Berkeley County Quitclaim Deed (Trustee Grantor) Form

The person who signs this deed owns none of the property it releases. A trustee holds West Virginia land as an office rather than as an estate, and this quitclaim deed is built around that signature: one acting trustee releases, as trustee and not individually, whatever interest the trust holds in a parcel, to one grantee.

The capacity rides along with the signature

Section 2 names the trust and the date of its trust instrument, Section 7 recites that the grantor executes as trustee and not individually and that no personal obligation of the signer arises, and the printed name line in Section 9 takes the office beside the name, as in Successor Trustee. W. Va. Code Section 39-4-16 also supplies a short form for a signer acting in a representative capacity, reciting that the record was acknowledged by a named individual as a stated type of authority of the party on whose behalf the record was executed, and the name blank runs two full lines wide, so a trustee's name, office, trust, and trust date fit without abbreviation.

Where the power to release comes from

A quitclaim gives up whatever the grantor holds and promises nothing, so the question a title examiner puts to a trustee's deed is whether the office carried that power. Two sections answer outside the trust agreement itself. W. Va. Code Section 44D-8-815 gives a trustee, without court authorization, the powers conferred by the terms of the trust instrument together with all powers over trust property that an unmarried competent owner has over individually owned property. W. Va. Code Section 44-5A-3 lists fiduciary powers reaching trustees governed by the West Virginia Uniform Trust Code with no need for incorporation by reference, among them the power to sell, exchange, partition, or otherwise dispose of property the fiduciary holds and to convey it free of all trust. The deed states the capacity; those sections and the trust instrument are where the authority is read.

One trustee, one signature block

The form draws a single grantor block. A sole trustee who took title under the deed that funded the trust, a successor trustee who took office after the first resigned, and a trustee winding up an administration by passing a parcel to the person entitled to it all present the single trustee pattern this deed recites. Where a trust has cotrustees, the count of signatures is read from the trust instrument with W. Va. Code Section 44D-7-703, which lets cotrustees unable to reach a unanimous decision act by majority; a deed executed by two trustees needs a block and a certificate for each of them, not the architecture this form draws. No spousal line appears either, because dower and curtesy are abolished by W. Va. Code Section 43-1-1 and property held in a fiduciary capacity belongs to the trust rather than to the trustee's own estate.

A release without consideration reaches the record on two signatures

Since July 11, 2025, W. Va. Code Section 39-1-2(b)(2) has conditioned recordation of a quitclaim deed made without consideration upon the grantee's own execution and acknowledgment, or proof by two witnesses as to the grantee before the county clerk, and it makes a deed recorded against that rule void. Every exception the subsection states describes a relationship between individuals, and neither a trust nor a trustee appears among them. A distribution out of a trust for no consideration therefore ordinarily arrives at the counter with Section 10 filled in, which is what the completed example shows: a successor trustee in Harrison County releasing a Nutter Fort parcel to a trust beneficiary, the grantee acknowledging three days later before a different notary.

Value, stamps, and the sheet that goes with it

Section 11 sets out the declaration of consideration or value under W. Va. Code Section 11-22-6 on three lines: consideration paid, true and actual value, and any exemption claimed under W. Va. Code Section 11-22-1. A trust distribution commonly reports a value with no consideration and names its exemption ground, and the clerk reads those lines to decide whether stamps are due at $1.10 for each $500 of value plus the county's own excise. The State Tax Commissioner Sales Listing Form is completed separately.

This package includes the fillable trustee quit claim deed, a completed example filled in for a Harrison County distribution, and a guide covering the eleven sections, the capacity and authority statutes, the acknowledgment routes, and the recording package. The materials are informational and are not legal advice.