Pennsylvania Quitclaim Deed (Corrective)

A correcting quitclaim deed is one of the few Pennsylvania instruments whose subject is another instrument. Three numbered sections do that work: one identifies the recorded deed being corrected by date, county, and instrument number or book and page; the next sets out the statement in it that is wrong; the third states it as it belongs. Underneath sits an ordinary quitclaim, passing to one grantee whatever the single grantor holds, with no warranty of title.

The regulation that names this deed

Pennsylvania statutes prescribe no form, caption, or wording for a deed that fixes an earlier one. The instrument is an ordinary deed whose own text makes it corrective, and the nearest thing to a definition sits in the realty transfer tax regulations. Under 61 Pa. Code Section 91.151, a deed made without consideration for the sole purpose of correcting an error in the description of the parties or of the premises conveyed is not taxable, on three stated conditions, among them that the property interest in the correctional deed is identical to the property intended to pass with the original deed. Section 91.193(b)(4) carries both the correctional deed and the confirmatory deed into the list of excluded transactions, and Section 91.152 supplies separate conditions for a deed made solely to render a grantee's record title sure and unavoidable. Because an exclusion is claimed, a REV-183 Statement of Value goes to the counter under Section 91.112.

What the three correction sections collect

Section 3 takes six entries: the date of the deed being corrected, the county and date of recording, the instrument number or book and page, and the grantor and grantee as named there. Holding those names apart from the current party blocks is what lets a misspelled name be fixed without ambiguity: Section 3 preserves the name the county index carries, and Sections 1, 2, and 5 carry the corrected one. Section 11 then performs the release in the words 21 P.S. Section 6 supplies and adds the sentence a title examiner reads first: the property interest described here is the interest the earlier deed was made to pass, and no other term of that deed is changed.

One grantor, one grantee, one certificate

The architecture is narrow: one grantor block, one grantee block, one signature line with a printed name and date, and one acknowledgment certificate printing the short form wording of 57 Pa.C.S. Section 316, so the grantor may appear before a notarial officer in any state, or remotely under 57 Pa.C.S. Section 306.1. Corrections of this shape reach Pennsylvania record rooms constantly: a surname misspelled in the earlier deed and caught when the next transaction is searched, a transposed lot number in a platted description, and an identifier carried over from the adjoining lot. The form recites one grantor releasing to one grantee; entireties property is a single indivisible estate that both spouses convey together, and a signature made for a company, a trustee, or an agent rests on capacity and authority entries this quit claim deed does not print.

Where correcting stops and reforming begins

A correcting deed is a consensual instrument, and it settles nothing that is contested. Where the parties disagree about what the earlier deed was meant to say, the question goes to court: the Supreme Court in Regions Mortgage, Inc. v. Muthler, 889 A.2d 39 (Pa. 2005), traced the rule that equity reforms a written instrument for fraud, accident, or mistake, the mistake ordinarily required to be mutual. The later deed also leaves the earlier record standing: both instruments sit in the chain under their own recording dates, and 21 P.S. Section 351 protects anyone who acquired an interest for value between the two filings without notice.

At the county recorder of deeds

The correcting deed goes back to the office that recorded the first one. It closes with the certificate of the grantee's precise residence and complete post-office address that 16 P.S. Section 9781 makes a condition of recording, and carries a parcel identifier entry for the ordinance counties. Counties differ on whether a correction travels as a newly recorded deed or as the earlier deed re-recorded; this form takes the first route.

The download holds the blank corrective quitclaim deed as a fillable PDF, a completed example worked through a Luzerne County correction of a misspelled grantee name, and a guide covering the twelve sections, notarization, the transfer tax regulations, and county recording. These materials describe Pennsylvania law in general terms and are not legal advice.