Big Horn County Affidavit of Survivorship (Surviving Joint Tenant) Form

When one of two Wyoming joint tenants dies, the survivor already owns the whole property. The right of survivorship written into the vesting deed did its work at the moment of death, and no court order, probate, or new deed moves title. What the land records lack, until someone supplies it, is any trace of that death. This Wyoming Affidavit of Survivorship (Surviving Joint Tenant) is the instrument that supplies it: the surviving joint tenant swears to the death of the other joint tenant, identifies the deed that created the joint tenancy, attaches a certified copy of the death certificate, and records the affidavit with the county clerk of the county where the property lies.

A sworn record of a death, not a transfer

Wyoming Statutes Section 2-9-102 describes the affidavit of survivorship as the way a person interested in the property makes a joint tenant's death a matter of record without going to court. The statute sets the content: a description of the property, the instrument under which the estate was vested with references to its recording data, and a certification under oath that the decedent is the party named in that instrument whose death terminated the decedent's estate in the property. A copy of the official death certificate, certified by the public authority that holds the original, is attached. Section 2-9-103 then gives the recorded affidavit its standing: an affidavit signed, sworn to, and recorded substantially in compliance with Section 2-9-102 is prima facie evidence that the facts stated in it are true. The procedure is permissive and nonjudicial, and it is independent of the district court petition the neighboring Section 2-9-101 makes available for the same purpose.

The form is also written to Section 34-11-101, Wyoming's general statute on recorded affidavits of facts affecting title. That section calls for an affidavit made by a person with knowledge of the facts who is competent to testify to them, states that a certificate of acknowledgment is not required on an affidavit containing a jurat, requires a description of the land and the name of the record owner, and directs the clerk to index the affidavit in the record owner's name as deeds are indexed. The affidavit carries each of those elements, and it says on its face that it is not a conveyance.

Built for exactly two joint tenants

This configuration states one pattern and states it as fixed text: a vesting instrument that conveyed the property to the decedent and the affiant, and to no other person, as joint tenants with right of survivorship, and an affiant who survived. One person signs. The form carries one signature block and one verification on oath or affirmation, the jurat a Wyoming notarial officer completes in the short form Section 32-3-115 supplies. The affidavit's fixed statements cover what a title examiner reads for: that the affiant is the surviving joint tenant named in the deed, that the decedent is the party whose death terminated the decedent's estate under that deed, that to the affiant's knowledge the joint tenancy was not severed before the death, and that the property remains vested solely in the affiant as the surviving joint tenant. The entries the affiant supplies are factual: the two names, the date of death, the vesting deed's type, date, and recording reference, the county, the legal description copied from the deed, a street address, and a parcel number.

Pairs that hold Wyoming real estate this way appear throughout the record: siblings who inherited or bought together, a parent and an adult child, unmarried partners, and spouses whose deed named them expressly as joint tenants with right of survivorship. The deed's words decide the estate. Wyoming does not presume survivorship from two names on a deed, and since 2023 Section 34-1-140(b) deems a deed to grantees described as husband and wife or spouses to create a tenancy by the entirety unless the deed specifies another form. A tenancy by the entirety, a tenancy in common, a life estate, a joint tenancy among three or more owners, and a death under a recorded transfer on death deed each present a different set of facts from the two-joint-tenant pattern this affidavit states, and the guide walks through how the vesting deed's wording sorts them.

Sworn before a notarial officer, recorded with the county clerk

An affidavit is sworn, not acknowledged. The affiant signs in the presence of a notarial officer and swears or affirms to the truth of the statements, and the officer completes the verification on oath or affirmation with the venue, date, affiant's name, signature, title, commission information, and official stamp that Wyoming's notarial law requires. No spouse joins, because the affidavit does not convey, mortgage, or encumber a homestead and the joinder rule of Section 34-2-121 reaches only those instruments.

The county clerk records the original signed affidavit with the certified death certificate attached. Wyoming's recording fee is set statewide at twelve dollars for the first page and three dollars for each additional page, and no transfer tax applies. Wyoming has no statewide margin or type size statute, but several county clerks publish their own expectations, so the form reserves the top two inches of its first page for the clerk's recording label, keeps one inch margins elsewhere, prints its body in twelve point type, and prints the affiant's name under the signature line.

The package includes the fillable affidavit form, a completed example filled in for a Laramie County fact pattern, and the guide that walks through every section, the signing requirements, and the recording process. This description and the guide describe the form and the governing Wyoming statutes in general terms; they are not legal advice.