Mellette County Transfer on Death Deed (Mineral Interest - Two Joint Tenant Transferors) Form

A severed mineral interest held by two South Dakota joint tenants needs exactly two recorded instruments to carry the full succession: the joint tenancy already in the title, which passes the minerals to the survivor at the first death, and this transfer on death deed, which names who takes when the survivor dies. This fillable form prepares that second instrument under the South Dakota Real Property Transfer on Death Act, SDCL 29A-6-401 to 29A-6-435, for a mineral interest held by exactly two record owners as joint tenants with right of survivorship.

A deed that waits for the second death

The act writes the two-owner timing directly into statute. Under SDCL 29A-6-417, when a transferor who is a joint owner dies survived by another joint owner, the property belongs to the surviving joint owner with right of survivorship; when the transferor is the last surviving joint owner, the transfer on death deed takes effect. So the deed, searched for as a TOD deed or beneficiary deed, sits quietly in the county record through the first death and operates at the second, passing the mineral interest to the designated beneficiaries outside probate. Until then it is nontestamentary and fully revocable, the transferors keep every right to lease, sell, mortgage, or develop the minerals, and the beneficiaries hold no present interest of any kind (SDCL 29A-6-405, 29A-6-406, 29A-6-414).

Two transferors, one revocation rule

Joint owners who designate together also revoke together. Under SDCL 29A-6-411, a transfer on death deed made by joint owners is revoked only if it is revoked by all of the living joint owners, so neither co-owner can quietly undo the recorded designation alone while both live; after the first death, the surviving transferor is the only living joint owner and can revoke by that owner's own recorded instrument. Revocation happens only of record, by a later transfer on death deed, an instrument of revocation, or an ordinary deed that expressly revokes, recorded before death (SDCL 29A-6-410); marking up or destroying the paper deed revokes nothing once it is recorded (SDCL 29A-6-412).

What the two-transferor mineral form recites

The form carries a numbered block for each of the two transferors, a marital status line following the optional statutory form in SDCL 29A-6-430, and an operative section stating that the transferors hold the described mineral interest as joint tenants with right of survivorship and that both join in the deed. The land appears by its formal legal description, and the mineral interest, the undivided fraction and the substances it covers, appears in its own section in the words of the instrument that created it. The beneficiary section names one or more primary designated beneficiaries with mailing addresses, taking in equal shares as tenants in common unless the deed states otherwise, with a contingent beneficiary section and the statutory election on the one hundred twenty hour survival requirement, measured here from the last surviving transferor. Two signature lines and two acknowledgment certificates complete it, so the transferors may acknowledge on different dates or before different notaries. Spouses who took a mineral deed in both names as express joint tenants, and two relatives who deliberately re-vested inherited minerals in a declared joint tenancy, present the pattern this deed recites; the express declaration matters, because under SDCL 43-2-12 a South Dakota joint tenancy exists only where the transfer declares it, and co-owners without that language hold as tenants in common, a different configuration from the one this form recites.

Recorded while both transferors live

SDCL 29A-6-408 makes recording an effectiveness condition: the register of deeds of the county where the minerals lie holds the deed of record before the transferor dies, or the deed transfers nothing, and on a two-transferor deed the working practice the statute invites is prompt recording after signing, while both are living. The recording counter treats the deed gently: no certificate of real estate value accompanies it (SDCL 7-9-7(5)), and the printed exemption line citing SDCL 43-4-22(18) means the register collects no transfer fee, only the statewide recording fee of SDCL 7-9-15.

The download contains the blank deed as a fillable PDF, laid out to South Dakota's SDCL 43-28-23 recording standards with the three inch first-page reserve; a completed example carrying a Perkins County joint-tenancy mineral fact pattern from both transferor entries through the two notary blocks; and a plain language guide walking through each section, the signing requirements, and the steps at the register of deeds counter. The materials are informational and are not legal advice.