Niobrara County Quitclaim Deed (Married Grantor with Non-Owner Spouse Joinder) Form

A Wyoming deed can carry a signature that hands over nothing. This Wyoming quitclaim deed is built for a married record owner and for the spouse who is not on the title: the owner conveys and quitclaims whatever interest the owner holds, and the spouse signs for one purpose, releasing homestead rights, without joining the granting clause or passing any ownership interest.

Why a spouse who owns nothing still signs

Occupancy, not the name printed on the recorded vesting deed, triggers the Wyoming homestead exemption of Wyoming Statutes 1-20-101 and 1-20-102, raised to $100,000 by the 2023 amendment. A spouse absent from the chain of title can therefore hold a right a conveyance has to clear, and Wyoming Statutes 34-2-121 is where the deed clears it: an instrument conveying, mortgaging, disposing of, or encumbering a homestead carries in substance the words releasing and waiving all rights under the homestead exemption laws of the state, and it is freely and voluntarily signed and acknowledged by the owner and by the spouse of the owner. The section's caption states what follows when either half is missing, and its one exception is a conveyance running directly between the spouses. Wyoming Statutes 2-4-101(b) abolished dower and curtesy, so homestead is the one place a Wyoming deed still asks a non-owner spouse for ink.

What the quitclaim words measure

Wyoming Statutes 34-2-104 prints the form: the grantor, for the consideration stated, conveys and quitclaims to the grantee all interest in described real estate situate in a named Wyoming county. Wyoming Statutes 34-2-105 sets the reach: every legal and equitable right the grantor holds at delivery, and nothing picked up afterward unless wording extending the deed is added. No covenant of title travels with it, and Wyoming Statutes 34-1-135 implies none, so a mortgage, a judgment lien, an easement, or a severed mineral estate rides through unchanged. That measure is also why the joining spouse's line subtracts nothing on the grantee side: the deed moves the owner's interest, and the release clears the exemption over it.

One grantor, one joining spouse, two certificates

The form recites the pair by role rather than by count. Section 1 takes the single record owner, and Section 2 names the joining spouse on the face of the deed as a person who is not a record owner. Section 3 takes the grantee with the mailing address Wyoming Statutes 34-1-119(a) makes a condition of recording, and words describing how two or more grantees hold title follow the names there, because Wyoming presumes no survivorship from co-ownership alone while spouse wording establishes a tenancy by the entirety under Wyoming Statutes 34-1-140(b). The operative section performs the conveyance in the statutory words, prints the homestead release, and states that the joining spouse conveys no ownership interest. Section 10 carries two labeled signature blocks, the second captioned for the homestead release and waiver, and a certificate in the short form of Wyoming Statutes 32-3-115 is paired with each signature, so the signers may appear before different notarial officers on different days; the example shows acknowledgments taken four days apart. An owner who took title before the marriage, by gift, or by inheritance, conveying an occupied home to a buyer, a relative, or a trustee, presents the pattern this deed recites, searched as a spousal joinder deed or a non-owner spouse quit claim deed. The form is not set up for two record owners conveying together, for an entity or trustee grantor, or for a designation that operates at death.

At the Wyoming recording counter

Recording happens with the county clerk where the land lies, priced statewide in Wyoming Statutes 18-3-402(a)(xvi) at twelve dollars for the first page and three for each page after. Wyoming imposes no transfer tax and no documentary stamp. The clerk insists on the sworn Statement of Consideration, the confidential State Board of Equalization form the grantee completes under oath; Wyoming Statutes 34-1-142(b) holds a transfer instrument off the record until that statement arrives, while subsection (c) lets the price and terms stay blank for listed categories, among them nominal transfers between parent and child.

The package delivers the blank fillable deed laid out for the scanner standards Wyoming counties publish, with a two inch band left clear at the top of page one for the recording label, a completed example filled in for a Campbell County conveyance, and a guide covering each numbered section, the homestead joinder rule, notarization, and recording. The materials are informational and are not legal advice.