Mississippi Transfer on Death Deed (Unmarried Joint Owners with Right of Survivorship, Last Survivor)

Two Mississippi co-owners who hold their property as joint tenants with right of survivorship, and who are not married, can sign one transfer on death deed that does nothing at the first death and everything at the second. The fillable form prepares this deed under Mississippi's Real Property Transfer-on-Death Act, Chapter 27 of Title 91, for exactly two unmarried joint owners: both sign, the survivorship in their title carries the property to whichever of them lives longer, and the beneficiaries named in the deed take it, without probate, when the last surviving joint owner dies.

Survivorship first, the deed second

Section 91-27-27(1) of the Mississippi Code writes the sequence this form follows. If a transferor is a joint owner with right of survivorship who is survived by another joint owner, the property belongs to the surviving joint owner; if the transferor is the last surviving joint owner, the transfer on death deed is effective. The statute supplies that postponement on its own, and this deed states it on its face in a sentence of its own: the deed is effective at the death of the last surviving joint owner. The survivor keeps every power an owner has in the meantime. Section 91-27-23 provides that during a transferor's life the recorded deed does not affect the owner's right to transfer or encumber the property, does not disturb homestead rights or ad valorem tax exemptions, and gives a named beneficiary no legal or equitable interest.

Why unmarried joint tenants get their own deed

Mississippi treats the words in the vesting deed as decisive. Under Section 89-1-7 a conveyance to two people creates a tenancy in common unless a joint tenancy with right of survivorship manifestly appears from the instrument, and the transfer on death act follows that line: Section 91-27-3(c) counts a joint tenant and a tenant by the entirety as joint owners with right of survivorship and leaves a tenant in common out. This form fixes the configuration as deed text. It recites that the two owners are each an unmarried person and that they hold as joint tenants with right of survivorship and not as tenants in common, so the record shows which rule of Section 91-27-27 governs the deed and which estate the owners are relying on. Because neither owner is married, the homestead joinder rule of Section 89-1-29, which calls for a spouse's signature on a married owner's conveyance of homestead, has no spouse to reach, and Mississippi's abolition of dower and curtesy under Section 93-3-5 leaves nothing else attached to the title by marriage. Unmarried partners who bought a house together with survivorship words in their deed, a parent and an adult child who took a parcel as joint tenants, and two friends who hold a lake house the same way present the pattern this deed recites.

Both owners sign, and both must act to undo it

The deed carries two signature blocks, labeled Owner 1 and Owner 2, and a separate acknowledgment certificate under each in the short form of Section 89-3-7(2), so the owners may sign on different days before different notaries, including in different states. A deed of this kind signed by only one of two living joint owners does not carry out the arrangement, because the non-signer's interest passes by survivorship outside the deed. Revocation runs the same way. Section 91-27-21(e) provides that a transfer on death deed made by joint owners with right of survivorship is revoked only if all of the living joint owners revoke it, and Section 91-27-27(2) lets the last surviving joint owner revoke alone. A will does not revoke the deed, and a sale of the property recorded during life voids it as to the interest sold.

Recorded before death, in the county where the land lies

Section 91-27-17 makes recording a condition of effectiveness: the deed is effective only if it is recorded before the transferor's death in the official records of the chancery clerk of the county where the property is located. The form prints that requirement in capital letters at the head of its operative section, the one warning the recorded instrument keeps. Mississippi's recording format statute, Section 89-5-24, then decides what the clerk sees first. Below the three inch margin reserved for the clerk's stamp, page one carries the preparer's name, address, and telephone number; the return address; the title; each party's name, mailing address, and telephone numbers; and the sectional indexing instruction of Section 89-5-33(3). This deed is laid out so that both owner blocks, the beneficiary block, and the indexing instruction all sit on recorded page one, with the legal description opening page two under the statute's own continuation rule. The owner and beneficiary entries carry the business and residential telephone numbers Section 27-3-51 asks of every grantor and grantee, and a chancery clerk may refuse a deed without them. The chancery clerk's fee under Section 25-7-9 is $25.00 for the first five pages, $26.00 in counties that add the archive fee; Mississippi has no transfer tax on a deed.

What the beneficiaries take at the second death

The beneficiary block accepts one or more designated beneficiaries of any class Section 91-27-3(d) allows, an individual, a trust, or an entity, each entered with a mailing address and telephone numbers. The operative sentence is the statutory form's own, At my death, I transfer my interest in the described property to the beneficiaries as designated above, made by each owner as to that owner's interest; read with Section 91-27-27(1), it carries the whole property to the beneficiaries when the second owner dies. A beneficiary takes only by surviving, two or more share the property equally and without survivorship among themselves, and the share of one who fails passes to the others under Section 91-27-27(5). The transfer comes without covenant or warranty of title, and under Section 91-27-29 the beneficiaries take the property with every mortgage, lien, and other interest that burdens it at the last owner's death still attached.

The configuration this deed recites

This form recites exactly two record owners, each an unmarried person, holding as joint tenants with right of survivorship, both signing, with two acknowledgment certificates and a fixed statement that the deed is effective at the death of the last surviving joint owner; the status and the tenancy are printed as deed text, and the owner entries are the names, addresses, and telephone numbers alone. It is not set up as a deed for co-owners who hold as tenants in common, for spouses holding as tenants by the entirety, for an owner married to someone outside the pair, for a sole owner, for an entity or trustee owner, for an owner signing through a power of attorney, or for three or more owners, and it carries no alternate beneficiary designation: where every designated beneficiary fails to survive the last owner, the property passes under that owner's will or by intestacy.

The package includes the fillable deed, a completed example prepared for a brother and sister holding a Ridgeland home in Madison County as joint tenants and naming two beneficiaries, and the guide that walks through the nine numbered sections, the two acknowledgments, the survivorship and revocation rules, and recording with the Madison County chancery clerk. This description and the guide describe the form and the governing Mississippi statutes in general terms; they are not legal advice.