Washington County Quitclaim Deed (Corporation Grantor) Form

Behind a corporate signature on a Maine deed sits a chain nobody records: a charter, bylaws, an office, and usually a vote. This quitclaim deed without covenant is configured for a grantor that is a corporation, so the release runs in the corporate name and the deed states who signed for it and on what.

Where the signature gets its authority

Maine splits the question in two. The power belongs to the corporation: 13-C M.R.S. Section 302 gives it the same powers as an individual to carry out its affairs, including holding real property under subsection 4 and disposing of any part of it under subsection 5. Who exercises that power is internal. Under 13-C M.R.S. Section 842, subsection 1, an officer has the authority and performs the functions set out in the bylaws or, consistent with them, those the board of directors prescribes; subsection 2 faces outward, letting persons dealing with a corporation assume, absent reason to believe otherwise, that its president may make contracts within the ordinary course of the businesses it already conducts. Section 6 takes the office held and the source relied on, so the record carries that answer.

The approval question that size answers

A second layer sits above officer authority. 13-C M.R.S. Section 1201 lists dispositions needing no shareholder approval unless the articles say otherwise, among them one in the usual and regular course of business, a mortgage, and a transfer to a wholly owned subsidiary. Section 1202, subsection 1 catches the rest and measures by what stays behind: approval belongs to a disposition leaving the corporation without a significant continuing business activity, pegged at a retained activity of 25 percent of total assets and 25 percent of pretax income or revenues. A single parcel from a portfolio and a winding-down company's last parcel fall on opposite sides.

One corporation, one signature, one certificate

The form recites a single grantor, a corporation named as record title stands, with its jurisdiction of incorporation beside the name, and one signature line for one individual signing in the corporate name. The typed or printed name under that line is the 33 M.R.S. Section 651-A condition of recordability, and one certificate follows, its wide blank holding the signer's name, office, and corporation, the content of the 4 M.R.S. Section 1917, subsection 2 representative capacity short form. Patterns reaching a Maine registry in this shape include a corporation releasing a remnant strip to an abutting owner to settle a boundary, and a corporation moving a parcel to an affiliated entity in a reorganization. Title in shareholder names, two entity grantors, and fiduciary signers present configurations this form does not recite; nothing asks about marriage, because a corporation has no spouse.

A release, and a backstop that arrives with time

Maine reads warranty off the phrase a deed prints rather than its title. This one prints none, the without-covenant slot of the 33 M.R.S. Section 775 appendix, while Sections 161 and 771 give release its scope: everything the corporation could pass by any other form of deed, promised to nobody. Under 33 M.R.S. Section 353-A, subsection 3, a deed in the name of a Maine entity organized more than 20 years ago, once recorded two years, is not invalid for lack of authority where acting officers executed it in good faith.

What the declaration asks a corporate seller

Unless an exemption applies, a transfer tax declaration travels with the deed, carrying a corporate seller's federal identification number and evidence of compliance with nonresident withholding under 36 M.R.S. Section 5250-A. Value is taxed at 2 dollars and 20 cents per 500 dollars through 1,000,000 dollars and 6 dollars per 500 above it, half to each side. Three subsections of 36 M.R.S. Section 4641-C sit near a corporate release: subsection 16, deeds between a family corporation and its stockholders in organization, dissolution or liquidation; subsection 18, a deed to a limited liability company from a corporation holding a proportionate interest; and subsection 19, a mere change in identity or form of ownership. Recording costs the statutory 40 dollars.

The download holds the blank deed as a fillable PDF, a plain language guide to the nine sections, and a completed example set in Lincoln County, where a corporation releases a platted Newcastle lot for 310,000 dollars, each side owing 682 dollars of tax. Searchers reach it as a corporate quitclaim deed, a corporation quit claim deed, or an officer signed release deed; the materials are informational and are not legal advice.