Maryland Transfer on Death Deed (Primary and Alternate Beneficiaries)

A Maryland transfer on death deed names who takes the property at the owner's death, and the Act that created it decides what happens when that person dies first: under Section 14-1009(a)(2) of the Real Property Article, the interest of a designated beneficiary who fails to survive the transferor lapses. This form answers that rule inside the deed. Prepared under the Maryland Transfer-on-Death Deed Act, Real Property Article, Title 14, Subtitle 10, in force since October 1, 2026, it is a transfer on death deed by one owner who holds the property alone, designating a primary beneficiary or beneficiaries and, in a second tier, an alternate beneficiary or beneficiaries who take if no primary beneficiary survives the owner.

Two tiers in the statutory form's own words

The designation sentences are those of the form the General Assembly wrote into Section 14-1011. Section 4 of the deed reads: I designate the following beneficiary or beneficiaries if the beneficiary or beneficiaries survive me. Section 5 reads: if my primary beneficiary or beneficiaries do not survive me, I designate the following alternate beneficiary if that beneficiary survives me. The Act supplies the order of operation. Under Section 14-1009(a)(2), the interest is transferred to a designated beneficiary who survives the transferor; where the designated beneficiary does not survive and the deed provides for an alternate, it is transferred to a surviving alternate designated beneficiary; and a deed may provide for successive alternates. Whoever takes receives the owner's interest without probate, subject to every mortgage and lien then on the property and without covenant or warranty of title.

Several beneficiaries in one tier

Either tier may name more than one person, and the form's note, printed in Section 4, states the rule: where the deed names multiple primary beneficiaries or alternate beneficiaries and does not indicate a different form of ownership, the property is transferred to them as joint tenants with rights of survivorship. Section 14-1003(b)(1) lets the deed indicate a different tenancy, written into the entry after the names. A beneficiary under the Act is a person, a term the Real Property Article defines to include a trustee, a fiduciary, and any corporation or other entity as well as an individual.

What the deed recites about its owner

The form recites exactly one owner, the sole owner of the described property, signing in that person's own capacity, with one signature block and one acknowledgment certificate in the State Government Section 18-216(b) short form. Marital status is not part of the recital: Maryland abolished dower and curtesy and has no community property regime, so a spouse who holds no record title is not a transferor on this deed, while the surviving spouse's elective share and the divorce revocation rule of the Estates and Trusts Article reach the transfer at death under Section 14-1009(a)(1). The form is not set up as a deed by two owners on one instrument, by a joint tenant or a tenant by the entirety whose co-owner survives, or by a trustee, an entity, a personal representative, or an attorney-in-fact. A parent who owns the home alone naming the children as primary beneficiaries and a grandchild as the alternate, and an owner naming one relative first and a different relative second so that the designation does not fail with the first death, present the pattern this deed recites.

Recording while the owner is living

Section 14-1006 conditions the deed's effect on recording before the owner's death in the land records of the county, or Baltimore City, in which the property is located, and the form's notice to that effect is printed at the head of the deed. The Land Instrument Intake Sheet travels with the deed as a separate form, because Section 3-104(g)(6)(ii) lets the clerk refuse a transfer on death deed presented without one, and the deed carries the party certification of preparation that Section 3-104(f) makes a condition of recording. Where the property is a primary or secondary residence of the owner, the Act's Tax-Property amendments exempt the deed from recordation tax and from State and county transfer tax, leaving the clerk's recording fee and the land records surcharge.

The package includes the fillable transfer on death deed as a PDF, a completed example filled in for a Carroll County owner naming two children as primary beneficiaries and a granddaughter as the alternate, and a plain-language guide that walks through each section, the survival and lapse rules, signing, and recording. The materials are informational and are not legal advice.