Montana Quitclaim Deed (Corporation Grantor)

A Montana corporation can hold a parcel for decades, and when it lets one go, a single human signature moves the whole thing. This Montana quitclaim deed is configured for that: the corporation is named as grantor, one individual executes in the corporate name in a stated office, and the grantee takes whatever right, title, and interest the corporation holds at delivery, with no warranty of title behind it.

The act that never names a signer

Montana Code Annotated Section 35-14-302 gives a corporation, unless its articles of incorporation provide otherwise, the power to own real property and to sell, convey, mortgage, and otherwise dispose of any part of it. What the Montana Business Corporation Act does not do is name the officer who signs the deed. No Montana statute located designates a signing officer for a corporate conveyance, or tells the clerk and recorder to presume the signer's authority. That authority lives in the articles, the bylaws, and what the board of directors has done, so Section 2 collects the signer's name, the office held, and the corporate action authorizing the conveyance, all three on the face of the record.

Where board business becomes shareholder business

Two sections mark where a parcel stops being routine. Section 35-14-1201 calls for no shareholder approval, unless the articles provide otherwise, to dispose of assets in the usual and regular course of business, or to mortgage them. Section 35-14-1202 requires shareholder approval for a disposition outside that section if it would leave the corporation without a significant continuing business activity, and it makes retention conclusive at 25 percent of total assets at the close of the last fiscal year plus 25 percent of either pretax income or revenue from continuing operations. Where approval is required, the board first adopts a resolution authorizing the disposition.

A release, with one verb withheld

Montana loads its implied deed covenants onto one verb: under Section 70-20-304, a fee conveyance made with the word grant carries two of them unless express terms restrain them. The operative section of this quit claim deed avoids that verb: the corporation remises, releases, and forever quitclaims, the implied covenants are expressly restrained, and the deed states that it does not purport to convey the parcel in fee simple within the meaning of Section 70-20-302, so title reaching the corporation afterward stays there. Montana enacted no quitclaim form of its own, and its Supreme Court reads a deed's character from the whole document.

The configuration, and what it leaves out

The form recites one corporate grantor and one authorized officer signing in a representative capacity, followed by a single acknowledgment certificate on the Montana short form at Section 1-5-610(2), naming the individual, the capacity, and the party on whose behalf the record was executed. Section 1 also takes the state or country of incorporation, which matters for a corporation formed elsewhere: Section 35-14-1502 conditions doing business in Montana on registration with the secretary of state, while providing that a failure to register does not impair the validity of the corporation's acts. Three blanks other Montana deeds carry are absent: no spousal signature line, because Section 70-32-301 reaches the homestead of a married person and no statute located carries that rule onto corporate land; no seal block, because Section 35-14-302 makes a corporate seal permissive; and no shareholder lines, because title stands in the entity. Patterns behind the configuration include a ranch corporation conveying a homesite to a shareholder, a corporation clearing an old defect in the record, and a remnant strip released to a neighbor. The form is not set up for two officers executing together, for a signer under a power of attorney, or for a grantor holding title in a fiduciary capacity.

At the clerk and recorder's counter

The grantee's post-office address rides in the body, because Section 7-4-2618 keeps the clerk and recorder from receiving a deed that lacks it, and the return name and address print inside the three inch reserve atop page one, where Section 7-4-2636 assigns them. A Realty Transfer Certificate reaches the counter with the deed and keeps the consideration figures on a confidential filing; it comes from the Department of Revenue and is prepared separately.

The package delivers the quitclaim deed as a fillable PDF, a completed example filled in for a Yellowstone County conveyance by a Billings corporation, and a plain language guide covering the numbered sections, the corporate authority statutes, notarization, and recording. The materials are informational and are not legal advice.