Lewis And Clark County Quitclaim Deed (Trustee Grantor) Form

Montana land goes into a living trust easily and comes back out only by a deed the trustee signs. This Montana quitclaim deed is built for that outbound direction: the grantor is the trustee then serving, signing as trustee and not individually, and the deed releases to the grantee whatever right, title, and interest the trustee and the trust hold at delivery, with no warranty of title.

What the trustee's signature moves

Montana Code Annotated Section 72-38-1111 is what makes a one signature deed out of a trust work. Subsection (2) puts the whole estate conveyed in the trustee, subject only to the trustee's duties, and leaves the beneficiaries no interest in the land itself. Subsection (6) carries that estate back out: a later conveyance from the person the original conveyance designated as trustee, or from the successor trustee, conveys the whole estate vested in the trustee, except as limited by the terms of the conveyance. Beneficiaries are not signers here, and the form gives them no line.

The signer is often not the trustee the old deed named

Trusteeships change hands while land sits in a trust. Subsection (6) allows a successor trustee's identity to be established by a recorded affidavit giving that trustee's name and address and the date and circumstances of succession, and subsection (8) accepts that affidavit or another recorded instrument naming a serving trustee. Section 72-38-1013 supplies the companion, a certification of trust stating the trust's existence, the settlor, the acting trustee, the relevant powers, and the revocability of the trust, acknowledged on request so it may be recorded. Those instruments are prepared and recorded separately and are not included here, so the form works the chain from both ends: Section 7 takes the recording reference for the instrument that vested title in the trustee, and Section 8 takes the reference for a certification or affidavit standing of record, reading None recorded when none is.

A release, with the covenant word left out

Montana ties its implied deed covenants to one word. Under Section 70-20-304, the word grant in a fee conveyance brings two covenants with it, one against an earlier conveyance of the same estate by the grantor and one against encumbrances of the grantor's own making, unless express terms restrain them. This form keeps the word out of its operative sentence: the grantor remises, releases, and forever quitclaims, the deed disclaims covenant and warranty of title in express terms, and title reaching the trust or the trustee later does not pass through it. Montana enacted no statutory quitclaim form, and its Supreme Court reads a deed's character from the whole document.

One trustee, one certificate, in a representative capacity

Section 1 names the acting trustee with the trustee capacity and a mailing address, Section 2 identifies the trust by name and by the date of the trust instrument, Section 10 carries one signature line whose printed name includes the capacity, and one certificate follows, built on Montana's short form for an acknowledgment in a representative capacity at Section 1-5-610(2). Arrangements that put this configuration in the Montana record include a successor trustee distributing trust land to a beneficiary after the settlor's death, a trustee of a revocable trust deeding a parcel back to the settlor, a trustee conveying to the trustee of a restated trust, and a lifetime transfer the trust's terms permit. The form is not set up for two cotrustees signing together, and it is a deed out of a trust rather than a conveyance into one.

What the recording counter expects

Recording happens at the office of the clerk and recorder for the county holding the land. For documents recorded on or after October 1, 2025, the statewide fee is twenty dollars for a first page and ten dollars per additional page. The grantee's post office address sits in the body because Section 7-4-2618 keeps the clerk and recorder from receiving a deed without it, and the return name and address print in the upper left corner of the first page, where Section 7-4-2636 puts them. A Realty Transfer Certificate travels with the deed and keeps the money figures on a confidential filing.

Included in the download: the deed as a fillable PDF, a completed example filled in for a Ravalli County distribution from a family trust, and a plain language guide that takes the numbered sections one at a time and closes on the trust and recording statutes behind them. The materials are informational and are not legal advice.