Smith County Transfer on Death Deed Form

A Mississippi transfer on death deed names who receives an owner's real estate at death and does nothing at all until then. This fillable form prepares that deed under the Mississippi Real Property Transfer-on-Death Act, Miss. Code Ann. Sections 91-27-1 through 91-27-37, for one or two owners who are natural persons signing in their own right, and it carries the statutory form's own operative sentence: At my death, I transfer my interest in the described property to the beneficiaries as designated above.

A deed that waits

Mississippi adopted the transfer on death deed, also searched as a TOD deed or beneficiary deed, in 2020. Section 91-27-13 makes it a nontestamentary instrument: it is not a will, it is signed and acknowledged like any other deed, and it passes the property outside probate. During the owner's life it changes nothing. Section 91-27-23 provides that the recorded deed does not affect the owner's right to sell, mortgage, or lease the property, does not disturb homestead rights or ad valorem tax exemptions, does not trigger a due-on-sale clause, and gives the beneficiary no legal or equitable interest. The owner may revoke it at any time under Section 91-27-21 by a later recorded transfer on death deed or a recorded instrument of revocation, and a later will does not revoke it. If the owner sells the property during life, Section 91-27-25 voids the deed as to the interest conveyed once the sale deed is recorded.

Recorded before death, or not effective

The one rule that decides everything is Section 91-27-17(3): the deed is effective only if it is recorded before the owner's death in the official records of the chancery clerk of the county where the property is located. Delivery to the beneficiary and acceptance by the beneficiary are not required, and neither is consideration, so recording is the step that completes the deed. The form prints that requirement in capital letters directly above the operative paragraph, the one warning kept on the recorded instrument, because an unrecorded transfer on death deed found in a desk drawer after the owner's death transfers nothing.

Each owner transfers that owner's own interest

The operative sentence is written in the first person, and each owner who signs makes it as to that owner's own interest, which is what Section 91-27-9 authorizes an individual to transfer. The form carries one free-form owner block, two signature blocks labeled OWNER and SECOND OWNER, and two separate acknowledgment certificates, so one owner signs alone or two co-owners sign one deed, on the same day or on different days before different notaries. How the two owners hold title decides when the deed operates. Two tenants in common each pass an undivided interest at their own deaths. Two owners holding as joint tenants or as tenants by the entirety with right of survivorship fall under Section 91-27-27(1): at the first death the property belongs to the surviving owner, and the deed takes effect when the last surviving owner dies. The chapter supplies that postponement itself, which is why a single sentence serves a sole owner, co-owners without survivorship, and spouses holding as tenants by the entirety alike. Revocation follows the same lines: one of two transferors may revoke as to that transferor's interest, while a deed made by joint owners with right of survivorship is revoked only by all of the living joint owners.

What the beneficiary takes, and subject to what

Section 91-27-3(d) lets the owner name any person as a designated beneficiary, which includes an individual, a trust, a corporation, a limited liability company, or a nonprofit, and Section 91-27-9 permits more than one. A designated beneficiary takes only by surviving the owner; a beneficiary who does not survive lapses, and under Section 91-27-27(5) two or more beneficiaries take equal and undivided shares with no survivorship between them, the share of one who lapses passing to the others. The transfer is without covenant or warranty of title, and under Section 91-27-29 the beneficiary takes subject to every mortgage, lien, encumbrance, and other interest affecting the property at the owner's death. A beneficiary who prefers not to take may disclaim under Section 91-27-31.

Built for the Mississippi chancery clerk's first page

Mississippi's recording format statute, Section 89-5-24, writes the first page of a recorded deed in detail. Below the three inch margin reserved for the clerk, the first page carries the preparer's name, address, and telephone number, the name, mailing address, and telephone numbers of every owner and beneficiary, the return address, the title, and the indexing instruction Section 89-5-33(3) requires for the clerk's sectional index. This deed is laid out so that all of that information sits on page one, with the legal description opening the second page under the statute's own continuation rule, and the owner and beneficiary blocks carry the business and residential telephone numbers Section 27-3-51 requires of every grantor and grantee on a recorded Mississippi deed. The recording fee under Section 25-7-9 is $25.00 for the first five pages, plus a $1.00 archive fee in counties that have adopted one; Mississippi charges no transfer tax on the deed.

The configuration this form recites

This is the general configuration of the Mississippi transfer on death deed: a free-form owner block that receives one or two natural-person owners with their marital status and mailing addresses, no preprinted statement of how they hold title, a multi-line beneficiary block for one or more designated beneficiaries of any class the chapter allows, two signature blocks, and two acknowledgment certificates in the Section 89-3-7(2) short form. A sole owner naming a child, two siblings who inherited a parcel together each designating their own beneficiaries, and a married couple holding as tenants by the entirety naming the same beneficiaries to take after both have died all present the pattern this form recites. The form is not set up as an entity or trustee owner's deed, as a deed signed through a power of attorney, or as an instrument for three or more owners, and it carries no alternate beneficiary block; where every designated beneficiary fails to survive the owner, the deed transfers nothing and the property passes under the owner's will or by intestacy.

The package includes the fillable Mississippi transfer on death deed, a completed example filled in for two spouses in Rankin County designating two beneficiaries, and the guide that walks through each numbered section, the acknowledgment, the homestead and marital rules the statutes attach, and recording with the chancery clerk. This description and the guide describe the form and the governing statutes in general terms; they are not legal advice.