La Crosse County Quitclaim Deed (Divorce) Form

Wisconsin names two instruments that can carry a divorce property division into the land records, and this package prepares the second. Wis. Stat. § 767.61(6) directs that a certified copy of the portion of the judgment affecting title to real property, or a deed consistent with the judgment, be recorded with the register of deeds where the property lies. The deed route puts a signed, acknowledged conveyance in the chain rather than a court document, and this form draws it for one former spouse conveying to the other.

What the judgment settles, and what the deed moves

The court does the dividing. Wis. Stat. § 767.61(1) requires the circuit court to divide the property of the parties upon every judgment of annulment, divorce, or legal separation, and § 767.61(5)(a) directs the court to order title transferred as necessary in accordance with that division. Section 767.61(5)(b)1 then has the judgment notify the parties that moving those interests may take further action of their own. Chapter 766 explains why. Under Wis. Stat. § 766.75, after a dissolution each former spouse owns an undivided one-half interest in the former marital property as a tenant in common unless a decree or later agreement says otherwise, so both names can sit on the record until one of them signs a conveyance.

Why no joinder line appears

Wis. Stat. § 706.02(1)(f) invalidates a conveyance alienating a married person's homestead interest unless each spouse signs or joins, then excepts a conveyance between spouses in the same paragraph. A divorce deed sits clear of that rule from either side of the judgment: signed while the two are still married to each other, it lands inside the express exception; signed after the judgment has ended the marriage, it comes from a grantor with no spouse whose signature the paragraph could reach. So the form carries one signature line and one certificate in the Wis. Stat. § 140.16(1) short form, with no conditional block to leave blank.

An exemption written in the present tense of marriage

The transfer fee line is where this deed parts company with an ordinary family conveyance. Wisconsin's between-spouses exemption reads, in its entirety, Between husband and wife, at Wis. Stat. § 77.25(8m), and no subsection of § 77.25 names divorce or former spouses. Availability follows the parties' status on the date of the conveyance rather than the reason behind it, and Wisconsin courts read these exemptions strictly, as Wolter v. DOR, 231 Wis. 2d 651, records. Wis. Stat. § 77.22(1) makes the stated reason a recording condition and, in the same breath, relieves the register of deeds of any duty to judge an exemption's validity, so the entry is reviewed afterward by the Department of Revenue. The Department's own rule, Wis. Admin. Code § Tax 15.05(4), states that conveyances between husband and wife pursuant to a divorce decree are not subject to the fee but a return must be submitted. Section 9 is that labeled line.

What this configuration carries

Twelve numbered sections run from first page return information and the drafting statement of Wis. Stat. § 59.43(5)(a) to the signature. Between them sit one grantor and one grantee; a judgment section taking the circuit court county, case number, and date; the earlier recorded deed with its document number, which Wis. Stat. § 59.43(2s)(b)1 makes a condition of recording any document referring to a recorded one; the legal description, parcel identification number, and address; consideration; the transfer fee line; a marital status line; and the conveyance section, which quitclaims in one sentence. A former spouse releasing a half interest in the family residence, and one clearing a name off a rental parcel awarded outright, both present the pattern this deed recites; it is searched for as a divorce quit claim deed. It is not drawn for two grantors, a grantee side naming two people, an entity or fiduciary, an agent under a power of attorney, or a grantor married to someone other than the grantee.

Nothing promised, and one flat charge

Wis. Stat. § 706.10(4) fixes what moves: whatever interest the grantor could lawfully convey, and no promise about it, so a mortgage, docketed judgment lien, or easement of record rides through untouched. The register of deeds collects $30 under Wis. Stat. § 59.43(2)(ag)1 whatever the page count, and the state's electronic transfer return travels with the conveyance under Wis. Stat. § 706.05(12).

Three files arrive: the deed as a fillable PDF, a completed example filled in for a Waukesha County conveyance following a Brookfield property division, and a plain language guide taking the numbered sections in turn, with the execution and recording rules. It states Wisconsin law in general terms for information and is not legal advice.