Vermont Enhanced Life Estate Deed (Individual, Executed by Attorney-in-Fact)

On this Vermont enhanced life estate deed, the owner's signature line belongs to an agent: a named attorney-in-fact signs the deed on the owner's behalf under a power of attorney that expressly grants enhanced life estate authority. The form prepares that configuration for one grantor under 27 V.S.A. chapter 6, Vermont's Enhanced Life Estate Deed Act, the statute behind the deed families call a lady bird deed or ELE deed.

Express Authority, Written into the Power of Attorney

Vermont treats an enhanced life estate deed as one of the acts an agent cannot perform on general words alone. The Vermont Uniform Power of Attorney Act lists, at 14 V.S.A. § 4031(a)(12), the authority to convey, or to revoke or revise a grantee designation, by enhanced life estate deed, and reserves that authority to an express grant in the power of attorney; broad real estate language does not reach it. The deed's authority section recites that express grant, states that the power remains in effect, and identifies where the power of attorney is recorded, so the land records tie the deed to its source of authority. The power of attorney itself is a separate instrument, executed under its own formalities and recorded separately, and is not included in this package.

A Deed That Keeps the Owner in Control

The instrument does for the absent owner exactly what an owner-signed enhanced life estate deed does. The grantor keeps a common law life estate with exclusive use, possession, and enjoyment, and keeps the right to convey the property during life. The grantee takes a contingent remainder with no vested rights while the grantor lives: under 27 V.S.A. § 654, the recorded deed does not disturb the grantor's ownership or expose the property to the grantee's creditors, and under § 655 the grantee's acceptance is not needed and any attempt by the grantee to convey the contingent interest is void. At the grantor's death, title vests in the surviving grantee outside probate, subject to whatever encumbers the title of record. A later change runs through the land records too: revocation by a recorded deed from the grantor to the grantor, revision by recording a new ELE deed naming all intended grantees.

The Power of Attorney Travels with the Deed

Vermont records deeds town by town, not by county, and 27 V.S.A. § 305 calls for a power of attorney used to convey land to be signed, acknowledged, and recorded in the same office as the deed. The form's Section 2 collects the recording reference, or notes that the power is presented for recording with the deed. At the clerk's counter, the deed travels with a completed Vermont Property Transfer Tax Return; 32 V.S.A. § 9608 bars the clerk from recording without it, and an enhanced life estate deed is subject to the transfer tax when executed and recorded, with a refund petition available if the taxed interest is later revoked or revised.

What This Form Is Set Up As

The form recites one grantor, the principal, and one attorney-in-fact who signs. The signature block prints the grantor's name and marks the signature line as the attorney-in-fact's, and the notary certificate is the representative capacity short form of 26 V.S.A. § 5368(2), naming the person who appeared, the authority (attorney-in-fact), and the principal on whose behalf the deed was executed. An adult child holding a durable power of attorney for a parent in long term care, recording the parent's lady bird deed while the parent cannot travel to a signing, presents the pattern this deed recites. The form is not set up as a deed the owner signs personally, a deed for two grantors, or a fiduciary deed by a trustee or personal representative; those configurations carry different signature and certificate architecture.

The download includes the blank enhanced life estate deed as a fillable PDF, a completed example showing the entire document filled in for a realistic Windsor County fact pattern, and a plain language guide that walks through every numbered section, the representative capacity acknowledgment, and town recording with the transfer tax return. The materials are informational and are not legal advice.