Michigan Quitclaim Deed Instructions

Step 1: Find the Register of Deeds for the County Where the Property Is Located

A Michigan deed is recorded with the register of deeds for the county where the property is located, which need not be the county you live in. Every one of Michigan's 83 counties has one, and the Department of Treasury's Register of Deeds List by Michigan County gives each office's address, phone number, and website. The office's own site says whether it takes documents by mail, at the counter, or through electronic recording, and what it charges.

Recording matters more than people expect. Under Michigan's recording statute, a deed that is not recorded is void against a later buyer who pays value in good faith and records first. The same section adds a point aimed at this deed in particular. The fact that the later buyer took by a quitclaim deed does not, by itself, count against their good faith or put them on notice of your unrecorded one. So the deed protects the grantee only once it is on the county's books.

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

Michigan's recording act tells a register of deeds to refuse a deed that does not meet its list, and the list is specific. The first page needs a blank margin of at least 2½ inches at the top; every other edge of every page needs at least ½ inch. The first line of print on the first page carries a single statement of what the document is, such as "Quit Claim Deed", and a deed that claims to do two things at once is refused. The type is 10-point or larger, printed in black ink on white paper of at least 20-pound weight, and each sheet is between 8½ by 11 and 8½ by 14 inches, with no attachment outside those sizes. A document in another language needs an English translation attached, and all but the last four digits of any Social Security number are blacked out.

Two more lines on the deed come from the same act. The deed must carry the name and business address of the person who drafted it, usually as a "Drafted by" block, and a deed without one is not recorded. And the register asks for a "return to" name and address, because the recorded deed is mailed back to whoever is named there rather than to the buyer. Registers also ask that the parcel identification number and the property's common address appear on the deed. The parcel number is not in the recording act, but it is on the affidavit the assessor will need in Step 10, so it belongs on the deed from the start.

Step 3: Fill In the Grantor

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, because the register indexes by name and a title examiner has to match the two. Where the grantor is a trust, the trustee signs as trustee; where it is a company, an officer signs with their title.

When the deed is signed, the recording act wants each signer's name legibly printed, typed, or stamped beneath the signature, and the signature itself in black or dark blue ink. The name under the signature must be spelled the same way as in the notary's certificate, and a mismatch between the two is one of the reasons registers list for turning a deed back. Michigan deeds long carried a line stating whether a male grantor was married or single. That statute now applies only to deeds offered for record before April 6, 2017, so the line is no longer required. Many printed forms still have it, and there is no harm in filling it in.

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

The grantee is the party receiving the interest. The recording act requires the address of each grantee to be printed, typed, or stamped on the deed, with the street number where street addresses are in use and otherwise a post office address. A register may not receive a deed without it. Give the grantee's full legal name as it should appear on future deeds and tax bills.

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 two or more people, including a married couple, also has to say how they will hold title, which Step 6 covers.

Step 5: State What Was Paid, and Whether Transfer Tax Is Owed

Michigan charges two taxes when a deed transferring property for a price is recorded: a state transfer tax of $3.75 for each $500 of the value, or any part of $500, and a county transfer tax of 55 cents for each $500. Together they come to $8.60 for every $1,000 paid. Both statutes put the tax on the seller or grantor, and both are collected by the register of deeds at recording for the county treasurer. A deed subject to the tax must state the total value of the property on its face, or carry a separate Real Estate Transfer Tax Valuation Affidavit, Treasury Form 2705, declaring it. Many people use the affidavit when they would rather not print the price on a public record.

A transfer for no money, or for less than $100, is exempt from both taxes, so a gift deed to a relative who takes on no debt owes neither. Beyond that, the two exemption lists differ, and the difference matters to family transfers. The state list exempts a deed from a parent to a child, stepchild, or adopted child, and from a grandparent to a grandchild, whatever the price. The county list has no such exemption, so a parent who sells to a child for $150,000 owes the county's 55 cents per $500 and nothing to the state. Both lists also exempt a deed between spouses that creates or ends a tenancy by the entirety, and a deed under a court order that names no price. Both exempt a deed that corrects a flaw in a title already vested, and a deed creating a joint tenancy where one of the joint tenants already owned the property.

When an exemption applies, write it on the face of the deed, citing the letter of the exemption under each statute. Registers look for exactly that, because a deed that neither states a price nor cites its exemptions satisfies neither act. A gift to a child, for instance, cites the under-$100 exemption in both acts. Our Michigan transfer tax exemptions page goes through both lists and the wording to use.

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. For a platted lot that is the lot number, the subdivision, and the liber and page, meaning the book and page, of the recorded plat; for a condominium it is the unit number and the master deed; for acreage it is the metes and bounds. A street address alone does not describe land, and registers list an incomplete legal description among their rejection reasons. Add the parcel identification number beneath it.

If two or more people will own the property, the deed has to say how, and Michigan's defaults are worth knowing. A deed to two or more people creates a tenancy in common, separate shares that each pass by will or inheritance, unless the deed expressly declares a joint tenancy, where the survivor takes the whole. The exception that matters here is a deed to a husband and wife, which creates a tenancy by the entirety automatically, even if the deed says nothing about it. The State Tax Commission's guidance gives the example: a deed to "John Doe and Jane Doe" makes them tenants by the entirety if they are in fact married. Neither spouse can convey that property alone, and when one dies the other owns the whole without probate.

Michigan deeds often say "as joint tenants with full rights of survivorship" rather than plain "joint tenants". The added words are not decoration. Michigan's Supreme Court held in a 1990 case, Albro v. Allen, that they create a form of ownership one co-owner cannot undo on their own, where a plain joint tenancy can be broken by one owner conveying their share. Decide which you want before you write the line, and if the difference matters to you, this is a question for a Michigan attorney.

Step 7: Decide Whether Your Spouse Signs

Michigan abolished dower, the widow's one-third life interest in her husband's land, for anyone whose husband died on or after April 6, 2017. Michigan is not a community property state, and its married women's property act lets a married woman convey her own property as if she were unmarried. So a spouse who is not on the title does not have to sign a Michigan quitclaim deed, and the register does not look for that signature. The old deed line stating the grantor's marital status went with dower, as Step 3 explains.

If the two of you own the property together as husband and wife, that is a tenancy by the entirety, and both of you are grantors who sign. A tenancy by the entirety can also be ended by a deed from one spouse to the other, which is the usual way a divorcing couple puts the house in one name. That deed is exempt from transfer tax, and it does not reset the property taxes either.

Michigan's homestead exemption protects a home from most creditors up to a modest amount, and its one rule about a spouse's signature concerns a mortgage on the homestead, not a deed. Michigan has no statute requiring a spouse who is not on the title to sign a deed of the family home.

Step 8: Sign the Deed Before a Notary

A deed of Michigan land signed in Michigan is acknowledged before a judge, a clerk of a court of record, or a notary public, and a register of deeds may not record a deed that is not acknowledged. Michigan requires no witnesses. The notary confirms the signer's identity from personal knowledge or from a current government identification card with a photo and signature, then completes the certificate. Under the notary statute the certificate carries the notary's signature, the notary's printed name, the words "Notary public, State of Michigan, County of ___", "My commission expires ___", the county the notary is acting in if it is a different one, and the date. The recording act separately requires the notary's printed name on the same page near the signature, and a notary's certificate with any of those pieces missing is a rejection reason registers list.

The notary cannot be a party to the deed or anyone with a financial interest in it, and cannot notarize for a spouse, parent, grandparent, child, grandchild, brother or sister, including in-laws and step-relatives. A deed signed in another state may be acknowledged under that state's law before a notary or other officer authorized there.

Michigan allows online notarization. A Michigan notary may take an acknowledgment by audio-video connection through a remote notarization platform that the Secretary of State has approved. The platform checks the signer's identity, and the law treats an act done that way as done in the notary's presence. The notary's certificate says the act was performed remotely, and the notary keeps a journal and a recording. What comes out of a remote session is an electronic document, so before you book one, ask your register of deeds whether it accepts electronic recording. A register that does will take the deed; one that records only paper may not. The recording act's rules about ink signatures and printed names do not apply to a signature affixed electronically. Our Remote Online Notarization by State page explains how a remote session works.

Step 9: Record the Deed and Pay the Fee and Any Tax

Take or mail the signed and notarized deed to the register of deeds with the recording fee and the transfer tax, if any. The fee to record a deed is $30, whatever its length, set by statute for every county; a charter county may adopt its own schedule by ordinance, so confirm the figure with the register. The state transfer tax is due to the county treasurer within 15 days after the deed is delivered, and in practice both taxes are paid to the register when the deed is recorded. Send separate checks for the fee and the tax if the register asks for them, and include a stamped envelope or the "return to" address for the recorded deed.

One thing you do not need is a tax certificate. Michigan will not record a warranty deed or a land contract until the county treasurer certifies that the property taxes have been paid for the five years before the deed. The statute exempts a quitclaim deed, or any conveyance without a covenant of warranty, so a quitclaim goes straight to the register.

Michigan makes it a felony, punishable by up to ten years, to knowingly draft or submit a document for recording with intent to defraud the owner of real estate. Placing a deed on record with intent to deceive carries up to three years, and registers may send suspected filings to the prosecutor. That is aimed at deed fraud, not at an honest mistake, and an honest mistake can be fixed by recording a corrective deed, which is exempt from transfer tax when it only confirms title the grantee already holds.

Step 10: File the Property Transfer Affidavit Within 45 Days

Recording the deed tells the county who owns the property. Michigan also requires the new owner to tell the assessor for the city or township where the property is located, within 45 days of the transfer, on the Property Transfer Affidavit, Treasury Form 2766. The affidavit states the parties, the date, the price, and the parcel number, and it is filed with the local assessor, not with the register of deeds. Filing it late costs $5 a day, up to $200 for a home the new owner lives in and up to $4,000 for any other property, and the assessor can add the back taxes and interest that a late report caused.

The affidavit exists because of how Michigan taxes property. Each parcel's taxable value can rise no faster than 5 percent or the rate of inflation a year, whichever is lower, until the property changes hands. In the year after a transfer of ownership it resets to half of market value, which for a house owned a long time can mean a much larger tax bill. The statute then lists transfers that do not count. A deed between spouses does not. Neither does a deed of residential property to the owner's or the owner's spouse's parent, child, adopted child, brother, sister, or grandchild, so long as the property is not used for a commercial purpose afterward. The assessor may ask the new owner for proof within 30 days. A deed into a trust whose only present beneficiary is the owner, the owner's spouse, or one of those relatives does not count either. Nor does a deed creating a joint tenancy where one of the joint tenants already owned the property, a deed under a court order naming no price, or a deed that keeps a life estate for the grantor, until that life estate ends. File the affidavit even when the transfer is exempt, and check the exemption box on it, because that is how the assessor learns the taxes should not reset.

One more form belongs with this step if the property is the new owner's home. The principal residence exemption, which takes most of the school operating tax off an owner-occupied home, belongs to the person who claimed it. The new owner claims it on Treasury Form 2368 by June 1 for the summer tax bill or November 1 for the winter bill, and a seller who moves out rescinds the old claim within 90 days on Form 2602. Our Michigan Property Transfer Affidavit page walks through the affidavit, the exemptions, and the penalties.

Where do I record a Michigan quitclaim deed?

With the register of deeds for the county where the property is located, whether or not you live there. Each of Michigan's 83 counties has a register of deeds, and the Department of Treasury publishes a list of all of them with addresses and websites. Until the deed is recorded it is void against a later buyer who pays value in good faith and records first, so record it promptly. The affidavit that follows the deed goes somewhere else: to the assessor for the city or township, not to the register.

Does my spouse have to sign a Michigan quitclaim deed?

Not if your spouse is not on the title. Michigan abolished dower on April 6, 2017, is not a community property state, and lets a married owner convey their own property as if single. So the register does not look for a non-owner spouse's signature, and the deed no longer has to state whether the grantor is married. If you and your spouse own the property together as husband and wife, you hold it as tenants by the entirety, and both of you sign. A deed from one spouse to the other, which ends the entireties tenancy, is exempt from transfer tax and does not reset the property taxes.

Is there transfer tax on a Michigan quitclaim deed to a family member?

Not on a gift, as long as the relative does not take over a mortgage. Both the state and the county transfer tax exempt a transfer where the value of the consideration is less than $100, and the deed cites those exemptions on its face. If money changes hands, the two taxes part ways. The state exempts a deed from a parent to a child, stepchild, or adopted child, and from a grandparent to a grandchild, at any price. The county does not, so a parent who sells to a child owes the county's 55 cents per $500 and nothing to the state. A deed between spouses creating or ending a tenancy by the entirety is exempt from both.

What is the Michigan Property Transfer Affidavit, and what happens if I skip it?

It is Treasury Form 2766, which the new owner files with the city or township assessor within 45 days of the transfer to report the parties, the date, the price, and the parcel number. It is the form the assessor uses to decide whether the property's taxable value resets to half of market value the next year. Skipping it costs $5 a day after the 45 days, up to $200 for a home the new owner occupies and up to $4,000 for other property, plus any back taxes and interest the missed report caused. File it even when the transfer is exempt from the reset, such as a deed to a spouse, a child, a parent, a sibling, or a grandchild of residential property, because the affidavit is where the exemption is claimed.

Can I get a Michigan quitclaim deed notarized online?

Yes. A Michigan notary may take your acknowledgment over an audio-video connection through a remote notarization platform approved by the Secretary of State. The platform's identity check stands in for an in-person look at your license, and the law treats the act as performed in the notary's presence. The result is an electronic document with an electronic signature, which the recording act's ink and printed-name rules do not govern. Whether your register of deeds will take it depends on whether that office accepts electronic recording, so ask before you book the session.

Does a Michigan quitclaim deed need a tax certificate from the county treasurer?

No. Michigan requires a certificate that the property taxes are paid for the past five years before a register will record a deed, but the statute exempts a quitclaim deed or any other conveyance that carries no covenant of warranty. A warranty deed and a land contract need the certificate; a quitclaim goes straight to the register. That is one practical reason Michigan families use a quitclaim deed for a transfer that is not a sale.

Where do I get a Michigan quitclaim deed form?

Michigan has no official form, and the statute accepts a deed of quitclaim and release "of the form in common use", so any form that meets the recording act works. A form written for no particular state usually fails it in three places. It has no "Drafted by" block for the drafter's name and business address, no line for the grantee's mailing address, and no place to cite the transfer tax exemptions on the face of the deed. A Michigan register hands back a deed missing any of those. Check the 2½-inch top margin on the first page as well. If you would rather start from something built for this state, our Quitclaim Deed Help page lists prepared forms and deed preparation services.