Steele County Quitclaim Deed (Reserving Life Estate) Form

This North Dakota quitclaim deed does two things in one sentence: it releases the property to the grantee, and it holds a life estate back for the grantor. What the grantee takes is a remainder interest, conveyed at delivery and possessory later, while the grantor keeps the property and its income for life.

Two estates out of one release

The words of conveyance are remises, releases, and forever quitclaims, followed by a reservation of a life estate measured by the grantor's own life. North Dakota Century Code Section 47-10-13 presumes that a grant of real property passes fee simple title unless the instrument shows an intent to pass a lesser estate, and the reservation is that showing. Chapter 47-04 names the pieces that result: Section 47-04-07 counts an estate for life among the freehold estates, and Section 47-04-10 defines the remainder the grantee receives.

What the life tenant keeps, and owes

A reserved life estate is possession rather than permission, and the duties travel with the rights. Sections 47-02-33 and 47-02-34 let the holder of a life estate use the land in the manner of a fee owner while doing no act to the injury of the inheritance, and they charge that holder with ordinary repairs, taxes, and other charges and assessments accruing during the estate. Section 9 prints the allocation as a term of the instrument, so an examiner reading the record years afterward finds the arrangement in the deed itself.

An ordinary life estate, with no retained power

The Century Code contains no enhanced life estate or lady bird deed provision, and this form claims none. Section 9 states that the grantor keeps no power to revoke the deed, to convey the fee, or to defeat the remainder, so the grantee's interest is vested from delivery, and a later sale or mortgage signed by the grantor alone reaches the reserved life estate and stops there. The codified North Dakota route for a transfer that stays revocable until death is the transfer on death deed of Chapter 30.1-32.1, an instrument recorded on its own and not included in this package.

Nothing promised about the title

The instrument is a quitclaim first. The word grant never appears among its words of conveyance, which keeps out the two limited covenants Section 47-10-19 attaches to that word and the after-acquired title consequence of Section 47-10-15. Easements, restrictive covenants, severed minerals, mortgages, and tax liens ride through untouched, burdening the life estate and the remainder alike. Searches written as quit claim deed with a life estate, or as life estate deed, land on this release-based shape.

One grantor, one remainderman

The form recites exactly one grantor and exactly one grantee taking the remainder, so it carries one signature line, one acknowledgment certificate, and a marital status entry in the grantor section. That entry answers Section 47-18-05, under which a married person's homestead, whatever its value, is conveyed only through an instrument executed and acknowledged by both husband and wife, a two-signature pattern this configuration does not recite. Three patterns present this architecture in the record: a remainder in the family home moving to an adult child while the owner stays in it, a remainder in farm or ranch land moving to the next generation while the crop rent stays with the owner for life, and a remainder placed of record so the interest changes hands at death without a probate transfer.

At the counter, and after the life estate ends

Two statutory entries print on the face: the Section 11-18-02.2 certification in Section 10, taking the consideration paid or the exempting subdivision of subsection 6, where subdivision h reaches a transfer for which a quitclaim deed is given; and the Section 47-19-03.1 legal description statement in Section 6. An auditor's certificate under Section 11-18-02 precedes recording, the fee runs twenty dollars through six pages, and no transfer tax exists. When the reserved estate ends, Section 47-19-06 supplies the clearing step: a certified copy of the death certificate, with the legal description attached and recorded in the same county, is prima facie evidence that the life estate has terminated.

The package holds the blank deed as a fillable PDF, a completed example filled in end to end for a Barnes County conveyance from a parent to a son, and a guide treating each numbered section, the life tenant's rights and duties, and the path to the recorder. The materials describe North Dakota law in general terms and are not legal advice.