Wyoming Disclaimer of Interest (Husband and Wife)

When a Wyoming will, gift deed, or transfer on death deed gives real property to a married couple by name, the two of them stand to receive one interest together, and refusing it takes both of their signatures. This form prepares a Wyoming disclaimer of interest for exactly that pattern: two disclaimants who are married to each other as husband and wife, each refusing in that person's own right under Wyoming Statutes 2-1-401 through 2-1-405, on one instrument that carries two signature blocks and two acknowledgment certificates.

Two refusals on one instrument

The form recites in fixed text that the two disclaimants are married to each other and that each acts in that disclaimant's own right rather than as a fiduciary, agent, or guardian. Everything else about the signers is a factual entry: a name and a mailing address for the first disclaimant and the same for the second. The operative section then performs both refusals in one sentence, each disclaimant irrevocably and unqualifiedly refusing to accept, and disclaiming, the interest described in the form, which is the language of W.S. 2-1-402(a)(ii) and 2-1-403(a)(i). The section carries each spouse's statement that the interest and its benefits have not been accepted, and a sentence that the refused interest passes as the statute provides with no direction from either of them. There is no recipient entry anywhere, because a refusal that steers the property to a chosen person is a different act under W.S. 2-1-403(b).

Why a gift to a couple is one estate in Wyoming

Wyoming gives the married-couple designation a legal meaning of its own. Under W.S. 34-1-140(b), a conveyance to grantees described as husband and wife, spouses, or by similar language establishes a tenancy by the entirety unless the deed specifies another form of ownership, and W.S. 34-1-140(a) allows that estate to be created in the instrument itself without a conveyance through a third person. A gift deed to the two of them that names them as husband and wife therefore places one estate in two people, an estate that neither spouse alone can convey. A will's devise to a child and the child's spouse, and a transfer on death deed's designation of both spouses as grantee beneficiaries, likewise give the couple one interest together, in whatever form the instrument states. A refusal of what the couple would take together is a refusal by both. Section 1 of this form identifies the two signers whose refusals the operative section carries, so the instrument refuses whatever the couple would have taken together, and the disclaimer itself conveys nothing.

Where the couple's refused interest goes

Neither spouse decides who takes. W.S. 2-1-404 reads the will or deed of gift first, and where that instrument expressly provides for a disclaimer, its provision controls. Otherwise the interest reverts to a transferor who is still living; where the transferor has died, it passes under the residuary clause of the will, or by descent and distribution if there was no will, as though the disclaimants had not survived; and an interest that would have come by right of survivorship passes as though the disclaimants were not survivors. Because both spouses refuse on this form, the disposition rule runs as though neither of them had survived or been a survivor, and the form adds no direction of its own, the condition W.S. 2-1-403(a)(iv) states. A grantee beneficiary under a transfer on death deed refuses under W.S. 2-18-106 as well, and the recorded deed stays of record after the refusal; this form does not revoke it.

Nine months, counted from the transfer

A signed writing is the first condition in W.S. 2-1-403(a), not the last. The writing reaches the transferor, the transferor's legal representative, or whoever holds legal title to the property, and it does so within nine months after the later of two dates: the day the transfer creating the interest is made, or the day the disclaimant reaches twenty-one. The statute measures that period by receipt, not by mailing and not by recording. Each spouse must also have accepted nothing: no rent, no sale proceeds, no possession under the transfer. The federal definition of a qualified disclaimer in 26 U.S.C. 2518 runs on the same four conditions, and the form states nothing about whether a particular refusal meets either the state or the federal test. W.S. 2-1-403(d) separately provides that a written irrevocable disclaimer which does not qualify is still effective to terminate and pass the interest where the disclaiming party acknowledges, in a prior or contemporaneous writing, that it does not qualify for tax purposes; that acknowledgment is not part of this form.

What the form is set up as, and what it is not

This configuration fixes the signer count at two and the relationship between them as a marriage. Both disclaimants sign, under the headings FIRST DISCLAIMANT and SECOND DISCLAIMANT, and the form carries a separate acknowledgment certificate for each of them in the short form of W.S. 32-3-115(a)(i), so the two spouses may acknowledge on different days, before different notarial officers, or in different states; that separate-certificate design is the form's own, since the Wyoming short form reads name(s) of person(s) and no statute requires one certificate per signer. Spouses named together as grantee beneficiaries of a recorded transfer on death deed, a daughter and her husband devised a house by name, and a couple who are joint grantees under a deed of gift present the two-spouse pattern this form recites. The form is not set up as a refusal by one spouse while the other accepts, as a disclaimer by a personal representative, trustee, or agent under W.S. 2-1-401(b), or as a guardian's disclaimer for a ward under W.S. 2-1-405, each of which follows a different pattern with a different signer.

Recording where the land lies

Wyoming's disclaimer statute measures delivery, not recording, but a disclaimer affects title to land, and W.S. 34-1-102 treats every written instrument by which title may be affected as a conveyance for the county clerk's record. The two acknowledgment certificates are what make the instrument recordable under W.S. 34-1-113 and 34-1-118, and each reserves an area for the officer's rectangular official stamp that W.S. 32-3-116 describes. The recording fee is statutory and the same in every county, and Wyoming has no transfer tax. The form is built to the counties' published scanner rules, with the top two inches of the first page left open for the clerk's recording label and one-inch margins elsewhere, and the guide describes the sworn Statement of Consideration that accompanies title-transferring instruments under W.S. 34-1-142 and why a clerk's office may or may not ask for one with a disclaimer.

The package includes the fillable disclaimer of interest form for a married couple, a completed example filled in for a realistic Natrona County fact pattern in which a daughter and her husband refuse a devised house, and a guide covering every numbered section, the receipt and no-acceptance conditions, both acknowledgments, and recording with the county clerk. These materials are informational; they are not legal advice.