Smith County Trustees Deed (Corporate Trustee) Form

When Texas real estate leaves a trust, the deed comes from the trustee, because legal title to trust property stands in the trustee rather than in the trust itself. This trustee's deed is drafted for a corporate trustee: a trust company, bank, or other corporation with the power to act as a trustee in Texas under Property Code Section 112.008, conveying trust real property to a purchaser or distributing it to a beneficiary through the signature of one of its officers.

A conveyance built on the power of sale

A Texas trustee sells real property under Property Code Section 113.010, which authorizes a trustee to contract to sell, sell and convey, or grant an option to sell, at public auction or private sale. That statutory power always operates subject to Section 113.001, under which the trust instrument controls where it limits or conditions a power, so the deed opens by reciting the capacity in which the corporation acts, identifying the trust by name and date, and stating that the conveyance exercises the power of sale in the trust instrument or the statute. A successor corporate trustee conveys on the same footing: Section 113.084 confers on a successor the title and powers of the original trustee.

A warranty scoped to the fiduciary capacity

The deed conveys the property itself with the words grants, sells, and conveys, the drafting that keeps a Texas instrument on the conveyance side of the line the Texas Supreme Court drew between deeds and quitclaims. Its warranty is special: the trust estate stands behind claims arising by, through, or under the grantor in the trustee capacity, but not otherwise, and an express provision under Property Code Section 5.023 holds the covenants implied from words of grant to that same scope. The result is the warranty posture Texas fiduciary practice expects, in which no covenant in the deed becomes an obligation of the corporation's own assets.

What reaches the county records

The trust agreement itself stays private. The recorded picture is the deed into the trustee, this deed out, and, where the transaction uses one, a certification of trust under Property Code Section 114.086, the signed summary of the trust's existence, date, settlor, acting trustee, and powers that a title examiner reviews in place of the full agreement. The Trust Code backs that structure with protections for the other side of the transaction: a person dealing with a trustee in good faith and for fair value is protected under Section 114.081, and Section 114.082 lets a trustee convey without subsequent question from undisclosed beneficiaries where the vesting deed never identified the trust. The completed deed is recorded with the county clerk of the county where the property is located and carries the confidentiality notice of Property Code Section 11.008 at the top of its first page.

Inside the package

The download prepares one recordable instrument: a fillable PDF deed with a corporate signature block and a representative acknowledgment matching the short form of Civil Practice and Remedies Code Section 121.008, a completed example showing the deed filled in for a realistic Bexar County fact pattern, and a plain language guide that walks through every numbered section, from the capacity recital to the recording steps. The materials are informational and are not legal advice; a Texas attorney can apply these statutes to a specific trust or transaction.