Lewis And Clark County Quitclaim Deed (Married Grantor with Non-Owner Spouse Joinder) Form

Montana land can stand in one spouse's name alone and still take two signatures to convey. This Montana quitclaim deed is configured for that asymmetry: one grantor who holds record title and releases the interest, and that grantor's spouse, who owns nothing of record and signs to join in the instrument. The deed passes whatever right, title, and interest the grantor holds at delivery, with no warranty of title, and it reaches the county clerk and recorder as one instrument executed and acknowledged by both spouses.

What the second signature is doing

Montana Code Annotated Section 70-32-301 states the rule plainly: the homestead of a married person cannot be conveyed or encumbered unless the instrument by which it is conveyed or encumbered is executed and acknowledged by both husband and wife. A Montana homestead is a selected thing, not an automatic one: it is claimed by a declaration executed, acknowledged, and recorded under Sections 70-32-105 through 70-32-107, it covers the dwelling in which the claimant resides and the land under it, and Section 70-32-103 lets a married claimant select it from the property of either spouse. So the record-title question and the homestead question can have different answers on the same parcel, and where they do, the statute asks for two acts from the spouse who is not on title: a signature and an acknowledgment. This deed collects both.

A grantor who conveys, a spouse who joins

Section 1 recites the grantor and mailing address. Section 2 recites the joining spouse and states that the spouse holds no record title. Section 8 takes the recording reference for a declaration of homestead standing against the property, and Section 10 carries the joinder language: the joining spouse conveys no separate title interest, executes and acknowledges the deed together with the grantor so that the instrument satisfies Section 70-32-301, and releases to the grantee any homestead right or claim under Title 70, chapter 32. Section 11 carries a labeled signature block for each of the two signers, and one acknowledgment certificate follows each block. The patterns that put this configuration in Montana records include a parcel one spouse bought before the marriage and never retitled, land that came to one spouse by gift or inheritance, and a tract where a title examiner finds a recorded homestead declaration standing against a single owner's name. The form is not set up as a two-owner conveyance in which both signers hold record title and both release an interest, and a deed signed in a trustee, personal representative, or entity capacity recites authority language this deed does not carry.

No promise of title travels with it

Montana builds its implied deed covenants around one word. Under Section 70-20-304, the word grant in a conveyance of a fee interest implies that the grantor has not already conveyed the same estate and that the estate is free of encumbrances the grantor created. This quit claim deed keeps clear of that mechanism: it states that grant is not used as a word of conveyance, that no covenant or warranty of title attaches, and that title the grantor picks up later does not pass through it. Montana publishes no statutory quitclaim form, and the Montana Supreme Court reads a deed's character from the whole document.

From the notary table to the county index

Each certificate follows the individual short form in Section 1-5-610, so the two signers may appear on different dates or before different officers; the completed example shows the grantor acknowledging four days before the joining spouse. The first page reserves three full inches for the recording stamp and prints the return name and address in the upper left corner, where Section 7-4-2636 places it, and the grantee's post-office address sits in the body of the deed because Section 7-4-2618 bars the clerk and recorder from receiving a deed without it. Recording runs twenty dollars for the first page and ten for each page after it for documents recorded on or after October 1, 2025. A Realty Transfer Certificate accompanies the deed, and that certificate, not the deed, carries the consideration figures.

The package delivers the deed as a fillable PDF, a completed example prepared on a Yellowstone County fact pattern with both certificates filled in, and a plain language guide covering each numbered section, the homestead execution rule, the notarization formality, and recording step by step. The materials are informational and are not legal advice.