Kansas Quitclaim Deed Instructions

Step 1: Find the Right Register of Deeds

A Kansas deed is recorded with the register of deeds in the county where the property is located, which is not necessarily the county you live in. Kansas has 105 counties and 105 registers, and the statute sends the deed to the register of the county where the real estate is situated.

Kansas has no state directory of the registers themselves, but the state's website keeps a list of all 105 county websites, and each county's site gives its register's address, hours and phone number. Start there.

Step 2: Lay Out the First Page So the Register Can Use It

Kansas sets its paper rules in the fee statute rather than in a format statute, so they arrive as charges rather than refusals. Leave room at the top of the first page for the recording information; if there is none, the register adds a sheet and charges for it as a page. Type or print the name of every signer, and of the notary, under the signature; if a name is missing, the register adds $1. The fee statute prices pages up to eight and one-half by fourteen inches, so use letter or legal paper.

The one rule that can stop a deed is legibility. The register may reject a document that will not produce a clear copy, or require a legible copy to be recorded with it, at extra pages' cost. Dark ink and ordinary type produce a clear copy. Registers also publish their own short lists, such as a preparer's name and address and a return address on every document, so check yours before you send the 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, and state whether the grantor is married. In Kansas that is not a formality: if the grantor is married, the spouse signs too, for the reasons in Step 7, so the deed should name the spouse as a grantor as well.

The register compares the deed with the last transfer of record for the property before recording it, in counties that keep a numerical index, and is told by statute to hold a deed with apparent errors until the grantee has been notified. A name that does not match the last deed is the kind of error that check catches.

Step 4: Fill In the Grantee's Information and the Tax Address

The grantee is the person receiving the interest. Give the full legal name and a mailing address. Kansas's recording statute requires whoever records the deed to furnish the register with the full name and last known post-office address of the person the property is conveyed to, or that person's designee, and the register passes it to the county clerk so that property tax statements go to the right place.

Where a company, a trust or an estate receives the property, name it as it is legally named, and give the name and address of the person who should receive the tax bill.

Step 5: Use Kansas's Wording and State the Consideration

Kansas gives the operative wording in its statutes: a conveyance worded in substance "A.B. quitclaims to C.D. (describe the premises), for the sum of (insert the consideration)", signed and acknowledged by the grantor, is a good and sufficient quitclaim deed to the grantee and the grantee's heirs and assigns. The statutory form asks for the consideration, and what you write there decides whether the deed needs a sales validation questionnaire.

The Department of Revenue tells registers how to read it. A deed that says "without consideration", or that gives a nominal sum such as $1 or $10, or "love and affection", is treated as a gift and recorded without the questionnaire. A deed that says "$1 and other valuable consideration" is not a gift, and the questionnaire is required. So write what is true: a gift should say so, and a sale should give the price.

Step 6: Add the Legal Description and Decide How Co-Owners Will Hold Title

Copy the legal description word for word from the current deed. A street address is not a legal description, and the register's check against the last transfer of record is a check of this paragraph as much as of the names.

If two or more people will own the property, say how. In Kansas, property granted to two or more persons, a husband and wife included, creates a tenancy in common, meaning separate shares that pass by will or inheritance, unless the language of the deed makes clear that a joint tenancy was intended. A joint tenancy gives the survivor the whole. The statute puts a married couple under the same rule as anyone else, so a couple who want the survivor to take everything have to say "as joint tenants with right of survivorship, and not as tenants in common". Silence gives them separate halves.

Step 7: Have the Grantor's Spouse Sign

If the grantor is married, the spouse signs the deed, whatever names are on the title. Two rules require it. The Kansas Constitution and the homestead statute both say the homestead shall not be alienated without the joint consent of husband and wife, so a deed of the family home signed by one spouse alone does not convey it. That rule covers a homestead of up to 160 acres of farmland or one acre in town, occupied as a residence.

The second rule reaches every other parcel. Kansas gives a surviving spouse one-half of all real estate the other spouse owned at any time during the marriage, except real estate whose disposition the survivor consented to in writing, or by will, or by an election under a will. A spouse who did not sign the deed keeps a claim to one-half of the property after the grantor's death. The spouse's signature on the deed is the written consent the statute asks for. The statute makes one exception, for a spouse who was not a Kansas resident when the deed was signed and never had been during the marriage.

Step 8: Sign the Deed Before a Notary

The grantor, and the grantor's spouse where Step 7 applies, sign the deed and acknowledge it before a notary. Kansas requires no witnesses. Within Kansas the acknowledgment can also be taken by a county clerk, a register of deeds, or the mayor or clerk of a city, though a notary is the ordinary route. A deed that has not been acknowledged is not accepted for recording.

Kansas notary law changed on the first day of 2022, when the state adopted the Revised Uniform Law on Notarial Acts, and the certificate has a fixed list of contents. It must be signed and dated by the notary, name the state and county where the act took place, state the notary's title, show the expiration date of the notary's commission, and carry the notary's stamp. A notary who willfully leaves off the expiration date commits a misdemeanor, and a certificate without it does not meet the statute. The notary also records the act in a journal.

Kansas allows remote online notarization. A Kansas notary who is physically in Kansas, has notified the Secretary of State and named the technology to be used, can take your acknowledgment over live audio-video from wherever you are. The notary identifies you by personal knowledge, by a credible witness, or by two different kinds of identity proofing; the session is recorded and the recording kept for at least ten years; and the certificate says that the act involved the use of communication technology. The Secretary of State's page on the subject is linked in Official Sources, and our Remote Online Notarization by State page explains how a session runs.

Step 9: Complete the Sales Validation Questionnaire, or Write the Exemption on the Deed

Kansas's ratio-study law says that no deed transferring title to real estate shall be recorded unless it is accompanied by a real estate sales validation questionnaire, completed by the grantor, the grantee or their agent. The form reports the price and the circumstances of the sale to the county appraiser. It is not recorded and does not become public; the register keeps it for five years, and the statute limits who may see it. The register has to see every question answered, including the total sale price and the phone numbers of both buyer and seller, and a deed that arrives with an incomplete form is returned unrecorded.

The statute lists sixteen transfers that need no questionnaire, and the ones that matter for a quitclaim deed are a gift stated in the deed, a transfer to or from a trust without consideration, a transfer between spouses under a divorce settlement, a deed made only to create a joint tenancy or tenancy in common, a deed that confirms or corrects a recorded deed without new consideration, and a quitclaim deed filed to clear a title encumbrance. When one applies, the same statute says the exemption shall be clearly stated on the document being filed, and the Department of Revenue tells registers not to add it for you. Write it on the deed itself, with the statute's number and the reason.

Where no exemption applies, complete the form in full. In the 98 counties the Department has approved, that is the one-part form linked in Official Sources, printed from a computer, not photocopied. In the other seven the register supplies a three-part carbon form. Our Kansas sales validation questionnaire page goes through every exemption, the wording of the statement, and the form line by line.

Step 10: Record the Deed

Take or mail the acknowledged deed, with the completed questionnaire or the exemption written on it, and the recording fee, to the register of deeds in the county where the property is located. There is no transfer tax to pay. The register checks the deed against the last record of transfer, collects the fee, records and indexes the deed, and sends the grantee's tax address on to the county clerk.

Recording is what protects the new owner. From the moment a deed is filed with the register it is notice to everyone of what it says, and every later buyer or lender takes with that notice. Until then the deed is valid only between the people who signed it and anyone with actual notice of it. There is no deadline, but there is no reason to wait.

Where do I record a Kansas quitclaim deed?

With the register of deeds in the county where the property is located. Kansas has 105 of them, and the state's website lists every county's site, where the register's address, hours and phone number are found. You bring or mail the acknowledged deed, the sales validation questionnaire or the exemption written on the deed, and the recording fee.

Does my spouse have to sign a Kansas quitclaim deed?

Yes, if you are married, whatever names are on the title. The Kansas Constitution says the homestead cannot be alienated without the joint consent of husband and wife, so a deed of the home signed by one spouse does not convey it. For any other real estate, Kansas gives a surviving spouse one-half of all real estate the other spouse owned at any time during the marriage unless the survivor consented in writing to its disposition. The spouse's signature on the deed is that consent. The one exception is a spouse who was not a Kansas resident when the deed was signed and never had been during the marriage.

Does Kansas charge a transfer tax?

No. Kansas has no state or county tax on the transfer of real estate, and no documentary stamp. The only charge at the register's counter is the recording fee, $21 for the first page and $17 for each page after it, set by state statute for every county. The sales validation questionnaire is free.

Do I need a sales validation questionnaire for a gift to a family member?

No, if the deed says it is a gift. Kansas's statute exempts a transfer by way of gift stated in the deed, and the Department of Revenue tells registers to treat a deed that says "without consideration", or that gives a nominal sum such as $1 or "love and affection", as a gift. The exemption has to be written on the deed, in substance: "Sales validation questionnaire not required under K.S.A. 79-1437e(a)(4), gift." A deed that says "$1 and other valuable consideration" is not treated as a gift and needs the completed form.

Can I get a Kansas deed notarized online?

Yes. Since 2022 a Kansas notary who is physically in Kansas, and who has notified the Secretary of State and named the technology to be used, can take your acknowledgment over live audio-video from wherever you are. The notary identifies you by personal knowledge, a credible witness, or two kinds of identity proofing, records the session, keeps the recording for at least ten years, and adds to the certificate that the act involved the use of communication technology. A notary outside Kansas cannot do it under this Kansas rule, but Kansas gives an online notarization done by another state's notary, under that state's law, the same effect as its own.

Where do I get a Kansas quitclaim deed form?

Kansas 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 line for the consideration in the words Kansas reads, a place to write the sales validation questionnaire exemption, room at the top of the first page for the register, printed names under the signatures, or 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.