Mellette County Quitclaim Deed (Married Couple as Grantors) Form

A South Dakota quitclaim deed built around a marriage: the form recites two grantors who are married to each other, prints their concurrence in the conveyance as part of the operative text, and carries a signature block and a notary certificate for each spouse. Whether the couple's title stands in both names or in one spouse's name alone, the deed collects both signatures, and with them whatever right, title, and interest each spouse holds at delivery under the standard quitclaim form of SDCL 43-25-7.

A statute that counts spouses, not record owners

South Dakota's homestead statute is the reason this configuration exists. Under SDCL 43-31-17, a conveyance of the homestead is valid only with both spouses concurring and executing the instrument while they are residents of the state, and the statute reads on the marriage and the homestead, not on whose name the vesting deed carries. A house acquired before the wedding and never retitled still does not pass out of the couple without both signatures while it remains the homestead. This deed is arranged for exactly that legal geometry: Grantor 1 and Grantor 2 are identified as spouses, the operative section states that both concur in and execute the conveyance, and the concurrence stands whichever of them appears in the chain of title.

What the deed passes, and what it declines to promise

The instrument is a true quit claim deed on the SDCL 43-25-7 pattern. Each spouse conveys and quitclaims all right, title, and interest held at execution and delivery; under SDCL 43-25-8 nothing the grantors acquire later follows the deed, and the form states that no after-acquired-title words are added. South Dakota implies two narrow covenants from quitclaim words unless the conveyance restricts them by express terms, so the operative section carries a capitalized restriction excluding the SDCL 43-25-11 covenants, leaving the grantee with the grantors' interest, whatever it proves to be, and no title promises alongside it.

Two spouses, two certificates, one marriage recital

The form recites exactly two grantors, each identified by full legal name and mailing address, and recites that they are married to each other, so the conveyance carries the grantors' marital status on its face. Each spouse has a signature block with a printed-name line, the detail SDCL 43-28-23 requires beneath every signature, and each has an acknowledgment certificate, so the two acknowledgments may happen on different days or before different officers. Patterns that present this architecture in the record include a couple conveying a homestead whose record title stands in one spouse's name, with the other spouse concurring as the statute contemplates, and spouses passing land held in both names where the deed itself documents the marriage for the chain of title. The form recites a married couple: a lone grantor, co-owners with no marriage between them, three or more owners, and entity or trustee grantors each follow a different signing configuration than this deed prints. The grantee side stays open to a single grantee or to co-grantees, and the guide describes the ownership forms South Dakota recognizes on the receiving side, from the tenancy-in-common default of SDCL 43-2-12 to an expressly declared joint tenancy.

Recording the package

The deed records with the register of deeds in the county where the land lies; the statewide fee is thirty dollars for a deed's first fifty pages under SDCL 7-9-15. South Dakota pairs a recorded deed with two companions: the realty transfer fee of SDCL 43-4-21, computed at fifty cents per five hundred dollars of value and collected before recording, and the certificate of real estate value SDCL 7-9-7 requires as a separate filing on the Department of Revenue form, filed even when a transfer claims one of the SDCL 43-4-22 exemptions. The form gives the exemption recital its own numbered section, since county intake practice looks for the citation on the face of an exempt deed, and a conveyance paying the fee simply enters None there. The document itself is laid out to the SDCL 43-28-23 statewide format: a three inch first-page recording reserve carrying the return and prepared-by blocks at its left edge, one inch margins, ten point type, and the grantee's mailing address.

The purchase includes three pieces: the deed as a blank fillable PDF, a completed example prepared on a Brown County fact pattern with both spouses signing, and a plain-language guide to every numbered section, the notarization formalities, and the recording package. The materials are informational and are not legal advice.