Montana Quitclaim Deed (Individual Grantor by Attorney-in-Fact)

On this Montana deed the record owner never picks up a pen. An attorney-in-fact signs instead, and one signature carries two names: under Montana Code Annotated 70-20-108, an attorney-in-fact who executes an instrument transferring an estate in real property subscribes the name of the principal to it and the attorney-in-fact's own name as attorney-in-fact. This Montana quitclaim deed is configured for that act. One individual grantor holds the interest, one agent executes under a power of attorney, and the grantee takes whatever right, title, and interest the grantor holds at delivery, with no warranty of title.

Two lines for one signature act

Section 11 gives each half of the 70-20-108 act its own line. The first write-on line takes the grantor's name, subscribed by the attorney-in-fact. The signature line below it takes the agent's own signature, and the printed name entry carries the attorney-in-fact capacity. One acknowledgment certificate follows, on the Montana representative-capacity short form at Section 1-5-610(2): the officer names the individual who appeared, the capacity held, and the party for whom the record was executed. Section 70-20-101 is what makes the arrangement work, because an interest in Montana real property passes by a written instrument subscribed by the owner or by the owner's lawfully authorized agent.

The power of attorney the deed names

Section 3 puts the power of attorney into the record by date and recording reference, because that instrument, not the deed, holds the authority. Section 72-31-339 provides that general authority over real property lets an agent sell, exchange, and convey with or without covenants, and quitclaim, release, and surrender. Section 72-31-336 holds other acts outside general authority unless the power of attorney expressly grants them, gifts, rights of survivorship, and beneficiary designations among them, and its subsection (2) stops an agent who is not the principal's ancestor, spouse, or descendant from creating an interest in the principal's property in the agent. Authority also ends: under Section 72-31-310 it stops at the principal's death and on revocation, and a person acting in good faith without actual knowledge of a termination keeps that section's protection.

A release with the covenant word withheld

Montana pins its implied deed covenants to a single word. Under Section 70-20-304, a fee conveyance made with the word grant brings a covenant against the grantor's own earlier conveyance of the same estate and one against encumbrances of the grantor's making, unless express terms restrain them. The operative sentence here withholds that word: the grantor, acting through the attorney-in-fact, remises, releases, and forever quitclaims, the implied covenants are restrained in express terms, and the deed disclaims the after-acquired title mechanism of Section 70-20-302. Montana never enacted a quitclaim form, and its Supreme Court reads a deed by the whole document.

The configuration, and what sits outside it

The form recites one grantor, one attorney-in-fact, one signature block, and one certificate. Arrangements that present this configuration in Montana records include an owner who has moved out of state or deployed and cannot reach the closing table, an owner whose durable power of attorney is in use after a loss of capacity, and a nonresident owner whose agent lives in the county where the land sits. The form is not set up for co-agents acting together, for two record owners, or for a signer whose authority runs from a corporate office, a company, a partnership, or a trust. It carries no spousal signature line, so a declared homestead of a married grantor answers to the both-spouses execution rule of Section 70-32-301.

At the clerk and recorder's counter

Section 7-4-2618 bars the clerk and recorder from taking in a deed without the grantee's post-office address, so it rides in the body, and the return name and address print inside the three inch reserve atop page one under Section 7-4-2636. Section 70-21-201 allows any instrument affecting title to be recorded, so the power of attorney itself can enter the county record ahead of the deed; Section 71-1-102 makes that recording mandatory for a power of attorney to execute a mortgage. A Realty Transfer Certificate travels to the counter with the deed and keeps the consideration figures on a confidential filing.

Included in the download: this quit claim deed as a fillable PDF, a completed example worked out on a Fergus County release where an out-of-state owner's son signs as attorney-in-fact, and a plain language guide covering the numbered sections, the statutes behind them, notarization, and recording. The materials are informational and are not legal advice.