Stearns County Transfer on Death Deed (Unmarried Sole Owner) Form

One unmarried owner, one signature, one acknowledgment certificate: this Minnesota transfer on death deed is set up for a grantor owner who holds the property alone and is not married when the deed is signed. It names who receives that property at the owner's death under Minnesota Statutes, section 507.071, and it reaches exactly one owner's interest.

Why the deed states the owner's marital status

The statutory form in section 507.071, subdivision 24, asks for the grantor owner to be identified with marital status designated, and the reason sits in section 507.02: no conveyance of a married owner's homestead is valid without both spouses' signatures, and subdivision 2 of the TOD deed statute makes a transfer on death deed subject to that rule. This deed answers as fixed text: Section 1 recites that the grantor owner named below is an unmarried person and the sole owner of the real property, and the only entries there are the owner's name and mailing address. No spouse's signature arises, and the form carries no spousal block of any kind.

One grantor owner, one death

With a single owner the deed waits for exactly one death. Section 5 provides that the grantor owner conveys and quitclaims the property to the grantee beneficiary or beneficiaries effective on the death of the grantor owner, and states, as subdivision 2 requires, that the deed is effective only on that death. The deed carries one GRANTOR OWNER signature block and one acknowledgment certificate in the short form of section 358.66,, and the owner signs personally rather than through an attorney-in-fact.

The people, trust, or entity who take

Section 2 receives the grantee beneficiary or beneficiaries by name and mailing address: a person, the trustee of a revocable or testamentary trust, or any entity qualified to hold Minnesota real property, under subdivisions 1 and 9. Where two or more are named, subdivision 4 permits the deed to say whether they take as joint tenants, as tenants in common, or in another form valid in Minnesota; the completed example names two children as tenants in common. Survival is statutory: section 524.2-702 treats a beneficiary who does not outlive the owner by 120 hours as having predeceased, and subdivisions 11 and 12 supply the antilapse and lapse rules the guide describes.

The one box on the deed

Section 5 also prints, word for word, the single optional statement the statutory form supplies, with its one box: when effective, the instrument conveys any interest in the described property the grantor owner acquires before, on, or after the date of the deed. Under subdivision 21 a TOD deed does not reach an interest acquired after signing unless the deed says so by specific language; marking the box supplies that language, and leaving it unmarked leaves the subdivision 21 rule in place. The blank ships with the box unmarked.

What the configuration recites

This configuration recites one natural person as grantor owner, unmarried and the sole owner, signing in an individual capacity, with one or more grantee beneficiaries of any class the statute permits. An owner who has never married and took title alone, an owner who holds the home alone after a dissolution decree, and an owner in whom title vested alone by survivorship after a co-owner's death present the pattern this deed recites. The form is not set up for a married owner, for two or more grantor owners, or for a trustee or entity grantor.

Recording an abstract or Torrens parcel

Subdivision 8 makes recording before the owner's death, in a county where at least part of the land lies, the condition of validity, and it smooths the path at the counter: no county auditor transfer certification is made, no certificate of real estate value accompanies the deed, and section 287.22 exempts the deed from state deed tax. For registered land, the registrar of titles accepts the deed if the grantor owner appears of record with an interest. It prints the section 507.072 insurance warnings and the section 507.091 drafter statement. After the owner's death, an affidavit of identity and survivorship and a county agency clearance certificate are recorded separately and are not included in this package.

The purchase delivers the fillable deed, a completed example prepared on a Ramsey County fact pattern, and the guide that covers each numbered section, the acknowledgment, and the recording steps. The description and the guide explain the form and the statutes behind it in general terms and are not legal advice.