Iowa Quitclaim Deed Instructions

Step 1: Find the Right County Recorder

An Iowa deed is recorded with the county recorder in the county where the property is located, which is not necessarily the county you live in. Iowa has 99 counties and 99 recorders, and the deed also passes through the county auditor's transfer books after it is recorded, though you hand it in at the recorder's counter.

Iowa has no state-run directory of its 99 recorders, so start from the county's own website, which will give the recorder's address, hours and phone number. The recorders share a statewide electronic recording system that takes deeds from people who register to submit them, though an individual recording one deed can still mail it or bring it in.

Step 2: Set Up the First Page the Way the Format Statute Requires

Iowa's recording statute tells recorders to refuse a document that does not meet its format standards, and the first page carries most of them. The top three inches are left blank for the recorder. Every other margin is at least three-quarters of an inch. Below the blank space the first page has to show, in order of the statute: the name, address and telephone number of the person who prepared the deed; the name of the taxpayer and a complete mailing address for property tax statements; a return address; the title of the document; every grantor's name; every grantee's name; and the legal description with the parcel number where the county uses one.

The paper is white and at least 20-pound weight, the type at least 10 points, and every signature in black or dark blue ink with the name typed or printed beneath it. A document that misses the layout rules can still be recorded on payment of an extra $10; one that is illegible, that has no printed names beneath its signatures, or that lacks the taxpayer's name and mailing address is refused outright.

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, and state whether the grantor is married. In Iowa that is not a formality: if the grantor is married, the spouse signs too, for the reasons in Step 8, so the deed should either name the spouse as a grantor as well or carry a separate release for the spouse to sign.

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, and make sure the "name of the taxpayer and complete mailing address" line on the first page points to whoever should receive the property tax statements from now on. In a family transfer that is usually the grantee.

Step 5: Add the Legal Description and the Parcel Number

Copy the complete legal description from the current recorded deed. In a platted town or subdivision it runs by lot, block and addition; outside one it runs by section, township and range, which is how Iowa farmland is described. A street address is not a legal description. Add the county parcel number from the property tax statement, because the format statute asks for it where the county uses one.

If the land is agricultural land, one more Iowa rule applies: the grantee has to record the conveyance within 180 days, and where the buyer is a corporation, limited partnership or trust, or is not a United States citizen or resident, the declaration of value has to identify the buyer as such.

Step 6: Use the Statutory Wording

Iowa's Conveyances Act gives the form of a quitclaim deed in one sentence: "For the consideration of ______ dollars, I hereby quitclaim to ______ all my interest in the following tract of real estate (describing it)." That, varied to suit the circumstances, is sufficient. The statute's deed "in fee simple without warranty" uses "convey" instead, and its warranty deed adds "and I warrant the title against all persons whomsoever". A quitclaim deed keeps to "quitclaim" and adds no warranty.

Step 7: Choose the Ownership Wording Carefully

Name two or more grantees and Iowa treats them as tenants in common, each with a separate share that passes under that person's will, unless the deed expresses a contrary intent. Iowa's statute then lists three things that create a presumption of joint tenancy with right of survivorship: the deed identifies two grantees as married to each other; it uses the words "joint tenants" or "joint tenancy"; or it uses the words "or their survivor" about the grantees. Any of those puts survivorship in unless the deed says otherwise.

So a deed to a married couple that names them as spouses gives them survivorship by presumption, and a deed to anyone else has to say "as joint tenants with right of survivorship" to do the same. A divorce decree severs a joint tenancy and turns it into a tenancy in common in equal shares unless the decree says otherwise.

Step 8: Have Your Spouse Sign

If the grantor is married, the grantor's spouse signs the deed. Two Iowa statutes make that the rule, and between them they reach every parcel, not only the family home. First, a conveyance of the homestead by a married owner is not valid unless the spouse executes the same or a like instrument, or a power of attorney for it. Second, and this is the one that reaches every parcel, Iowa gives a surviving spouse an elective share of one-third of all real estate the other spouse owned at any time during the marriage, unless the surviving spouse made an express written relinquishment of the right. A deed the spouse did not join leaves that one-third claim hanging over the property for as long as the spouse survives.

That is why Iowa deeds carry the spouse's signature and a line releasing "dower, homestead and distributive share", whatever names are on the title, and why Iowa deeds state each grantor's marital status. The homestead statute lists a few exceptions, a divorce decree ending the other spouse's interest among them, but for a family transfer the practical rule is short: married grantor, two signatures.

Step 9: Sign in Front of a Notary

A deed is not lawfully recorded unless it was first acknowledged before a notary or other notarial officer. The notary's certificate has to be signed and dated, name the place where the acknowledgment was taken, state the notary's title and commission expiration, and carry the notary's stamp. No witnesses are required. An acknowledgment taken in another state is accepted if it meets Iowa's notary chapter, which recognizes other states' notaries.

Signing online. Iowa allows remote online notarization. The notary has to be an Iowa notary, physically in Iowa, who has completed the Secretary of State's approved training and registered to perform remote acts, using one of the technology vendors the Secretary of State has approved; a video-call program on its own does not qualify. The signer can be anywhere, including outside the United States when the document concerns property in the United States. The notary identifies you by two identity-proofing methods or by personal knowledge, records the session and keeps the recording ten years, and adds the words "This notarial act involved the use of communication technology" to the certificate. Our Remote Online Notarization by State page covers how the rules differ elsewhere.

Step 10: Settle the Transfer Tax, the Declaration of Value and the Groundwater Statement

Three pieces of paper travel together in Iowa, and the recorder will not record a deed that is missing the one it needs. The transfer tax is 80 cents for each $500 of consideration above the first $500, and there is no tax where there is no consideration or where the deed corrects title and says so. The declaration of value reports the price to the assessor, and every deed needs one unless it falls under an exemption the statute lists, in which case a signed exemption statement on the deed takes its place. And with each declaration of value goes a groundwater hazard statement, or, where the property has no well, tank, waste site, burial site or private sewage system, a one-sentence statement to that effect on the first page of the deed.

For the transfers this page is about, the exemption that matters is the one for a deed between spouses, or between parent and child, without actual consideration. The statute adds a detail: canceling a debt between the two of them that is secured by the property, up to the property's value, does not count as consideration for that exemption. A bank mortgage the grantee takes over does count, and takes the deed out of the exemption. A deed correcting an earlier one, a deed between former spouses under a divorce decree, a deed distributing an estate or a trust, and any deed for $500 or less are exempt as well. For each of those the declaration form is not filed; the exemption is written on the deed instead. Our Iowa declaration of value page goes through the form, every exemption, and the groundwater statement that rides with it.

Step 11: Record the Deed

Take or mail the acknowledged deed, with the declaration of value or the exemption statement, the groundwater hazard statement or the no-hazard sentence, any transfer tax due, the recording fee and the auditor's transfer fee, to the county recorder. The recorder collects everything at once, records and indexes the deed, and passes it to the auditor to be entered in the transfer books.

Recording is what protects the new owner. Under Iowa's statute an instrument affecting real estate is of no validity against a later buyer for value without notice unless it has been filed and recorded in the county where the land is located. There is no deadline for a house or a town lot, but a conveyance of agricultural land has to be recorded within 180 days.

Where do I record an Iowa quitclaim deed?

With the county recorder in the county where the property is located; the county's website gives the office's address, hours and phone number. You hand in the deed, the declaration of value or exemption statement, the groundwater statement, the tax and the fees together at the recorder's counter, and the recorder passes the deed on to the county auditor's transfer books afterwards.

Does my spouse have to sign an Iowa quitclaim deed?

Yes, if you are married, whatever names are on the title. Iowa makes a married owner's conveyance of the homestead invalid unless the spouse signs the same or a like instrument, and it gives a surviving spouse one-third of all real estate the other spouse owned at any time during the marriage unless the spouse expressly relinquished that right in writing. A spouse's signature on the deed, releasing dower, homestead and distributive share, is how that relinquishment is made, so Iowa deeds carry it for every married grantor.

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

No. Iowa's transfer tax does not apply where there is no consideration, and it specifically exempts a deed between spouses, or between parent and child, without actual consideration; canceling a debt between the two of them that is secured by the property, up to its value, does not count as consideration, but a mortgage the grantee takes over does. Any deed for $500 or less is exempt too. You write the exemption on the deed, signed, instead of filing the declaration of value, and if the property has none of the listed hazards you add the one-sentence groundwater statement to the first page.

What is Iowa's groundwater hazard statement?

A form, prescribed by the Department of Natural Resources, that says whether the property has a known private burial site, well, solid waste disposal site, underground storage tank, hazardous waste, or private sewage disposal system. It is filed with the declaration of value, signed by a seller, at no fee. Where none of those things is present, no form is filed; instead the deed's first page carries a statement, in the words the statute sets out, that there is none and the transaction is exempt from submitting one. The recorder refuses a deed that has neither.

Can I get an Iowa deed notarized online?

Yes. An Iowa notary who is physically in Iowa, has completed the Secretary of State's approved remote notarization course and registered to perform remote acts, and uses an approved technology platform can take your acknowledgment over audio-video from wherever you are. Ordinary video-call programs are not allowed. The session is recorded and kept for ten years, and the certificate on the deed says the act used communication technology.

Where do I get an Iowa quitclaim deed form?

Iowa gives the wording in its statutes, so the conveyance sentence is settled. What a form written for no particular state will not have is the first page Iowa's recorders check line by line: three blank inches at the top, the preparer's name, address and phone number, the taxpayer's name and mailing address, a return address, the document's title, and room for the groundwater sentence and the exemption statement. Nor will it have a signature line for the grantor's spouse. If you would rather start from something built for this state, our Quitclaim Deed Help page lists prepared forms and deed preparation services.