Big Horn County Special Warranty Deed (Married Couple as Grantors) Form

Two spouses, one deed, two signatures. This Wyoming special warranty deed is configured for a married couple conveying real estate together: Section 1 recites as fixed text that the two grantors are married to each other, Section 7 prints the homestead release of Wyoming Statutes Section 34-2-121 word for word, and a signature block and an acknowledgment certificate follow for each spouse. The conveyance is the Section 34-2-136 form, a fee simple with a warranty bounded by the grantors' own chain of title.

Why the second signature is already built in

Wyoming abolished dower and curtesy and is not a community property state, so a spouse releases no marital share by signing a deed. What a spouse releases is the homestead. Section 34-2-121 provides that an instrument conveying a homestead shall contain in substance the words hereby releasing and waiving all rights under and by virtue of the homestead exemption laws of this state, signed and acknowledged by the owner and the spouse of the owner, and declares a noncomplying instrument void. On this deed the words are preprinted in the conveyance sentence and the joining spouse has a grantor block of the same shape as the owner's. Section 34-5-113 explains the marital recital in Section 1: a recorded deed that states no marital status and no release is presumed, after ten years, not to have conveyed a homestead.

A warranty bounded by the grantors' own chain

Section 34-1-135 implies no covenant into a Wyoming deed, so the covenants come from the operative words: convey and specially warrant against all who claim by, through, or under the grantors, but against none other. Section 34-2-137 attaches to them a fee simple with the appurtenances, a covenant that the property is free from encumbrances made by the grantors, and a promise to defend the title against anyone claiming through the grantors; a defect an earlier owner created is outside the promise. Subsection (b) lets exceptions be inserted following the description of the land, and Section 6 of this deed sits exactly there for a recorded easement, a mineral reservation, or the current year's taxes.

Two spouses, two certificates

Each spouse acknowledges the deed before a notarial officer, and each certificate is the Section 32-3-115 short form with a reserved area for the official stamp Section 32-3-114 requires on a paper record. The certificates are separate so the spouses may acknowledge on different days, before different officers, or in different states. No Wyoming statute requires a separate certificate for each signer; the two-certificate layout is this form's design for spouses who are not in the same room.

What this configuration recites and what it is not set up as

The form recites exactly two grantors who are married to each other, each conveying all of that grantor's interest. Spouses who hold title together, as tenants by the entirety, joint tenants, or tenants in common, and a sole-title spouse conveying the family residence with the other spouse joining to release the homestead, both present the married-couple pattern this deed recites. The grantee block is free-form: one buyer, or two buyers with a designation of how they hold, which under Section 34-1-140(b) is a tenancy by the entirety where the grantees are designated as spouses and the deed specifies nothing else. The form is not set up as a conveyance from one spouse directly to the other, as a deed by an unmarried pair or a single grantor, or as a deed signed by a trustee, personal representative, attorney-in-fact, or entity officer.

At the county clerk's counter

The deed is recorded with the county clerk of the county where the land lies, at the statewide fee of twelve dollars for the first page and three dollars for each additional page; this deed records in four pages, and Wyoming charges no transfer tax. The clerk accepts no transfer instrument until the grantee's sworn Statement of Consideration under Section 34-1-142 is received, a confidential form prepared separately and not included in this package.

The package contains three items: the fillable deed, a completed example filled in for a Laramie County couple selling their Cheyenne home, and the guide, which walks through each numbered section and the trip to the clerk. The description above and the guide describe the form and the Wyoming statutes behind it in general terms and are not legal advice.