Montana Quitclaim Deed

This Montana quitclaim deed recites a single grantor: one owner signing alone, on one signature line, with one notary acknowledgment certificate. The deed conveys to the grantee all of the grantor's right, title, and interest in the described Montana real property, whatever that interest turns out to be, and it carries no warranty of title. The package prepares that instrument for recording with the county clerk and recorder of the Montana county where the property is located.

A conveyance with no promise attached

Montana's conveyancing statutes build their implied protections around the word grant: under Montana Code Annotated Section 70-20-304, a deed that conveys with that word implies covenants that the grantor has not already conveyed the same estate and that it is free of encumbrances the grantor created. A quitclaim deed works differently. Montana has no statutory quitclaim form; the instrument is a common law deed the Montana Supreme Court has long recognized, and its character comes from what the whole document says. This form conveys only the grantor's right, title, and interest, states expressly that no covenant or warranty of title attaches, and states that it does not pass title the grantor acquires later. The grantee receives exactly the interest the grantor holds at delivery, subject to whatever encumbers it.

One grantor, one certificate

The form is configured for an individual grantor. Section 1 recites one owner's name and mailing address, Section 9 carries a single signature line with a printed name and date, and one acknowledgment certificate follows, built on the Montana short form in Section 1-5-610: the record was acknowledged before the notarial officer on a stated date by the named individual. The form is not set up as a two-grantor or entity instrument; a deed from co-owners, a married couple conveying a declared homestead, or a trustee recites a different signature and capacity architecture than this deed carries. Patterns that present the single-grantor configuration in Montana records include family transfers for nominal consideration, transfers implementing a dissolution settlement, title-clearing conveyances, and transfers between an owner and the owner's revocable living trust.

Built to Montana's recording standards

Montana sets its document standards by statute, and the form follows them: letter size pages, a full 3 inch reserve at the top of the first page for the recorder's stamp, 1 inch margins elsewhere, the parties named on the first page, and the return name and mailing address printed in the upper left corner of the first page, where Section 7-4-2636 puts it. The grantee's post-office address appears in the deed itself because Section 7-4-2618 bars the clerk and recorder from receiving a deed without it. A conforming document records at the standard statewide fee of $20 for the first page and $10 for each additional page for documents recorded on or after October 1, 2025, while a nonstandard document pays an extra $10.

The certificate that travels with every Montana deed

A Montana deed does not go to the counter alone. A Realty Transfer Certificate, Department of Revenue Form RTC, accompanies every instrument evidencing a transfer, and the clerk and recorder may not accept the deed for recording until the certificate is received. The certificate declares the consideration confidentially, and Montana law lists transfer categories, gifts and certain nominal-consideration family transfers among them, for which the amount need not be disclosed. Where water rights ride with the land, the certificate carries a water right ownership update disclosure, and a transfer that severs, divides, or exempts water rights takes a separate certification before the deed records. The guide walks through the certificate, the water right rules, the survey reference requirement for parcels that were required to be surveyed, and the treasurer's certification that applies when parcels are divided or merged.

What the download includes

The package delivers the quitclaim deed as a fillable PDF, a completed example showing the form filled in for a realistic Gallatin County fact pattern, and a plain language guide that describes every numbered section, the signing and notarization formality, and the recording process. The materials are informational and are not legal advice.