Clay County Quitclaim Deed (Individual Grantor) Form

This Missouri quitclaim deed is set up for one individual grantor: a single natural person conveying alone, with one signature line, one notarial acknowledgment certificate, and the marital status statement Missouri law requires of a natural person who executes a conveyance. The deed transfers to the grantee all of the right, title, and interest the grantor holds in the described Missouri real property, whatever that interest turns out to be, without any covenant or warranty of title.

A deed that transfers interest, not promises

A quitclaim deed, sometimes written as a quit claim deed, moves exactly what the grantor owns at delivery, if anything, and nothing more. It carries no assurance that the grantor owns the property, no promise that the title is clear, and no obligation to defend the grantee against other claims. That character makes the quitclaim the workhorse of Missouri transfers where the parties already know the title story: a sole owner releasing an undivided interest to a sibling once a parent's estate has closed, an owner retitling a solely owned parcel into the owner's own revocable trust, or a person named in an old instrument releasing a possible claim so a closing can proceed.

The words that keep warranties out

Missouri publishes no official quitclaim form, so the instrument rises or falls on its operative words. Under Section 442.420 of the Revised Statutes of Missouri, a conveyance that uses the words grant, bargain and sell picks up implied statutory covenants of title unless express terms restrain them. This deed stays away from that trigger entirely: it remises, releases, and forever quitclaims the grantor's interest, and it adds an express statement on the face of the deed that no covenant of title is implied from any word or phrase in it. The conveyance is limited to the interest the grantor holds at delivery, so title the grantor acquires later does not pass through the deed under Missouri's after-acquired-title statute, Section 442.430.

One natural person signs, and one certificate follows

The form recites exactly one grantor acting in an individual capacity, and a printed sentence in the grantor section says so. The grantor section carries the grantor's name, mailing address, and a marital status line; Section 442.130 requires a conveyance to state whether a natural person executing it is married or unmarried, and the form places that statement on the first page with the other content Missouri's recording standards put there. The grantee section collects the grantee's name and the mailing address Section 59.330.2 directs the recorder to look for, and the signature section closes with the grantor's printed name beneath the signature line, matching the name-under-signature rule for recorded documents. The certificate that follows is the Section 442.210.1(1) form Missouri writes for a natural person acting in that person's own right, with the words before me personally appeared and the free act and deed acknowledgment, and it carries the designation Section 442.145.2 asks of every acknowledging officer in Missouri: whether the signer appeared by physical presence or through communication technology. A deed from two co-owners, from spouses conveying together, or from a trustee or company officer recites a different execution pattern than the single individual signature block this form carries.

Recording in the county where the land sits

The completed deed is recorded with the recorder of deeds for the Missouri county, or the City of St. Louis, where the property is located; from filing, the record imparts notice to all persons, and an unrecorded deed binds only the parties and those with actual notice. Missouri collects no real estate transfer tax, so recording costs run to modest per-page fees that each recorder publishes. In St. Charles County, St. Louis County, and the City of St. Louis, a certificate of value accompanies the deed at recording as a county assessment filing prepared separately from the deed itself. The form is built to Missouri's recording format statute: letter size pages, a three inch first-page top margin reserved for the recorder, and a first page that carries the document title, date, grantor name and marital status, grantee name and mailing address, and legal description, the items Section 59.310.2 places there.

The download includes the quitclaim deed as a fillable PDF, a completed example showing the entire document filled in for a realistic Boone County fact pattern, and a plain-language guide that walks through every section of the form and the recording process. The materials describe Missouri law in general terms and are informational; they are not legal advice.