Missouri Quitclaim Deed

A Missouri deed settles two questions in the grantee blank: who takes the property, and in what form of ownership. This quitclaim deed leaves that blank open. No vesting, status, or capacity language is printed on the party lines, one or two natural persons fit on each side, and the operative words release whatever right, title, interest, and claim the signers hold at delivery.

The default Missouri supplies when the grantee line says nothing

Section 442.450 of the Revised Statutes of Missouri is the rule an open grantee line meets: a conveyance to two or more persons, other than executors, trustees, or husband and wife, creates a tenancy in common unless the instrument expressly declares a joint tenancy. Two grantees who are not married to each other take undivided shares with no survivorship unless the words joint tenants with right of survivorship, or an equivalent, appear beside their names. Spouses are the exception that same section carves out, and Nelson v. Hotchkiss, 601 S.W.2d 14 (Mo. banc 1980), supplies what arises in its place: a deed naming a husband and wife as grantees ordinarily vests them by the entirety unless the instrument clearly negates that estate. The guide sets out each ownership form Missouri recognizes and the words that create it.

One or two grantors, one or two grantees

The form recites natural persons signing in their own capacity, in any of the four count patterns one or two grantors and one or two grantees allow. Both party blocks are open multi-line fields, a marital status line under the grantor block names each signer, and the signature area carries a block headed GRANTOR and a second headed SECOND GRANTOR (if applicable), each with an acknowledgment certificate of its own; a deed signed by one grantor leaves the second block and certificate blank. Two owners of record consolidating title in a single name, and one owner adding a second person to the record, present the count patterns this deed recites. A signer who is not a natural person acting personally sits outside it: an entity grantor, a trustee, an agent under a power of attorney, and three or more owners on either side carry different party and execution sections.

Three words this deed keeps off the page

Section 442.420 construes grant, bargain and sell, in a conveyance of an estate of inheritance in fee simple, as covenants of seisin, of freedom from encumbrances the grantor did or suffered, and of further assurance, unless express terms restrain them. This deed reaches for different words, remises, releases, and forever quitclaims, and states the restraint in terms: no covenant or warranty of title, express or implied, arises from any word or phrase in it. Since the instrument undertakes no indefeasible estate in fee simple absolute, Section 442.430 and its after acquired title rule find nothing to work on, and a deed of trust, a judgment lien, an easement, or an unpaid tax bill survives the conveyance untouched. A quit claim deed and a quitclaim form name the same instrument.

Marital status, execution, and the page the recorder reads first

Section 442.130.2 has every instrument conveying Missouri real estate state whether a natural person executing it is married or unmarried, and Sections 59.310 and 59.313 put that status on the first page beside the title, the date, the parties, the grantee mailing address Section 59.330.2 calls for, and a line locating the legal description. Those sections also keep the top three inches of page one clear for the recorder. Each grantor acknowledges the deed before a notarial officer, and no subscribing witnesses attend: each certificate holds the substance of the short form in Section 442.210.1(1) and the line Section 442.145 gives the officer for designating physical presence or communication technology. The completed deed is filed where the parcel sits, with the county recorder of deeds or the Recorder of Deeds for the City of St. Louis, and the record speaks to every later searcher from the moment of filing. No Missouri transfer tax attaches, although three jurisdictions collect a certificate of value with the deed, prepared apart from it.

Three files come with the purchase: this Missouri quitclaim deed as a fillable PDF, a completed Cole County example releasing a Jefferson City lot from two unmarried co-owners to a married couple, and a plain language guide to the blanks, the vesting rules, the execution statutes, and recording. The materials describe Missouri law in general terms, for information, and are not legal advice.