Rhode Island Quitclaim Deed (Trustee Grantor)

One signature moves this deed, and one statute puts a second instrument into the record beside it. The granting side of this Rhode Island quitclaim deed belongs to a trustee: record title stands in a trustee of a named trust, that trustee signs once in the trust capacity and not individually, and a single acknowledgment certificate belongs to that signature.

A signature that carries both a capacity and a power

Section 34-11-11 provides that the statutory forms may be altered as circumstances require and are not exclusive, which is the authority for a deed pairing the quitclaim covenant phrase with the language of the fiduciary form, the deed of an executor, administrator, trustee, guardian, conservator, receiver, or commissioner. That form conveys by the power conferred by a named instrument and by every other power thereunto enabling. Section 1 gives the trustee's name and office, Section 2 the trust name, the date of the trust instrument as amended or restated, and the provision relied on, and Section 12 grants under that power, acting as trustee and not individually.

The companion recording a trust transfer calls for

Rhode Island puts a condition on this transaction that an ordinary deed never meets. Under Section 34-4-27, a transfer or mortgage of trust property by the trustees requires the recording of the trust instrument, as amended or restated, or, in the alternative, of an affidavit or memorandum of trust. It carries weight of its own: a third party without actual knowledge to the contrary may rely on its statements, and a later amendment or revocation is recorded to constitute notice to third parties. On a nominee trust, Section 34-4-30 asks the memorandum to carry the trustee's statement that each beneficiary consented. The form prints the requirement on page one and holds a blank in Section 2 for the recording reference; that companion instrument is drafted and recorded separately and is not included in this package.

Covenants measured against the trust's own tenure

A quitclaim deed here is a covenant instrument. Sections 34-11-17 and 34-11-18 give the phrase its content: fee simple passes, and the grantor answers for lawful claims of persons claiming by, through, or under the grantor, and nobody else. On a trustee's deed that boundary falls where the trust's chapter of the chain begins, so a mortgage the trustee granted sits inside the covenant and a defect predating the trust's acquisition sits outside it. Section 34-11-26 explains why the phrase matters: the word grant implies no warranty here. Section 34-11-27 sizes the transfer at whatever estate stands in the trustee's name at signing.

The patterns this configuration recites

The form recites one trustee as grantor, with a printed name beneath the signature line for Section 34-11-1.1 and one certificate carrying the substance Section 34-12-1 describes. Shapes like this reach the land evidence records regularly: a sole trustee selling the settlor's former residence, a successor trustee conveying to the persons entitled after the settlor's death, a trustee deeding a parcel back to the settlor individually. Co-trustees signing together fall outside the single grantor block, an owner conveying for that owner's own account signs without capacity language, and an entity grantor states authority of a different kind. Searchers reach the instrument as a trustee deed, a deed out of a living trust, or a quit claim deed from a trustee.

Filed with a town clerk, taxed by the state

Land evidence records are kept town by town, with no county office anywhere in the state, so the deed reaches one municipal clerk, carrying the grantee address Section 34-11-1.2 asks for and, on a sale, the price under Section 34-11-1.4. Fees come from the state statutes: eighty dollars for a quitclaim deed under Section 34-13-7, a dollar for each page, a ten percent municipal records surcharge, and the four dollar Historical Records Trust charge Section 42-8.1-20 adds. Conveyance tax runs at $3.75 for each $500 of consideration above one hundred dollars, with a second tier at that rate on residential consideration above $824,000 for 2026, and nothing in Section 44-25-2 exempts a conveyance for being a trustee's. A sale by a nonresident trust also meets the six percent withholding of Section 44-30-71.3.

The purchase downloads the blank deed as a fillable PDF, a completed example worked through a North Kingstown sale by a family trust, and a plain language guide covering all thirteen sections, the acknowledgment, and municipal recording. The materials describe Rhode Island practice in general terms and do not give legal advice.