Mississippi Quitclaim Deed Instructions

Step 1: Find the Chancery Clerk, and the Right Judicial District

A Mississippi deed is recorded with the clerk of the chancery court for the county where the land is located, which need not be the county you live in. Mississippi has no county recorder; the chancery clerk keeps the land records in each of the 82 counties. The Administrative Office of Courts publishes a directory of chancery court clerks with each office's address and phone number. Each clerk's own site says whether it takes documents by mail, at the counter, or through electronic recording.

Ten counties are divided into two judicial districts, each with its own courthouse and its own land records: Bolivar, Carroll, Chickasaw, Harrison, Hinds, Jasper, Jones, Panola, Tallahatchie, and Yalobusha. The statute treats the two districts as if they were separate counties, and a deed is recorded only in the district where the land lies. The directory lists both offices for each of those counties, and the clerk can tell you which district holds a parcel.

Recording matters. A deed that is not lodged with the clerk for record is void against a later purchaser for value without notice, and against any creditor of the grantor. It takes effect against them only from the moment it is delivered to the clerk. Between the parties themselves, and against anyone who knew of it, an unrecorded deed still binds. So the deed protects the grantee only once it is on the clerk's books, and priority among competing deeds goes by the order of filing.

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

Mississippi's recording statute lists what a document must look like, and a deed that misses the list can still be recorded, for an extra $10. Each page is printed on one side, on white paper of at least 20-pound weight, in type no smaller than 10 point, legible enough to reproduce. The first page has a top margin of at least three inches, reserved for the clerk's stamp, and every other margin is at least ¾ inch. Nothing is stapled or taped over the text, though the pages may be stapled together. Signatures are in black or blue ink, with the signer's name typed, printed, or stamped beneath each one.

Below the three-inch margin, the first page carries a fixed set of information. The title of the document. The name, business mailing address, and business telephone number of the person who prepared the deed, and, if that person is an attorney, the attorney's Mississippi bar number. The name, mailing address, and telephone number of every grantor and grantee, which Step 3 explains. A return address. And the legal description, or the indexing instruction that Step 6 explains, continued onto the following pages if it does not fit. A deed that leaves off the preparer's information or the indexing instruction is one the clerk may refuse outright, not merely surcharge. Leaving either off does not make a deed invalid once it is recorded; the statute says so.

Step 3: Fill In the Grantor, With Address and Telephone Numbers

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 clerk 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.

Mississippi then asks for something extra. A tax statute directs the chancery clerk to require, on every deed offered for record, the current mailing address of each grantor and grantee, their business or employment telephone number, and their home telephone number, if they have them. If a home number is unlisted, the deed gives a number where the person can be reached during business hours. The information is given under penalty of perjury, and the clerk may refuse a deed without it. The Department of Revenue audits each county's deeds and fines the county $100 for every deed filed without it, so clerks look for it. The purpose is to let the Department verify sale prices when it checks county assessments, and it may contact a grantor or grantee to do so. A deed recorded without the information is still valid; it is the clerk's acceptance that is at stake.

Step 4: Fill In the Grantee, With Address and Telephone Numbers

The grantee is the party receiving the interest. Give the full legal name as it should appear on future deeds and tax bills, the grantee's mailing address, and the grantee's business and home telephone numbers on the same terms as the grantor's. If the grantee will get mail at the property being transferred, the statute lets the property's address serve as the grantee's mailing address.

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 and telephone number. Where it is a company, use the name on its Secretary of State filing. A deed to two or more grantees should also say how they will hold title, which Step 6 covers, because in Mississippi the wording decides whether the survivor takes the whole.

Step 5: State the Consideration, and Know That No Tax Follows It

Mississippi charges no transfer tax, no deed tax, and no documentary stamp tax when a deed is recorded. It requires no certificate of value or sale report to be filed with the deed. The recorded deed costs the clerk's fee and nothing more, whatever the price. The statutory deed form still opens "In consideration of" a stated amount, and a deed recites what was given: the price, or "love and affection", or "ten dollars and other good and valuable consideration". That last recital is the one used when the parties would rather not print the price on a public record.

The consideration recited has one practical use beyond the deed. The Department of Revenue may ask a grantor or grantee to verify what was paid, which is what the telephone numbers in Steps 3 and 4 are for. The county tax assessor will also ask the new owner for the price and any unpaid balance on the homestead exemption application in Step 10.

Step 6: Add the Legal Description, the Indexing Instruction, and 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 block, the name of the subdivision, and the plat book and page where it is recorded. For other land it is the metes and bounds or the government survey description. A street address alone does not describe land.

For land that is not a platted lot, Mississippi requires an indexing instruction as well, set apart on the deed so the clerk can find it. It states the section, township, and range, and the quarter section or government lot within the section, where the land lies. The clerk keeps a sectional index of every deed by that location, and a clerk must refuse a deed that has no indexing instruction unless the description itself supplies the same facts. Where the preparer cannot tell which quarter section holds the land, the instruction says so and lists every quarter section it could be in. A platted lot needs no instruction, because the clerk indexes it under the subdivision.

If two or more people will own the property, the wording matters. A deed to two or more people, including a husband and wife, creates a tenancy in common: separate shares that each pass by will or inheritance. The only exception is a deed where it "manifestly appears" that a joint tenancy or a tenancy by the entirety with the right of survivorship was intended. So a deed to "John Doe and Jane Doe, husband and wife" leaves them tenants in common. To have the survivor take the whole, the deed says so: "as joint tenants with full right of survivorship and not as tenants in common", or, for a married couple, "as tenants by the entirety with full right of survivorship". An owner may create either form by a deed to themselves and another person in one step. And a married couple's survivorship estate can be ended by a deed from one spouse to the other, which the other spouse need not sign, whether or not the property is the homestead.

Step 7: If You Are Married and Living Together, Your Spouse Signs a Deed of the Home

Mississippi's rule is short. A conveyance of the homestead, the land and house the owner occupies as a residence, up to 160 acres, is not valid unless the owner's spouse signs it too, if the owner is married and living with the spouse. It does not matter that only one spouse is on the title. The spouse may sign through an attorney in fact, but the power of attorney must name someone other than the owner as the attorney. Where a spouse has been adjudged incompetent, the owner may ask the chancery court for a decree allowing a deed without that signature.

The condition "living with the spouse" is part of the rule. A married owner who is separated is not covered by it, and the statute says nothing more about how separated the couple must be. A deed by a separated owner alone is therefore a question for a Mississippi attorney before it is signed. Property that is not the homestead, a rental house or land the couple does not live on, may be conveyed by the owning spouse alone. And a deed from one spouse to the other that ends a survivorship estate between them needs only the signing spouse, whether or not the property is the homestead. For other deeds of the homestead between spouses, including one that adds a spouse to the title, the statutes cited below do not clearly make an exception, so both spouses signing avoids the question.

The practical rule, then: if you are married and living together and deeding the house you live in to anyone but your spouse, both of you sign, and both of you appear before the notary.

Step 8: Sign the Deed Before a Notary

A deed may not be recorded unless it carries original signatures and is acknowledged, or proved, according to law. Acknowledgment is the usual route: the grantor appears before a notary public, the notary confirms who the grantor is, and the notary completes and signs the certificate of acknowledgment and applies the notary's stamp. Mississippi requires no witnesses to a deed that is acknowledged; proof by a subscribing witness is the older alternative for a deed that was not. Sign in black or blue ink, with your name printed beneath, and the notary's name printed beneath the notary's signature.

Mississippi rewrote its notary law in 2021, and that law does not authorize online notarization. Bills to allow a Mississippi notary to take an acknowledgment by audio-video connection passed the House in 2025 and died in committee, as a similar bill had in 2024. A Mississippi deed is still signed in a notary's physical presence. A deed signed in another state may be acknowledged under that state's law. Whether that reaches a remote notarization performed under another state's law is not something the Mississippi statute answers, so ask the chancery clerk before relying on one. Our Remote Online Notarization by State page tracks which states allow it.

Mississippi does accept electronic recording through the chancery clerks that offer it. A paper copy of an electronically signed deed can also be recorded, if a licensed attorney or the document's custodian certifies under oath, before a notary, that it is a true and correct copy of the electronic original.

Step 9: Record the Deed With the Chancery Clerk

Take or mail the signed and acknowledged deed to the chancery clerk for the county, and the district, where the land lies, with the recording fee. The fee is $25 for a deed of up to five pages and $1 for each page after that, under the fee schedule in force from 2024 through 2027. The clerk adds $10 if the deed does not substantially conform to the formatting rules in Step 2. The clerk itemizes the fees on the deed itself. There is no transfer tax to pay, no tax certificate to obtain, and no separate form to file with the deed. Include a stamped envelope or the return address from Step 2 for the recorded deed.

The clerk enters the deed in the general index by the names of the parties, and in the sectional index by the location in the indexing instruction. From the moment it is filed, the deed takes effect against everyone.

Step 10: Apply for the Homestead Exemption by April 1

Mississippi's homestead exemption takes part of the property tax off a home its owner lives in, and it does not follow the deed. The new owner applies to the county tax assessor, in person or as the Department of Revenue's rules allow, between January 1 and April 1. An application not on file by April 1 cannot be accepted, back-dated, or allowed for that year. To qualify for a given year the applicant must own and occupy the home on January 1. The Department's rules also require the deed to have been filed with the chancery clerk before January 7 of that year.

The application asks for the book and page where the deed is recorded, the price paid and any unpaid balance, and the kind of title and how it was obtained. It also asks for the parcel number, the applicant's and spouse's Social Security numbers, and whether any part of the property is rented. Once allowed, the exemption renews itself each year unless the ownership, use, or occupancy changes, and an owner whose status changes must file a new application. A willful failure to report a change is a felony. A deed to a child, a trust, or a former spouse is exactly such a change, so the new owner applies afresh.

Where do I record a Mississippi quitclaim deed?

With the clerk of the chancery court for the county where the land is located, whether or not you live there; Mississippi has no county recorder. In Bolivar, Carroll, Chickasaw, Harrison, Hinds, Jasper, Jones, Panola, Tallahatchie, and Yalobusha counties the clerk keeps separate land records for two judicial districts, and the deed goes to the district where the land lies. The Administrative Office of Courts publishes a directory of all the chancery clerks with both offices for those counties. An unrecorded deed is void against a later buyer without notice and against the grantor's creditors.

Does my spouse have to sign a Mississippi quitclaim deed?

If the property is your homestead, the home you live in, and you are married and living with your spouse, yes. A conveyance of the homestead is not valid without the spouse's signature, whether or not the spouse is on the title. A power of attorney used instead must name someone other than the owner. The rule does not reach a married owner who is not living with the spouse, or property that is not the homestead. A deed from one spouse to the other that ends a survivorship estate between you needs only the signing spouse; for other deeds of the homestead between spouses, both signing avoids any question. If you are separated, ask a Mississippi attorney before signing alone.

Is there a transfer tax on a Mississippi quitclaim deed?

No. Mississippi charges no state or county tax on recording a deed and requires no certificate of value or sale report with it. A gift to a relative and a sale for full price both cost the chancery clerk's recording fee and nothing more. The deed still recites the consideration, and it carries the parties' addresses and telephone numbers so the Department of Revenue can verify sale prices when it checks county assessments.

Why does a Mississippi deed need phone numbers on it?

Because a tax statute tells the chancery clerk to require the current mailing address, business telephone number, and home telephone number of every grantor and grantee on every deed offered for record, given under penalty of perjury. The Department of Revenue uses them to verify sale prices for assessment purposes, audits each county's deeds, and fines the county $100 for every deed filed without the information, so clerks look for it. A separate recording statute requires the name, business address, and business telephone number of the person who prepared the deed, and the bar number if that person is an attorney.

Does a deed to my spouse or my child give them survivorship rights in Mississippi?

Only if the deed says so. A deed to two or more people, including a husband and wife, creates a tenancy in common unless it manifestly appears that a joint tenancy or a tenancy by the entirety with right of survivorship was intended. Write the survivorship in: "as joint tenants with full right of survivorship and not as tenants in common", or for a married couple "as tenants by the entirety with full right of survivorship". You may create either by a deed to yourself and the other person, and a married couple's survivorship estate can later be ended by a deed from one spouse to the other.

Can I get a Mississippi quitclaim deed notarized online?

Not with a Mississippi notary. The state's notary law, rewritten in 2021, does not authorize remote online notarization, and the bills that would have added it died in the Legislature in 2024 and again in 2025. The deed is signed in the notary's physical presence. Mississippi accepts a deed acknowledged in another state under that state's law. Whether a remote notarization done under another state's law counts is not something the statute answers, so ask the chancery clerk first.

Where do I get a Mississippi quitclaim deed form?

Mississippi has no official quitclaim deed form; the statute gives a warranty deed form and treats a deed of quitclaim and release as passing all the grantor's interest. A form written for no particular state can fail a Mississippi clerk in three places. It has no lines for the grantor's and grantee's mailing addresses and telephone numbers, no block for the preparer's name, business address, and telephone number, and no separate indexing instruction giving the section, township, range, and quarter section. Check the three-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.