Rhode Island Quitclaim Deed (Married Couple as Grantors)

Some Rhode Island deeds carry a marriage in their recitals, and this quitclaim deed is one of them: it is configured for two grantors who are married to each other and who convey together. The form prints a grantor block for each spouse, states that the two are married to each other, and pairs each of the two signatures with its own acknowledgment certificate, so a married couple can pass Rhode Island real estate in one recorded instrument.

Both signatures, one estate

Rhode Island lets spouses hold real property as tenants by the entirety, an estate in which the two hold the whole title together. Under Cull v. Vadnais and the decisions following it, neither spouse acting alone can sell, sever, partition, or otherwise dispose of an entireties estate; disposal takes both. A deed with two grantor blocks and two signature lines is what that rule looks like on paper, and it is the architecture this form carries alongside its recital of the grantors' marriage.

The entireties estate itself never arises by accident. Section 34-3-1 of the General Laws presumes a tenancy in common when a deed runs to two or more people, spouses included, and Bloomfield v. Brown reads a deed to spouses without manifest entireties wording as a joint tenancy at most. The couple's own vesting deed, not the marriage certificate, answers how they hold; however it answers, both owners signing one quitclaim deed passes both interests.

Quitclaim covenants from two spouses

Rhode Island's quitclaim deed is a covenant deed. General Laws Section 34-11-12 supplies the statutory form, and Section 34-11-17 gives its covenant phrase effect: the deed passes fee simple, and the grantors warrant the title against persons claiming by, through, or under them, and against no one else. On a married couple's deed the covenant tracks the couple's own chapter in the chain of title, the mortgage the spouses granted together or the interest one of them conveyed, while anything predating their ownership stays outside it. Section 34-11-27 measures what moves: every estate the grantors own at execution, whether the couple holds the entire title or a pair of fractional shares.

Family transfers and the no-stamps sentence

Money often never changes hands on this deed, and the form is built for that. Rhode Island taxes conveyances at $3.75 per $500 of consideration when the price tops one hundred dollars, with a second $3.75 tier on residential consideration above an indexed threshold, $824,000 for 2026. A gift between family members takes a different path through the same statutes: Section 44-25-1(c) calls for a statement on the instrument that the consideration is such that no documentary stamps are required, and Section 34-11-1.4 asks a deed for its total sale price only when the conveyance results from a sale. The form gives each rule its own line, a sale price entry and a conveyance tax statement entry, so a couple's gift deed records with the statement in place of stamps, and a couple's sale records with its price stated and its stamps affixed.

Two certificates, one town clerk

The form recites exactly two grantors, married to each other, each signing personally and in an individual capacity, with a printed name beneath each signature line, as Section 34-11-1.1 contemplates. Each spouse's acknowledgment takes its own certificate carrying the Section 34-12-1 substance. Rhode Island law does not require separate certificates; the paired layout simply lets the two acknowledgments happen apart, one spouse before a notary in Providence this week, the other before an out-of-state officer the next. Configurations this deed does not recite include a sole owner conveying alone, co-owners without a marital recital, and trustee or entity grantors, whose capacity language differs.

Recording is municipal, so the finished deed goes to the clerk of the one city or town where the land lies, carrying the grantee's mailing address that Section 34-11-1.2 expects, with the top of page one and the bottom of the last page held open for recording use. Searchers reach this instrument as a quit claim deed or a husband and wife quitclaim deed; the recorded form is the same statutory conveyance under either name.

The purchase downloads three pieces: the blank quitclaim deed as a fillable PDF, a completed example filled in for a Bristol fact pattern, and a plain language guide that walks each section, the two acknowledgments, the conveyance tax arithmetic, and recording at the town level. The materials describe Rhode Island law generally; they are informational only, not legal advice.