Massachusetts Quitclaim Deed Instructions

Step 1: Find the Right Registry of Deeds

A Massachusetts deed is recorded in the registry of deeds for the county or district where the land lies, which need not be the county you live in. Until it is recorded, the deed binds only the grantor, the grantor's heirs and people who actually know about it; anyone else who later buys from or lends to the grantor can ignore it. There are twenty-one registries for fourteen counties, because five counties are split into districts: Berkshire has three, Bristol three, Essex two, Middlesex two and Worcester two, and the statute lists the towns in each district. The other nine counties have one registry apiece. The Secretary of the Commonwealth's Find a Registry of Deeds Office page matches every town to its registry and gives the address, and each registry's own site carries its hours and payment rules.

Look at your current deed before you go. If it refers to a certificate of title and a document number rather than a book and page, the land is registered land, which the Land Court supervises. The registry is the same building, because the register of deeds also serves as the Land Court's assistant recorder. But registered land has its own desk, its own rules and its own check, and Step 9 covers what changes.

Step 2: Set Up the Deed So the Registry Can Record It

The registries record from scanned images, and a statewide set of document standards adopted by the registers in 2008 says what will scan. Use white paper no larger than 8½ by 14 inches, print on one side only, and make the print dark and large enough to reproduce. The first page needs a recording information area in the upper right corner: three inches down from the top edge and three inches in from the right edge, kept clear of all writing. That is where the registry stamps the book and page. A deed without that space can still be recorded attached to the registry's cover sheet. The register may refuse any document that cannot be properly copied.

Two more things belong on the first page. The property's street address goes in the margin; the statute asks for it, and the registries index by it. And a return name and mailing address tells the registry where to send the deed after recording. The grantee's address and the reference to the prior deed are statutory requirements rather than formatting, and they are in Steps 3 and 4.

Step 3: Fill In the Grantor and Say Where the Title Came From

The grantor is the party giving up whatever interest they hold: a person, a married couple, a trustee or a company. Give the full legal name exactly as it appears on the deed the grantor received, or on the certificate of title for registered land, because the registry indexes by name and a title examiner has to match the two.

Massachusetts then requires a deed of unregistered land to say where the grantor's title came from, or the register will not accept it. The deed refers to the prior recorded deed by its book and page, closely enough to find it in that registry. A deed may instead identify the land by a plan recorded there or with the deed, or state that it creates no new boundaries. The usual sentence is the title reference, "For my title see deed recorded with the ______ Registry of Deeds in Book 12345, Page 67", and the book and page are copied from the current deed.

Step 4: Fill In the Grantee, With a Residence and Mailing Address

The grantee is the party receiving the interest. Massachusetts requires every deed presented for recording to carry the grantee's full name, residence, and post office address, and the register may not accept a deed that leaves any of them off. The same rule applies on registered land, where the address also goes on the new certificate and notices about the land can be served by mailing to it.

Where the grantee is a trust, name the trustee, as in "Jane Doe, Trustee of the Doe Family Trust", and give the trustee's address. Where it is a company, use the name on its state filing. A deed to a person and their spouse, or to two or more people, also has to say how they will hold title, which is Step 6.

Step 5: State the Consideration, and Disclose What Is Owed on the Property

Consideration is what is given in exchange for the property, and a Massachusetts deed has to recite it. The statute wants the full consideration in dollars, or, if the deed is not delivered for a sum of money, the nature of the other consideration. "Full" has a defined meaning: the total price, without deducting any mortgage or lien the grantee takes over or that stays on the property. A deed with no recital is refused at the counter. For a sale, state the price. For a gift, say what is true, such as "for consideration of love and affection" or "for no monetary consideration". If a relative is taking over your mortgage and paying nothing else, state the balance as the consideration and say it is the mortgage being assumed.

The deeds excise is figured on a different number from the recital: the consideration less any lien or mortgage left on the property. The registries' standards ask the drafter to state both figures, the full consideration and the mortgage being assumed, so the excise clerk can see the difference. Step 10 and our Massachusetts deed excise tax page work the arithmetic.

One more statute belongs here. Before the consideration is paid, a grantor who knows of any encumbrance on the property must make it known to the grantee, by an exception in the deed or otherwise. A quitclaim deed already promises the property is free of encumbrances the grantor created, so an existing mortgage or easement is best named in the deed as an exception, which keeps the promise true.

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, including the plan it refers to, and check that the title reference in Step 3 points at the deed you copied from. A street address alone does not describe land.

If two or more people will own the property, the deed has to say how, and the default is worth knowing. A deed to two or more people, including a married couple, creates a tenancy in common unless it says otherwise: separate shares, each of which passes by will or inheritance when that owner dies. To create a joint tenancy, where the survivor takes the whole, the deed has to say the grantees take as joint tenants, or to them and the survivor of them. A married couple who want a tenancy by the entirety has to name it. That form adds protection against one spouse's creditors while the home is the other spouse's principal residence. A deed to spouses that says only "as joint tenants" creates a joint tenancy, not an entireties tenancy, and a deed to two people who are not married to each other as tenants by the entirety makes them joint tenants instead.

An owner may deed directly to themselves and another person, or to themselves and their spouse as tenants by the entirety, in one step. Massachusetts does not need a straw transfer to add a co-owner.

Step 7: Decide Whether Your Spouse Signs, and Deal With the Homestead

Massachusetts abolished dower and curtesy when its Uniform Probate Code took effect in 2012, and a married person may hold and dispose of property as if single, so a spouse who is not on the title does not have to sign for the deed to convey the grantor's interest. Spouses may also deed property to each other directly. If the two of you own the property together, both of you are grantors and both sign.

The reason a non-owner spouse's signature still comes up is the homestead. Massachusetts gives every owner-occupied home an automatic homestead of $125,000 against most creditors, and a recorded declaration raises it to $1,000,000. The protection belongs to the owner's family, spouse and minor children included, and the statute says how it ends. A deed to someone outside the family ends it only if the owner signs and so does any non-owner spouse or former spouse living in the home as their principal residence. Without that second signature, the deed can instead state that the grantor is unmarried, or that the property is not the grantor's home. Or it can carry a statement under the penalties of perjury that no spouse or former spouse is entitled to a homestead, and a buyer may rely on that statement. A deed between spouses, former spouses or co-owners does not end anyone's homestead unless each person entitled to it signs an express release. A deed to the trustee of a trust for the grantor's own benefit leaves the grantor's homestead in place.

So the practical rule is this: if you are married, the property is your family's home, and the grantee is not a family member, have your spouse sign the deed too. Otherwise the homestead protection stays on the property after the deed.

Step 8: Sign the Deed Before a Notary

No deed can be recorded unless a certificate of its acknowledgment is endorsed on or attached to it. One or more of the grantors appears before a notary public or justice of the peace in Massachusetts, or before a notary in another state. The grantor proves their identity with satisfactory evidence of identification, which the certificate names, and acknowledges that they signed voluntarily for the deed's stated purpose. The notary's certificate uses the wording in the notary statute. It carries the notary's signature, with the notary's name printed or typed directly below it and the words "My commission expires" with the date, and it bears the notary's seal in black ink. Massachusetts requires no witnesses to a deed.

Massachusetts passed a remote notarization law in 2023. It runs only through notaries who have completed the Secretary of the Commonwealth's training, notified the Secretary through its online form, and use communication technology the Secretary has approved. The Secretary's own Remote Online Notarization page says the training and the form are not yet available, and it tells notaries not to use remote platforms until they are. So no Massachusetts notary can offer a remote session yet, and that page is the place to confirm whether it has changed. When it does operate, the law adds a rule for deeds. Where a one-to-four-family home is being sold or mortgaged, only a notary who is a Massachusetts attorney may notarize the deed remotely, or a notary working under the closing attorney's direct supervision. Our Remote Online Notarization by State page explains how a remote session works where it is available.

Step 9: If the Land Is Registered, Prepare for the Land Court

For registered land the deed is drawn the same way, but the deed itself does not convey the land. Until it is registered it works only as a contract between the parties, and as the assistant recorder's authority to register the transfer; registration is the act that conveys. You or the grantee present the deed to the assistant recorder for the district where the land lies. The assistant recorder cancels the grantor's certificate of title, issues a new certificate to the grantee, and endorses the deed with the new certificate's number. If the grantor holds an owner's duplicate certificate, it is surrendered and canceled too.

Name the grantor exactly as the current certificate does, state the certificate of title number in the deed, and describe the land by the lot and the Land Court plan shown on the certificate. The Land Court publishes guidelines that govern the forms its assistant recorders accept, and where a parcel is part recorded and part registered, ask the registry which side to file first. Registered land is also the one place where the remote notarization law lets the Land Court's chief justice set its own rules.

Step 10: Pay the Excise and the Fee, and Record the Deed

Recording a deed costs $155 at every registry, on the consolidated fee schedule in force since the end of 2019, and the same for a deed of registered land. If money was paid, the deeds excise is due with it: $2.28 for each $500 of consideration or any part of $500, with the consideration rounded up to the next $500 first. The registries state that rate as $4.56 per $1,000. In Barnstable County the state and county excises together come to $3.24 per $500, or $6.48 per $1,000. No excise is due where the consideration, after subtracting any mortgage left on the property, is $100 or less. The statute puts the excise on the person who signs the deed, the grantor, and it is shown by stamps affixed to the deed. The register may refuse to record a deed that does not carry the stamps it needs, so it is paid at the counter. Some registries take the excise only by bank or attorney's check, separate from the fee, and the registry's fee page will say which it wants.

On Nantucket and Martha's Vineyard the deed stops at the island's land bank first. Each land bank charges a fee of 2 percent of the purchase price, and the law puts it on the buyer whatever the parties agree. The register may not record a deed without the land bank's certificate that the fee was paid or the transfer is exempt. Gifts without consideration, transfers into a trust for the seller's own benefit, transfers under a divorce judgment and corrective deeds are among the exemptions, and a first-time buyer is exempt on part of the price.

Once recorded, a deed of unregistered land takes effect against everyone from the moment of recording. A deed of registered land takes effect only when it is registered, as Step 9 explains. Our deed excise tax page explains how the excise is computed and our deed excise exemptions page goes through the transfers that owe none.

Where do I record a Massachusetts quitclaim deed?

At the registry of deeds for the county or registry district where the land lies. Massachusetts has twenty-one registries for its fourteen counties, because Berkshire, Bristol, Essex, Middlesex and Worcester are each divided into districts, and the statute that creates the districts names the towns in each. If the current deed refers to a certificate of title, the land is registered land and the deed goes to the Land Court's registry district, which sits at the same registry with its own desk. Until the deed is recorded it binds only the grantor and people who actually know of it.

What makes a Massachusetts quitclaim deed different from a quitclaim deed in other states?

The promises. Outside Massachusetts the word quitclaim describes a deed that promises nothing about title. A deed that follows Massachusetts's statutory quitclaim form carries "quitclaim covenants". The grantor promises that the property is free of every encumbrance the grantor made, and will defend the title against anyone claiming by, through or under the grantor, but against no one else. It is a limited warranty covering the grantor's own time as owner, and it is the deed used for ordinary Massachusetts sales. A deed with no covenants at all is called a release deed here, and the statute treats a deed of quitclaim and release as enough to convey whatever the grantor holds. Both pass only the grantor's actual interest.

Does my spouse have to sign a Massachusetts quitclaim deed?

Not to make the deed valid. Massachusetts abolished dower and curtesy in 2012, and a married person may convey their own property as if single. If you own the property together, you are both grantors and both sign. Where a spouse who is not on the title does need to sign is the homestead. A deed of the family's home to someone outside the family ends the homestead protection only if the owner and any non-owner spouse living there both sign it. The alternative is a statement in the deed that the grantor is unmarried, that the property is not the grantor's home, or, under the penalties of perjury, that no spouse or former spouse is entitled to a homestead. A deed between spouses or former spouses leaves the homestead in place unless each of them signs an express release.

Will I owe the deeds excise on a gift to a family member?

No. The excise is charged on the consideration, less any mortgage or lien that stays on the property, and only when that figure exceeds $100. A gift for love and affection has no price to tax, and a relative who takes over your mortgage and pays you nothing has none for excise purposes either, because the mortgage is subtracted. The deed still has to recite the full consideration, mortgage included, because the recital statute defines the figure the other way. If the relative pays you anything above $100 beyond taking over the loan, the excise is due on that payment. On Nantucket and Martha's Vineyard the land bank fee is also waived for a gift without consideration.

Can I get a Massachusetts deed notarized online?

Not with a Massachusetts notary yet. The 2023 law lets a notary who is physically in Massachusetts notarize for someone on camera, but only after the notary completes the Secretary of the Commonwealth's training and files its notification form, and only on technology the Secretary has approved. The Secretary's Remote Online Notarization page says the training and the form are not yet available and that notaries should not use remote platforms until they are. Once it operates, a deed for a sale or mortgage of a one-to-four-family home may be notarized remotely only by a notary who is a Massachusetts attorney, or one who works under the closing attorney's direct supervision. Massachusetts does accept a deed acknowledged before a notary in another state. Whether that covers a remote session run under the other state's law is not something the statute says, so ask your registry before relying on it.

Where do I get a Massachusetts quitclaim deed form?

Massachusetts prints its own statutory forms, and the wording "with quitclaim covenants" is what gives a deed the limited warranty described above. A form written for no particular state carries no such wording. Check it for three more things Massachusetts law requires before a register may accept a deed: a line for the grantee's residence and post office address, a recital of the full consideration, and a title reference to the deed the grantor received. Check, too, for the three-inch clear corner the registries stamp. If you would rather start from something built for this state, our Quitclaim Deed Help page lists prepared forms and deed preparation services.