386B. KRS 386B.10-120 supplies a certification of trust, signed by any trustee, giving the trust date, the acting trustee, the trustee's powers, and the manner of taking title to trust property, so authority can be shown without the whole trust; that certification is prepared and recorded separately and is not part of this package.

The trust subsection of the transfer tax statute

KRS 142.050 taxes the grantor fifty cents for each five hundred dollars of value, collected by the county clerk before recording, and KRS 382.260 holds the deed out of the record until it is paid. Deeds to trustees answer to a subsection of their own. KRS 142.050(8) lifts the tax from transfers to a trustee, to be held in trust, in three stated situations: where the grantor is the sole beneficiary of the trust; where the grantor is a beneficiary and a direct transfer to all other individual beneficiaries would have been exempt under KRS 142.050(7); and where such a direct transfer would have qualified on its own. KRS 142.050(9) borrows the meaning of trust from KRS 386B.1-010. The figure the clerk reads sits in the consideration section, which carries both branches of KRS 382.135: full consideration paid, and estimated fair cash value where the transfer is a gift or made for nominal consideration.

Two capacities, two signatures, two certificates

The form recites exactly one grantor, an individual, with that grantor's marital status stated, and exactly one grantee described as trustee. Two signature blocks follow: the grantor signs the deed together with its sworn certificate, and the trustee signs the certificate alone, a signature that receives rather than conveys. Each signer takes a notarial certificate of its own, worded subscribed, sworn to, and acknowledged, so one certificate carries the oath KRS 382.135 asks for alongside the acknowledgment the recording statutes contemplate; the two signings may happen days apart before different notaries. An owner moving a rental house into a revocable living trust, an owner deeding farmland to a relative serving as trustee of a family trust, and an owner releasing a leftover fractional interest into a trust that already holds the parcel present the pattern this deed recites. It is not arranged for two grantors, for cotrustees taking title together, for an entity grantor signing through a representative, or for a grantee taking in an individual capacity, and it carries no spouse joinder block.

A release of interest, with the Kentucky content statutes in place

Kentucky ties deed covenants to particular words, and this deed omits them: with warranty and with general warranty under KRS 382.030, with special warranty under KRS 382.040. The face of the deed says as much, so liens, easements, and chain gaps survive untouched. Around the conveyance sit the entries a clerk checks before a deed is lodged: the immediate source of the grantor's title by office, book, page, and date under KRS 382.110; the party names and mailing addresses with the in care of tax bill address under KRS 382.135; and the preparer endorsement of KRS 382.335, signed by the individual who prepared the instrument. Its first page reserves the top three inches for the clerk's recording stamp, the format standard the largest Kentucky counties publish.

This download includes the fillable deed, a completed Boone County example showing every blank filled, and a plain-language guide that walks section by section through the trust entries, the two notarized signatures, and recording at the county clerk's office. The materials are informational and are not legal advice.