Vermont Warranty Deed

Nothing on this Vermont warranty deed tells the parties who they are. The lines that receive the names hold no printed status, no printed capacity, and no printed form of co-ownership, so the deed reads the way the transaction actually is once the blanks are filled: one or two people conveying Vermont real property, one or two people taking it, and the words of ownership written in rather than chosen from a menu. This is the base configuration of the Vermont warranty deed, carrying the full covenants of title.

Open party blocks, and two of everything below them

The grantor entry runs four lines and the grantee entry matches it, each sized for two names with room for whatever the parties state about themselves. Below, the deed provides a signature block headed GRANTOR and a second headed SECOND GRANTOR (if applicable), each with its own acknowledgment certificate, so a conveyance by two owners is a single instrument and a conveyance by one leaves the second block and certificate unused. Four count patterns run through the same paper: one owner to one buyer, one owner to two, two owners to one, and two owners to two. What the form does not carry is capacity architecture. It recites no entity name or governing statute for a company grantor, no trust and trust instrument date for a fiduciary, no recorded power of attorney for an agent signing in an owner's place, and it stops at two signers on each side. Its covenants belong to everyone who signs the grantor line, jointly and severally where two sign, so a signature added only to release a homestead interest sits outside what this configuration recites.

Vermont keeps its covenants in the text, not in the code

Search Title 27 for a short-form deed that quietly supplies warranties and nothing turns up: the only statutory deed form Vermont enacted is the optional enhanced life estate deed at 27 V.S.A. Section 660, which serves its own chapter 6 instrument. An ordinary Vermont warranty deed therefore promises in its own words, and this form states four: lawful seisin in fee simple, good right and title to convey, freedom from every encumbrance apart from the matters the deed lists, and a promise to warrant and defend against all lawful claims. The granting words are the traditional Vermont set, give, grant, sell, convey, and confirm, the language the Section 660 form also prints. The encumbrances entry is the pressure point, since each easement, plat condition, reservation, or current tax listed there is carved out of the warranty.

The grantee line decides the survivorship question

Vermont resolves silence against survivorship. Under 27 V.S.A. Section 2, a conveyance to two or more persons is construed to create an estate in common unless the instrument says the grantees take jointly, as joint tenants, in joint tenancy, or to them and the survivors of them, or unless the tenor of the deed makes joint tenancy manifest; conveyances to spouses and to trustees fall outside that default. One wrinkle in the same statute rewards attention: Vermont joint tenants may hold unequal interests, and a deceased joint tenant's share passes to the survivors in proportion to their respective interests rather than by head count. Because the grantee entry is open, those words go where the buyers put them, and the guide walks through every form the state recognizes.

A municipal counter, a state tax return

Vermont has no county recorder for deeds. The signed original goes to the clerk of the town or city where the land sits, at fifteen dollars a page, and until it is recorded 27 V.S.A. Section 342 leaves the conveyance good only against the grantor and the grantor's heirs. Form PTT-172, the Property Transfer Tax Return, goes to the same counter, because 32 V.S.A. Section 9608 stops the clerk from receiving a deed without it and the Act 250 certificate. Vermont also lets the notarial certificate stand without a stamp, and the certificates here print the notary name and commission number lines 26 V.S.A. Section 5367 accepts in its place.

The download holds the blank warranty deed as a fillable PDF, a completed example filled at full capacity for a Windham County sale, two grantors to two grantees, and a plain language guide covering every numbered section, the signing and notarization rules, the vesting words Vermont gives effect to, and the recording and transfer tax steps. The materials are informational and are not legal advice.