Big Horn County Quitclaim Deed (Reserving Life Estate) Form

A Wyoming deed silent about duration carries the whole estate out the door. Wyoming Statutes 34-2-101 passes all the estate of the grantor unless the intent to pass a less estate expressly appears or is necessarily implied in the terms of the grant, and that sentence is the hinge this form turns on. One individual owner conveys and quitclaims the property to the grantee named in the deed and, in the same instrument, reserves a life estate for the term of that owner's natural life. Ownership moves at delivery. Possession does not.

What the grantee holds, and when it ripens

The interest the grantee receives is the remainder that follows the reserved life estate. It exists from delivery and becomes possessory when the life tenant dies. Nothing about it waits on a will, and none of it is revocable: undoing the arrangement takes a reconveyance from the grantee. That is the structural line between this instrument, searched as a life estate deed or a deed reserving a life estate, and a designation that operates only at death. Wyoming closes the record without a court file: Wyoming Statutes 2-9-102 and 2-9-103 make an affidavit recorded with a certified death certificate prima facie evidence that the life estate terminated. That affidavit is prepared separately from this package.

Two verbs, and what they leave behind

Two verbs do the conveying, the statutory pair printed at Wyoming Statutes 34-2-104. Around them Wyoming Statutes 34-2-105 draws a boundary at the rights in hand on the day of delivery, leaving anything picked up afterward outside the instrument. Title covenants never join the trip, since Wyoming Statutes 34-1-135 supplies none in an ordinary conveyance, which leaves a mortgage, a judgment lien, an easement of record, and a severed mineral estate exactly where the deed found them. Out of what remains, the reservation carves the grantor's life estate. Wyoming Statutes 34-1-111 runs that logic forward into the life tenancy: a life tenant's later deed granting a greater estate works no forfeiture, and passes only what the tenant could lawfully convey.

One grantor, a reserved life estate, a conditional homestead line

Numbered blanks take the parties, the grantee mailing address Wyoming Statutes 34-1-119(a) makes a condition of recording, the ownership form two or more grantees hold in the remainder, the consideration, and the county legal description. A section of its own takes the terms of the reserved life estate, allocating taxes, insurance, and upkeep during the life tenancy on the face of the instrument rather than leaving them to the background rule that a life estate is impeachable for waste. The operative section performs the conveyance in the statutory words, reserves the life estate, states that possession begins when the reserved estate terminates, disclaims covenants, and prints the release and waiver wording Wyoming Statutes 34-2-121 calls for in substance. Two labeled blocks close it: the grantor, and a conditional block for a spouse of the grantor who joins in that release and conveys no ownership interest, each paired with a certificate in the short form of Wyoming Statutes 32-3-115, so the signers may acknowledge days apart. An owner deeding the remainder in a residence to an adult child while keeping the right to occupy it for life, and an owner passing a ranch parcel to the next generation while holding possession until death, present the reserved life estate pattern this deed recites. The form recites one individual grantor conveying in that grantor's own right, and it is not set up for two record owners, an entity or fiduciary grantor, or an agent signing under a power of attorney.

Fees, the consideration statement, and the clerk

Filing happens with the county clerk where the land sits, at the statewide rate Wyoming Statutes 18-3-402(a)(xvi) sets: twelve dollars for a first page, three for each page after. Wyoming levies no deed transfer tax and no documentary stamp. The sworn Statement of Consideration on the Wyoming State Board of Equalization form reaches the counter alongside the deed, because Wyoming Statutes 34-1-142(b) keeps a transfer instrument off the record until it arrives; it is prepared separately.

The package includes the fillable deed laid out for Wyoming county scanners, with the top two inches of page one left clear for the recording label; a completed example worked through a Johnson County conveyance in which the grantor keeps the home for life; and a guide walking the sections, the reservation and its statutory footing, notarization, and recording. The materials are informational and are not legal advice.