Illinois Quitclaim Deed Instructions

Step 1: Find the Right County Office

An Illinois deed is recorded in the county where the property is located, which is not necessarily the county you live in. In a county of 60,000 people or more, the office is an elected recorder; in a smaller county the county clerk is the recorder. Either way the county's website will say where deeds are recorded and what that office asks for.

Illinois has 102 counties and there is no single state directory of their recording offices. Cook County, the state's largest by far, has its own detailed requirements, and several of the steps below say where Cook differs.

Step 2: Set Up the First Page the Way the Fee Law Expects

Illinois charges a single flat fee for a deed that meets its standard document rules, and a higher fee for one that does not. A standard document is on white letter-size paper, printed in black, with at least a half-inch margin on every side, a blank space of 3 inches by 5 inches in the upper right corner of the first page for the recorder, nothing stapled or taped to any page, and references to no more than five parcels or prior documents.

Three things have to be on the face of the deed. The recorder will not record a deed unless it shows the name and address of the person who prepared it, in a statement such as "This instrument was prepared by (name), (address)". The deed also has to carry the name and address to which future tax bills should be sent, and a mail-to name and address for returning the recorded deed.

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 deed the grantor received, with the grantor's place of residence, which is what Illinois's statutory deed form asks for. If the grantor took title under a different name, before a marriage for instance, put both names on the deed so the county index connects the two records.

Illinois wants every signer's name typed or printed beneath the signature, and the name of the notary beneath theirs. That is in the statute, and it is what lets the recorder index the deed correctly.

Step 4: Fill In the Grantee's Information

The grantee is the person, company or trust receiving the interest. Give the full legal name and a mailing address. Outside Cook County the recorder will not record a deed that lacks the grantee's name and address for tax billing; in every county the deed has to say where future tax bills go, and that is usually the same address.

In Cook County, an exempt deed needs two sworn statements attached, one by the grantor and one by the grantee, saying that the grantee is a natural person or an entity allowed to hold Illinois real estate. The Cook County Clerk calls it the grantor/grantee affidavit, and a family transfer for no money is exactly the kind of exempt deed it applies to.

Step 5: Add the Legal Description and the PIN

Copy the complete legal description from the current recorded deed, and add the property index number, the PIN printed on the property tax bill. The transfer declaration asks for the PIN, and Cook County will not record a deed without it. A street address is not a legal description, though Cook wants the common address on the deed as well.

Two Illinois rules bite on descriptions. If the description is by metes and bounds, the statute requires it to give the section, township and range with an identifiable point of beginning, and each course with a distance and a direction. And if the deed conveys less than the whole of an existing parcel, Illinois's Plat Act comes in: dividing land into parts of under five acres calls for a recorded subdivision plat unless one of the Act's exceptions applies, and the recorder may ask for a Plat Act affidavit naming the exception. A deed of a whole platted lot, or a whole existing parcel, needs no new plat, but some recorders want the affidavit with every deed anyway, so check the recorder's website before you go.

Step 6: Use the Statutory Wording

Illinois publishes a quitclaim deed form in its statutes, and the operative words are that the grantor "convey and quit claim" the property to the grantee. A deed in that form passes all of the grantor's existing legal and equitable rights in the property and nothing more. It does not reach title the grantor acquires later, unless words are added saying so.

Do not borrow the words from the other statutory form. A deed that says the grantor "conveys and warrants" is a warranty deed, and Illinois reads three covenants into it: that the grantor owned the property outright, that it was free of encumbrances, and that the grantor will defend the title. A quitclaim deed is meant to make none of those promises.

Step 7: Choose the Ownership Wording Carefully

Name two or more grantees and Illinois treats them as tenants in common, each with a separate share that passes under that person's will. A joint tenancy exists only if the deed expressly declares that the property passes "not in tenancy in common but in joint tenancy". Survivorship has to be written in.

A married couple, or partners in a civil union, have a third choice for the home they live in. A deed of homestead property that expressly declares the grantees take as tenants by the entirety creates that estate, which carries survivorship. It lasts only while the marriage does: on a judgment of divorce it becomes a tenancy in common by operation of law. A couple can create it by deeding to themselves; no third party is needed. And once property is held by the entirety, no deed of it is effective unless both spouses sign.

Step 8: Decide Whether Your Spouse Has to Sign

Illinois abolished dower and curtesy in 1972, and it is not a community property state, so a spouse who is not on the title generally does not sign to release a marital right. There is one large exception, and it is the family home.

Every Illinois homeowner has an estate of homestead in the residence they occupy, and the statute says no conveyance of that estate is valid unless it is in writing and signed by the owner and the owner's spouse. That is why Illinois deeds of a home carry a line releasing and waiving homestead rights, and why the non-owning spouse signs it. The statute makes one exception: a conveyance from one spouse to the other is effective without the other spouse joining.

Where the couple hold the home as tenants by the entirety, both have to sign for a separate reason, covered in Step 7. Where a married owner is conveying property that is not the family home, the homestead rule does not apply, and only the owner signs.

Step 9: Sign in Front of a Notary

The grantor's signature has to be acknowledged before a notary public, or before a county clerk or a court, and the notary's seal has to appear. No witnesses are required. A deed acknowledged in another state before a notary of that state is accepted for recording in Illinois.

Signing remotely. Illinois allows two kinds of online notarization, and they work differently. In a remote notarization the notary watches you sign a paper deed over video; you have to state on the recording that you are physically in Illinois, you send the signed document to the notary by the next day, and the notary signs and returns it. In an electronic notarization a specially registered electronic notary, located in Illinois, notarizes an electronic document over video after checking your ID, and the certificate says the act was performed by audio-video communication. Our Remote Online Notarization by State page covers how the rules differ elsewhere.

Step 10: Deal With the Transfer Tax and the Declaration

Illinois taxes the transfer, and the deed cannot be recorded until the tax question is settled one of two ways. If the transfer is exempt under one of the exemptions that excuse the declaration, the exemption is written on the face of the deed, signed and dated. Otherwise a real estate transfer declaration, Form PTAX-203, goes to the recorder with the deed, signed by at least one seller and one buyer or their agents.

For the transfers this page is about, the exemption that matters is the one for a deed where the actual consideration is less than $100. A gift to a child, a transfer between spouses for nothing, or a deed into your own trust fits it when no mortgage stays on the property, and for that exemption the law asks for no declaration at all, only the notation. A mortgage can change that, because the Department of Revenue counts the balance still owed as part of the price; the cost section below explains. Some recorders, Cook County among them, still ask you to enter the exempt transfer in the state's MyDec system; the recorder's website says whether yours does. Our Illinois transfer declaration page walks through the form, the exemptions and MyDec.

Step 11: Record the Deed

Take or mail the acknowledged deed, with the declaration or the exemption notation, the Cook County affidavits if the property is there, any transfer tax due, and the recording fee, to the recorder or county clerk. Cook County also asks whether any city transfer tax has been paid, because Chicago and a number of suburbs charge their own.

Recording is what makes the deed count against the world. Under Illinois's statute a deed takes effect, as to creditors and later buyers who do not know about it, only from the time it is filed for record, and until then it is void as to them. There is no deadline, and that risk is the only penalty for waiting.

Where do I record an Illinois quitclaim deed?

With the recorder in the county where the property is located, or with the county clerk in a county of fewer than 60,000 people, where the clerk holds the recorder's job. Illinois has 102 counties and no single state directory of their recording offices, so start from the county's own website. Cook County publishes its own list of what a deed must carry, and it is longer than the state's list.

Does my spouse have to sign an Illinois quitclaim deed?

If the property is the home you live in, yes. Illinois law says no conveyance of the homestead estate is valid unless it is signed by the owner and the owner's spouse, which is why Illinois deeds of a home carry a homestead waiver line for the spouse to sign. A deed from one spouse to the other is the exception; it works without the other spouse joining. For property that is not the family home, a spouse who is not on the title does not sign, because Illinois has no dower and is not a community property state.

Will I owe transfer tax if I give property to a family member in Illinois?

Not if nothing is paid and no mortgage stays on the property, and then you do not file the declaration either. A deed where the actual consideration is less than $100 is exempt from the state transfer tax and from any county tax, and for that exemption the law requires only a notation on the face of the deed, signed and dated, rather than a PTAX-203. Three cautions: the Department of Revenue counts a mortgage still owed on the property as part of the price, which can take the deed out of that exemption; a city transfer tax may have its own rules; and in Cook County an exempt deed needs sworn grantor and grantee statements attached and, in practice, an entry in MyDec.

Do I have to file a PTAX-203 with a quitclaim deed?

Only if the transfer is not exempt, or falls under one of the two exemptions that still require the form. A sale needs the declaration and pays the tax. A gift of property that still has a mortgage on it may need the declaration too, because the Department of Revenue counts the balance as part of the price, though if the deed says the property is transferred subject to the mortgage, the balance is left out of the tax. A gift for less than $100 needs only the exemption written on the deed. Transfers to or from a government body or a charity, and even exchanges of real estate, are exempt from the tax but still need the declaration filed. Our Illinois transfer declaration page goes through each one.

Can I get an Illinois deed notarized online?

Yes, in either of two ways. A remote notarization is a paper deed signed on video with an Illinois notary watching; you must be physically in Illinois, and you send the signed deed to the notary by the next day for the notary's signature and seal. An electronic notarization is done by an electronic notary, registered as such with the Secretary of State and located in Illinois, on an electronic document. Ask the service which one it offers, because the paper route needs the deed in the mail afterwards.

Where do I get an Illinois quitclaim deed form?

Illinois publishes the wording of a quitclaim deed in its statutes, so the operative sentence is settled. What a form written for no particular state leaves out is everything Illinois wraps around it: the preparer's name and address, without which the recorder will not record; the line saying where future tax bills go; the homestead waiver for a spouse to sign; the space for the exemption notation; and a blank 3-by-5-inch box in the upper right corner of the first page that decides whether you pay the standard fee. If you would rather start from something built for this state, our Quitclaim Deed Help page lists prepared forms and deed preparation services.