Hawaii Quitclaim Deed Instructions

Step 1: Find Out Which Recording System Covers the Property

Hawaii records every deed in one place, but it keeps two kinds of records. The Regular System works like the recording offices in other states: the deed goes on the public record, and the record is there for anyone to search. Land Court is different. The State itself certifies who owns Land Court property, and a deed to Land Court property transfers nothing until the Bureau registers it and issues a new certificate of title. Some property is in both systems at once, and a deed to it has to satisfy both.

The current deed tells you which. A Bureau label in the top right corner of the first page means Regular System. A label in the top left means Land Court. Labels in both corners mean both. Land Court document numbers also start with the letter T, and Regular System numbers do not.

Whichever system it is, the deed goes to the same counter. The Bureau of Conveyances in Honolulu is the only recording office in the state, so the island the property sits on makes no difference to where the deed is sent. If you cannot find the current deed, the Bureau's website has an online search of everything recorded since 1976.

Step 2: Set Up the First Page the Way the Bureau Requires

Hawaii's recording statute lays out the first page. The top three and one-half inches stay blank for the Bureau's recording information. The one inch below that carries the name and address the recorded deed should be returned to, starting one and one-half inches in from the left edge. Then the first page names the grantors, gives the names and addresses of the grantees, says what kind of document it is, and gives the Tax Map Key number. The total number of pages goes on the first page too.

The rest is housekeeping, and every item of it is on the Bureau's rejection notice: letter-size paper, printed on one side only, pages numbered from one, stapled once in the top left corner, with no cover or backing sheet and nothing taped or glued on that could hide text. Highlighting is out as well, because the Bureau scans every document and a highlighted line does not reproduce.

The Bureau publishes a one-page cover sheet that supplies the blank top space and the return-address block, so a deed drafted without them can still be recorded with the cover sheet placed on top. It is on the Bureau's forms page, linked under Official Sources below.

Step 3: Fill In the Grantor's Information

The grantor is the person giving up whatever interest they hold. Use the full legal name exactly as it appears on the current deed, with no initials. The Bureau indexes by the name as it first appears in the document, and it returns a deed whose names do not match all the way through, from the body of the deed to the signature line to the notary's certificate.

The grantor's name also has to be typed or printed beneath the signature. A signature on its own, however legible, is not enough, and a missing printed name is one of the specific reasons on the Bureau's rejection notice.

Step 4: Fill In the Grantee's Information

The grantee is the person, company or trust receiving the interest. The Bureau will not record a deed without the grantee's mailing address, so give the full name and the address where the new owner will actually get mail after the transfer. The conveyance tax form asks separately for the address the county should send property tax notices to, so the two can differ.

Land Court asks for more. A Land Court deed has to say whether each grantee is married or unmarried and, if married, give the spouse's full name. A grantee that is a corporation or partnership has to show the state where it is registered and its address, and the Bureau's rejection notice also asks for a letter or certificate of good standing for a corporate party. The Regular System statute asks for none of this, but a deed to property in both systems has to include it, and nothing stops you including it in any deed.

Step 5: Add the Legal Description, the Tax Map Key and the Prior Document Number

Copy the complete legal description from the current deed, in full rather than summarized. A street address is not a legal description, and the Bureau records the description, not the address.

Two numbers go with it. The first is the Tax Map Key, or TMK, which is the county's parcel number. The recording statute asks for it on the first page, and the conveyance tax form cannot be completed without it. It is printed on the property tax bill and the assessment notice. The second is the document number, or book and page, of the deed by which the grantor acquired the property. The Bureau's rule says it plainly: no document is recorded unless it contains a reference to the book and page or document number of the recording of the interest acquired.

In Land Court there is a third. The certificate of title number has to appear in the body of the deed itself, not only on a cover sheet, or the assistant registrar will not accept it. If the certificate number on the current deed is no longer current, the current one has to be endorsed on the deed.

Step 6: Check Whether the Property Is Leasehold

Look at what the current deed actually conveys. If it conveys a leasehold interest, an apartment lease or a ground lease with some number of years left to run, then your quitclaim deed does not pass the land. It assigns the lease, and it passes only what the lease gives: the right to hold the property until the lease ends, subject to the rent and every other term.

Read the lease before drafting anything. What the landowner is owed depends on what is on the land. For a house on its own lot, Hawaii law lets you assign the lease without the landowner's consent, whatever the lease says, unless the landowner is a state or county agency; but the assignment does not take effect until the landowner has been sent a copy or written notice, paid a service charge, and given the new holder's written promise to perform the lease. A condominium lease is not covered by that statute, so if it requires the landowner's consent, the deed alone does not satisfy it. The conveyance tax reaches lease assignments as well as deeds of the land itself, so the tax form is needed either way. Our Hawaii leasehold property page goes into the detail.

Step 7: Choose the Ownership Wording Carefully

If the deed names two or more grantees, say how they will hold the property. A conveyance to two or more people in Hawaii creates a tenancy in common, each with a separate share that passes under that person's will, unless it "manifestly appears" from the deed that a joint tenancy or a tenancy by the entirety was intended. Survivorship, in other words, has to be written in.

Two forms carry survivorship. Joint tenancy is open to anyone. Tenancy by the entirety is open only to a married couple or to registered reciprocal beneficiaries, a Hawaii status for two adults who are barred from marrying each other, such as two siblings.

Tenancy by the entirety matters beyond survivorship. Hawaii's Supreme Court held in 1977 that property held by the entirety cannot be reached by a creditor of one spouse alone, and the statute lets a married couple set it up without the old device of deeding to a third party and back. One spouse can convey directly to both as tenants by the entirety, or to the other spouse alone.

Step 8: Decide Whether Your Spouse Has to Sign

In Hawaii the people who have to sign are the people who own the interest being transferred. If the property is in your name alone, your spouse does not have to join the deed to release a marital right. The two rights that once required that signature, dower and curtesy, were abolished in Hawaii, and Hawaii is not a community property state. If you and your spouse hold the property together, in any form, a deed of the whole property needs both signatures.

Two cautions. Where the property is in Land Court, the deed has to state the grantee's marital status and name the spouse even though that spouse is not signing. And where a transfer is part of a divorce, the family court's decree controls what gets conveyed. A deed made under a court order in the divorce is exempt from conveyance tax, where a voluntary deed between former spouses might not be.

Step 9: Sign in Front of a Notary

A Hawaii deed is recorded on the strength of the grantor's acknowledgment: the grantor signs, and a notary certifies that the person appeared, was known to the notary or proved their identity, and acknowledged signing the deed. No witnesses are required. The statute gives the wording of the certificate, and Hawaii's notary law requires it to carry the date, the notary's signature, printed name, commission expiration date and seal, and the place where the act was performed. The Bureau's rejection notice singles out two of those, the venue line and the seal, as things it sends deeds back for.

Names have to agree here too. The name in the notary's certificate has to match the name in the body of the deed and the name printed under the signature. A deed that says William in the body, is signed Bill, and is certified for W. Smith comes back.

Signing from another island, the mainland or abroad. Hawaii allows remote online notarization. The notary has to be a Hawaii notary, physically in Hawaii, who has registered with the Attorney General to perform online acts; the signer can be anywhere, including outside the United States when the document concerns property in the United States. The notary identifies you by video, keeps a recording, and adds the words "This notarial act involved the use of communication technology" to the certificate. A deed acknowledged before a notary in another state is also accepted. A deed acknowledged before a foreign notary needs an apostille or consular authentication before the Bureau will take it.

Settle one question before you book an online session: how the finished document reaches the Bureau. The Bureau accepts electronic documents through recording vendors it has approved, and its rules allow an electronic signature in place of an original, so ask the notary service whether it delivers a Hawaii deed in a form the Bureau will record. Our Remote Online Notarization by State page covers how the rules differ elsewhere.

Step 10: Complete Form P-64A or Form P-64B

No Hawaii deed is recorded without one of the Department of Taxation's two conveyance tax forms attached. Form P-64A declares what was paid and pays the tax. Form P-64B claims an exemption. Which one you need is worked out in the cost section below. The short version is that a transfer between spouses, or between parent and child, for a nominal amount uses P-64B, and so does a transfer to or from your own revocable living trust. If a mortgage stays on the property, ask the Department of Taxation before claiming the family exemption, because the law does not say whether it still applies.

P-64B has two routes, and they are not interchangeable. The exemptions in Part IV, which include the family and living-trust transfers, are filed straight at the Bureau with the deed. The exemptions in Part III, which include a transfer for $100 or less and a deed that only corrects an earlier one, go to the Department of Taxation's Technical Section first, with a copy of the deed, for approval before the Bureau will record. The Department says it reviews those within ten business days.

Both forms want the Tax Map Key, the names exactly as they appear on the deed, and the date of transaction, which is the later of the day the deed was signed and the day of the last acknowledgment. P-64A has to be signed by at least one grantor and one grantee; P-64B by one or the other. The grantor is the person liable for the tax, and the form and any tax are due within ninety days of the transaction whether or not the deed is ever recorded.

Step 11: Record the Deed

Take or mail the signed deed, the tax form, the tax if any, and the recording fee to the Bureau of Conveyances at 1151 Punchbowl Street, Room 120, in Honolulu, or post it to P.O. Box 2867, Honolulu, HI 96803. If you mail it, the Bureau asks for the original plus one copy and two stamped, self-addressed envelopes, so that a stamped copy comes back to you confirming the recording. Checks are payable to the Bureau of Conveyances.

What recording does depends on the system. In the Regular System, recording protects you against the world: a deed that is not recorded is void against a later buyer or lender who paid value, did not know about your deed, and recorded first. In Land Court, registration is the transfer itself. Until the Bureau registers the deed it operates only as a contract between you and the grantee and does not bind the land. When it does, the old certificate of title is canceled and a new one is issued in the grantee's name, for a separate fee.

The Bureau examines documents in the order received and, if it accepts one, records it as of the moment of acceptance. A document accepted after the recording window closes is recorded at the start of the next business day. Nothing recorded can be taken back off the record without a court order, so read the deed once more before it goes in.

Consideration	Standard rate, per $100	Buyer not eligible for home exemption
Under $600,000	10 cents	15 cents
$600,000 to under $1,000,000	20 cents	25 cents
$1,000,000 to under $2,000,000	30 cents	40 cents
$2,000,000 to under $4,000,000	50 cents	60 cents
$4,000,000 to under $6,000,000	70 cents	85 cents
$6,000,000 to under $10,000,000	90 cents	$1.10
$10,000,000 and above	$1.00	$1.25

Where do I record a Hawaii quitclaim deed?

At the Bureau of Conveyances in Honolulu, whichever island the property is on. Hawaii has no county recorders; the one state office at 1151 Punchbowl Street takes every deed, in person during its recording hours or by mail to P.O. Box 2867, Honolulu, HI 96803. Step 11 says what to put in the envelope if you mail it.

How do I tell whether my property is in Land Court or the Regular System?

Look at the recording label on the first page of your current deed. The Bureau puts its label in the top right corner for a Regular System document and in the top left for Land Court; a label in both corners means the property is in both systems and the deed has to satisfy both. Land Court document numbers also start with the letter T. If the property is in Land Court, the deed must carry the certificate of title number in its body, along with the grantee's marital status and the spouse's full name.

Will I owe conveyance tax if I give property to a family member?

If the transfer is between spouses, or between a parent and a child in either direction, for nothing or a nominal amount, no. That transfer is exempt, and you file Form P-64B Part IV with the deed instead of paying. A gift to anyone else is exempt only if the consideration is $100 or less, and that exemption has to be approved by the Department of Taxation before the Bureau will record. Check for a mortgage first in either case. Hawaii counts a lien left on the property as consideration, and whether that defeats the family exemption is a question the law does not answer, so ask the Department's Technical Section before you file.

Does my spouse have to sign a Hawaii quitclaim deed?

Only if your spouse is an owner. Hawaii abolished dower and curtesy, and it is not a community property state, so a spouse whose name is not on the title gives up no marital right by staying off the deed. If the two of you hold the property together, both of you sign. Land Court adds one wrinkle: the deed has to state whether the new owner is married and, if so, name the spouse, even though that spouse signs nothing.

Can I get a Hawaii deed notarized online?

Yes. Hawaii allows remote online notarization by a Hawaii notary who is physically in the state and has registered with the Attorney General for online work. You can be on another island, on the mainland, or abroad. The notary confirms your identity by video, records the session, and adds a line to the certificate saying communication technology was used. Before you book, ask the service how it gets the finished deed to the Bureau of Conveyances, which takes electronic documents through approved vendors.

Where do I get a Hawaii quitclaim deed form?

Hawaii does not publish one. The Bureau of Conveyances describes Hawaii as "not a forms state" and hands out no deed to fill in. A form written for no state in particular will not have the three-and-a-half-inch blank at the top of the first page, the return-address block beneath it, a line for the Tax Map Key, or a place to cite the document number of the deed you are transferring under, and the Bureau's rejection notice lists every one of those. For Land Court property it will also lack the certificate of title number and the grantee's marital status. If you would rather start from something built for this state, our Quitclaim Deed Help page lists prepared forms and deed preparation services.