Vermont Special Warranty Deed (Married Couple as Grantors)

Both halves of a married couple sign this deed, and their two signatures carry the whole transaction: the conveyance itself, the limited covenants behind it, and the spousal joinder Vermont statute demands before homestead or entireties property leaves a marriage. The form is a Vermont special warranty deed arranged for two grantors who are spouses of each other, with a grantor line, signature line, and acknowledgment certificate for each spouse.

The joinder lives in the signature lines

Vermont attaches two statutes to a married seller's deed. Under 27 V.S.A. Section 141, a married owner's homestead conveyance is inoperative as to the homestead without the spouse joining in its execution and acknowledgment, and under Section 349 an interest in property spouses hold as tenants by the entirety cannot pass to a nonspouse unless the other spouse joins. On a deed where the married couple are the two grantors, those requirements are met by the same two signatures that convey the property, so the form carries no separate joinder block at all. The operative language recites that the grantors are married to each other, that each joins in the execution and acknowledgment, and that each conveys and releases that spouse's entire interest in the property, homestead rights included.

Two spouses, one grantor unit

The deed recites exactly two grantors, married to each other, each conveying in a personal capacity, with a single grantee section for the new owners' names and vesting words. Vermont's marital estate explains why the pairing matters. Where spouses hold as tenants by the entirety, the Vermont Supreme Court's decision in Cooper v. Cooper holds that neither spouse owns a separate share that can be conveyed or encumbered without the other, so the marital unit conveys as a whole or not at all. The same architecture covers spouses who hold between themselves as joint tenants or tenants in common, and the household where record title stands in one spouse's name and the other spouse joins to release marital and homestead rights. Spouses conveying a rental property or the family camp held through the marriage, a couple deeding the marital real estate to the next generation, and spouses moving property into a trust present the patterns this deed recites. The form is not set up as a deed for one owner conveying alone, for co-owners who are not married to each other, or for an entity or fiduciary grantor; those configurations recite different parties than this deed carries. Under Preston v. Chabot, divorce converts entireties title into a tenancy in common by operation of law, so former spouses convey as ordinary co-owners.

Covenants bounded by the couple's years in title

No Vermont statute implies covenants into an ordinary deed, so this instrument spells its warranty out and draws its limit expressly. The grantors covenant that they are lawfully seized, that they hold good right and title to convey, and that the property passes free of encumbrances they made or suffered except as the deed states, and they warrant and defend against claims by, through, or under themselves, or either of them, but no further back. A title problem that entered the record before the couple took ownership falls outside the promise. Buyers and title examiners searching for a limited warranty deed in Vermont are looking at this same instrument under its other common name.

Recorded in the town, taxed at the counter

The finished deed goes to the clerk of the town or city where the land lies; Vermont keeps land records at the municipal level and has no county recorder. Recording costs fifteen dollars per page statewide, and 32 V.S.A. Section 9608 keeps the clerk from accepting a transfer deed without a completed Property Transfer Tax Return, Form PTT-172, and its Act 250 certificate. Counting the clean water surcharge, the ordinary transfer tax comes to 1.47 percent of value, with a reduced bracket on the first $200,000 where the buyer takes the property as a principal residence, and the guide sets out the rates, the exemptions, and the return itself.

The package holds the special warranty deed as a fillable PDF, a completed example showing every entry for a Washington County couple's sale, and a plain language guide covering each numbered section, the grantee vesting forms, notarization, and municipal recording. The materials describe Vermont law generally and are not legal advice; a Vermont attorney can say how these rules bear on a particular marriage, title, or sale.