District of Columbia Quitclaim Deed Instructions

Step 1: Know Where the Deed Goes

One office records every deed in the city: the Recorder of Deeds, at 1101 4th Street SW, Washington, DC 20024. It sits inside the Office of Tax and Revenue, the city's tax office, which is why you hand in a tax return along with your deed and why an unpaid tax bill on the property can stop you recording at all.

You can record in person, by mail, or electronically. Electronic filing goes through a private service the District has approved rather than a public website, so it suits title companies and law offices more than somebody filing one deed. If this is your own deed, plan on going in person or mailing it. The counter takes deeds from 9 am to 3 pm, an hour and a half less than it is open for everything else.

Step 2: Look Up the Square, Suffix and Lot

The District doesn't use parcel numbers. It identifies your property by square, suffix and lot. The square is the block, the lot is your property within it, and a suffix turns up where a square has been divided since the city was first laid out. Written together, they're often called the SSL.

You'll need all three, on the deed and on the tax return. The quickest way to find them is the District's own real property search, where you can look your property up by street address. If it also has an assessment and taxation lot number, the Recorder wants that too.

Step 3: Set Up the Page

The document has to be clean and easy to read, and it needs a plainly printed “return to” mailing address so the recorded deed can go back to somebody afterwards. Put that address at the top of the first page.

Wherever somebody signs, print their name underneath as well. The Recorder asks for printed names alongside the signatures, and a signature nobody can read is an everyday reason a document comes back.

Step 4: Fill In Your Name as Grantor

Write your full legal name exactly as it appears on the deed that put the property in your name, then the city and state where you live. If your name has changed since then, DC handles it a particular way: you record a deed confirming the change, rather than writing the new name and hoping the two records line up.

If you own the property with somebody else and you're both giving up your shares, you're both grantors and you both sign.

Step 5: Name the Grantee and Give an Address

Give the grantee's full legal name, and an address where mail will reach them. If the property is going to a trust, name the trustee and the trust, and make it clear which of them is taking it.

Use the grantee's current mailing address carefully. Whatever address the grantee puts on the tax return is where property tax bills and assessment notices go from then on, and if those go to an old address the bills still fall due. If the address changes later, the new owner has 30 days to tell the Office of Tax and Revenue.

Step 6: Write the Words That Transfer the Property

The statutes print model deeds, and none of them is a quitclaim deed. They give the plain shape a deed takes and permit other wording to the same effect. Here is that pattern, with plain labels where the blanks go. The highlighted word is the one you'll change:

The Pattern the Statutes Print

This deed, made this [day] day of [month], in the year [year], by me, [your full name], of [city and state], witnesseth, that in consideration of [what is given in return], I, the said [your full name], do grant unto [grantee's full name], of [grantee's address], all that [legal description].

Witness my hand and seal. [your signature] (SEAL)

Four things to know about that wording:

• Say you're releasing and quitclaiming, not just granting. “I release and quitclaim to [grantee] all my right, title and interest in the property described below” says plainly what you're doing: passing your share, and nothing more.
• Do not add warranty language. “With general warranty” or “with special warranty” after the granting words, or any sentence promising to warrant the property, turns your quitclaim deed into a warranty deed. Nothing else in the pattern above does that.
• “Witness my hand and seal” stays, and so does the seal. Everything in square brackets above is a blank you fill in. (SEAL) isn't — you write it as it stands. Step 9 explains why.
• State the actual consideration, which is whatever the grantee gives you in return. If the transfer is a gift, say so, and Step 10 explains what DC does with that answer.

Step 7: Add the Legal Description

The legal description is what identifies your property in the land records. Copy it from the current recorded deed, word for word and figure for figure. A street address on its own isn't a legal description and won't do.

A DC description is built on the square, suffix and lot from Step 2, together with the subdivision and the reference information held by the Office of the Surveyor, which keeps the city's plats and subdivision records. Include the assessment and taxation lot number if the property has one.

Add the book and page where the current deed is recorded. Can't find your deed? The Recorder's records are public, and its document images go back to August 1921, so you can search for the deed and get a copy.

Step 8: Decide How Co-Owners Will Hold Title

If the deed names two or more grantees but doesn't say how they will hold title, they take as tenants in common. Each owns a separate share that passes through that owner's estate rather than automatically to the other owner. That is the default for married couples and domestic partners as much as anybody else.

If you want the surviving owner to take the other's share automatically, your deed has to say so. The usual wording is “as joint tenants”, and for spouses or domestic partners “as tenants by the entirety”, which DC allows in any conveyance to a married couple or to domestic partners.

You don't need a go-between to add somebody. DC law lets you deed the property straight to yourself and another person, so you can go from sole owner to joint owner with your son or daughter in a single deed. Settle it before the deed is signed: changing it later means another deed, another tax return and another trip to record it.

Step 9: Sign in Front of a Notary, and Under Seal

You sign in front of a notary, who checks that the signature is yours and fills in a certificate saying so. You don't need witnesses. Make sure the notary's own details are complete: the seal, the signature, the printed name and the commission expiration date. A missing expiration date is an everyday reason a deed is turned away at the counter.

DC still requires the deed to be under seal. No wax is necessary: writing SEAL beside the grantor's signature satisfies the requirement, which is why the pattern in Step 6 ends the way it does.

On who signs, the statute and the Recorder's requirements differ. DC law requires the deed to be signed and acknowledged by the person giving up the interest — you, the grantor. The Recorder's published recording requirements go further, asking for the printed names and notarized signatures of everyone giving or receiving the property, and the tax return in Step 10 is signed under oath by all parties to the deed. That is administrative practice rather than a statutory requirement, so the safe course is to have the grantee sign as well, or to ask the Recorder before you file.

Step 10: Fill Out Form FP-7/C, the Tax Return

A completed Form FP-7/C goes in with every deed. It's a tax return, and you file it whether or not any tax turns out to be due, so a gift to your own child needs one just as much as a sale does. You can download it from the Recorder of Deeds tax forms page, where it is the first one listed, as ROD 1.

Most of it is easy: the square, suffix and lot, the property's address and how it's used, and the name, address and telephone number of each grantor and grantee. Two lines are worth slowing down for.

The percentage of interest conveyed. A quitclaim deed often moves part of a property rather than all of it, and this is where you say how much. If you own the whole thing and you're giving away half, you write 50%.

The price, or the value. If money is changing hands, enter it. If little or nothing is paid, the District uses the property's fair market value instead, taken from the latest total assessed value, and that's the figure the form asks you for. DC treats consideration below 30% of fair market value as nominal, so writing $1 or another token amount on the deed doesn't reduce the tax. What that costs is under What Will This Cost? below.

Step 11: Claim an Exemption if One Fits

DC excuses a number of transfers from both taxes, and the ones that come up most on a quitclaim deed are transfers inside a family where nothing is actually paid. Both taxes use the same list, so a transfer that clears one clears the other.

Family and related transfers: which ones DC excuses from both the recordation tax and the transfer tax

The transfer	Exempt from both taxes?	What you file with the deed
Between spouses	Yes, if nothing is paid	Spousal Affidavit (Form ROD 20)
Between registered domestic partners	Yes, if nothing is paid	Domestic Partnership Affidavit (Form ROD 32)
Parent to child, or child to parent	Yes, if nothing is paid	Parental Affidavit (Form ROD 19)
Grandparent to grandchild, or grandchild to grandparent	Yes, if nothing is paid	Grandparent and Grandchild Affidavit (Form ROD 33)
Under a divorce decree, or a written agreement that goes with the divorce or separation	Yes	The decree or the agreement
Into your own revocable trust, where you stay the beneficiary	Yes, if nothing is paid	A copy of the complete trust
Between brother and sister, or any siblings	No	Tax is due on the property's value
Aunt, uncle, niece, nephew or cousin	No	Tax is due on the property's value
A friend, an unmarried partner who is not registered, or anyone else	No	Tax is due on the property's value

Every row needs the deed itself and Form FP-7/C as well, and the affidavits are on the same forms page as the tax return, under the ROD numbers above. “Registered” is doing real work in the second row: DC means a domestic partnership registered with the city, not simply living together, so an unregistered couple pays the tax.

An exemption has to be claimed, and the affidavit is how you claim it. The affidavit is notarized, the same as the deed. On the tax return you name the exemption you're claiming, either by its section of the DC code or by its paragraph number from the published exemption lists. Send the paperwork with it: an exemption claimed without its backup is the same as one you never claimed.

Step 12: Clear Any Unpaid Taxes, Then Record Within 30 Days

Check for unpaid property taxes, assessments or other charges before recording. The Recorder cannot accept the deed until they are paid.

Your deed is due at the Recorder within 30 days of being signed, and the duty to record it falls on the person receiving the property rather than the one handing it over. If day 30 lands on a weekend or a holiday, you have until the next working day. Record it late and there's a penalty on top of the tax.

Recording promptly also protects you. If two people each buy the same property in good faith, DC law prefers whichever deed was recorded first, and an unrecorded deed won't protect you against creditors or against a later buyer who knew nothing about yours. Between you and the grantee, the deed takes effect when you hand it over; as far as everybody else is concerned, it takes effect when the Recorder receives it.

Where do I record a quitclaim deed in Washington, DC?

With the Recorder of Deeds, part of the Office of Tax and Revenue, at 1101 4th Street SW, Washington, DC 20024. DC has no counties, so the same office handles property throughout the city. You can go in person, mail it, or file through one of the private electronic recording services the District has approved. The counter takes deeds from 9 am to 3 pm.

How do I find my Washington, DC property deed online?

The Recorder of Deeds keeps the land records, and you can search document images going back to 1921. Start from the Recorder of Deeds page, which links to the search — note that the search itself runs on a private company's website rather than a government one. For your square, suffix and lot, and the assessed value you may need for the tax return, use the District's real property search instead, where you can look the property up by street address.

Does my spouse have to sign a Washington, DC quitclaim deed?

If your spouse isn't on the title, DC law doesn't need their signature to make your deed valid. DC doesn't follow community property rules, and it did away with dower and curtesy — the old rights that in some states still give a husband or wife a claim on property held in the other's name alone.

A spouse does sign when you own the property together, whether as joint tenants or as tenants by the entirety: then you're both grantors. And a transfer between spouses is one DC excuses from tax, which is a reason to read Step 11 rather than a reason for a signature.

Does a quitclaim deed remove me from the mortgage?

No. A deed moves ownership; your mortgage is a separate contract with the lender. If your name is on the loan you still owe the money after you sign the house over, and a missed payment still lands on your credit.

What takes you off the loan is the lender agreeing to it: the other person refinances, or the lender approves an assumption and releases you in writing. Federal law does stop a lender demanding the whole balance over an ordinary family transfer, but that is a different thing from being released. Our pages on an ex who is still on the deed and transferring property to a family member go through it properly.

Is there a transfer tax on a Washington, DC quitclaim deed?

Yes. DC imposes both a transfer tax and a recordation tax on a taxable deed, and a gift is not automatically tax-free, because the taxes can be based on fair market value when little or nothing is paid.

Each tax is 1.1% on a residential property transferred for less than $400,000, and 1.45% on the whole amount otherwise. DC treats consideration below 30% of fair market value as nominal, so writing in a token dollar changes nothing.

Exemptions are what remove the tax. Transfers between spouses, domestic partners, parent and child, and grandparent and grandchild are excused from both taxes where nothing is actually paid, and so are transfers under a divorce decree and a transfer of bare legal title into your own revocable trust. Each one has to be claimed, with the affidavit or document that belongs to it.

Does a Washington, DC quitclaim deed need witnesses?

No. Nothing in DC law asks for witnesses on a deed. What it asks for is your signature in front of a notary, and a seal. The deed must be under seal; for this purpose, writing SEAL beside the signature is sufficient.

Companies are the exception worth mentioning. There DC expects the signature of the president or a vice-president, attested by the secretary, or else somebody appointed by power of attorney to do it.

Can I get a Washington, DC quitclaim deed notarized online?

Yes. DC allows remote online notarization, and its notary office issues the endorsement a notary needs in order to do it, so this is a working option rather than a law waiting to be switched on. Our online notarization by state page sets out where else it works.

The notary has to be in DC, though you don't. Your identity is confirmed by the notary's own knowledge of you, by a credible witness, or by two different kinds of identity checking. The session is recorded, that recording is kept for ten years, and the notary's certificate has to say the appearance was made over communication technology.

There's a paper version too, useful when a recording office wants an inked signature. You sign the paper deed during the recorded video session, sign a short declaration under penalty of perjury confirming it's the same document, and mail both to the notary within three days.

Where do I get a District of Columbia quitclaim deed form?

DC doesn't publish one. Its statutes print model deeds — a plain deed, a deed by a spouse or domestic partner, a life estate, a trustee's deed and a few others — and a quitclaim deed isn't among them. The Recorder of Deeds publishes a long list of forms too, including the tax return and the exemption affidavits, and a quitclaim deed isn't on that list either.

So you either follow the pattern in Step 6 and leave the warranty words out, or start from a deed form written for DC. Go carefully with a general-purpose quitclaim form downloaded off the internet: one written for nowhere in particular probably won't carry the seal, and may not leave you room for the square, suffix and lot.

If you'd rather start from something built for DC, see our Quitclaim Deed Help page.

What is the difference between a quitclaim deed and a warranty deed in Washington, DC?

The words on the page. A warranty exists only if the deed says it does. Write “with general warranty” and you answer for the title against anybody at all. Write “with special warranty” and you answer for claims that come through you — a lien recorded against you while you owned the place — but not for anything older.

Leave both out and you've given a quitclaim deed: your share of the property passes, and you've promised nothing about the title. That's why the choice belongs at the beginning. Once the deed is signed and recorded, the words in it are the promise, and a quitclaim deed cannot be read as a warranty deed afterwards.