Minnesota Transfer on Death Revocation

A Minnesota transfer on death deed stays revocable for as long as the grantor owner lives, but revoking it takes a recorded instrument. This form prepares the Revocation of Transfer on Death Deed that Minnesota Statutes, section 507.071, subdivision 25 prints, for one or two grantor owners who signed the deed being revoked, whether the deed sits with the county recorder or the registrar of titles.

One grantor owner's signature undoes the whole deed

Section 507.071, subdivision 10, paragraph (a), lets the grantor owner revoke at any time and, where there is more than one grantor owner, lets any of them do it alone. A revocation revokes the transfer on death deed in its entirety: the statute states no partial revocation as to one signer's share and no requirement that the other grantor owner join. The form carries two signature blocks and two acknowledgment certificates: both grantor owners complete a block when they revoke together, and the second block stays empty when one revokes alone.

Recorded before death, or not at all

Minnesota ties the revocation's effect to the county records. Under subdivision 10, paragraph (a), the instrument is effective only if it is recorded, before the death of the grantor owner or owners who execute it, in a county in which at least a part of the real property is located. A revocation left unrecorded at death revokes nothing, and under subdivision 19 a will does not revoke a recorded transfer on death deed either. For registered (Torrens) property, a revocation recorded incorrectly before death remains effective if it is memorialized on the certificate of title afterward. The form prints the recording condition in capital letters directly below its title.

County Recorder or Registrar of Titles

The statutory form identifies the deed being revoked by its recording date, its document number (or book and page), and the office that recorded it, and this form carries that sentence word for word. The office appears as two printed boxes, County Recorder for abstract property and Registrar of Titles for registered property, answered from the recording stamp on the deed. The legal description is copied from the deed, and a street address line follows for everyday identification.

What the revocation changes and what it leaves alone

The instrument withdraws the designation; it conveys nothing. Where the property passes instead is a matter for a will, the intestacy statutes, or a new transfer on death deed, a separate instrument recorded separately and not included in this package. Because a revocation is a document that references a transfer on death deed, the state deed tax does not apply to it under section 287.22, clause (15), and no certificate of real estate value accompanies it, since nothing is sold.

Drawn for one or two grantor owners

The form recites no marital status, vesting, or capacity of its own. Its first section is an open block that receives the name of one or two grantor owners as the transfer on death deed stated them, with the marital status that deed recited. Two spouses who signed one transfer on death deed and revoke it together, siblings holding as joint tenants who made one deed, and a sole owner withdrawing a designation present the patterns this form carries; the completed example shows two spouses in Hennepin County revoking a deed recorded with the county recorder. The form is not set up as a revocation by an attorney-in-fact, a trustee, a conservator, a business entity, or three or more grantor owners on one instrument.

Signing and recording in Minnesota

Each grantor owner who revokes signs before a notarial officer, since section 507.24 makes acknowledgment the recording formality, and the certificate sentence on the form is the short form of section 358.66. The separate certificates let two owners acknowledge on different dates, before different officers, or in different states. The document follows section 507.093: letter size, 12 point body type above the 8 point minimum, a 3 inch blank space at the top of the first page, and the title directly below it. The county recorder's fee for recording and indexing is a flat $46 under section 357.18.

The package includes the fillable form, a completed example filled in for a realistic Hennepin County fact pattern, and the guide that walks through every numbered section and the recording process. This description and the guide describe the form and the governing Minnesota statutes in general terms; they are not legal advice.