Pennsylvania Quitclaim Deed: How to Fill Out & Record One

Step 1: Find the Recorder of Deeds

You record the deed with the recorder of deeds in the county where the property sits, even if you live somewhere else. In a home rule county the office may go by another name, but it does the same job.

Search your county's name with "recorder of deeds" to find the office's website, which shows how it takes deeds: in person, by mail or electronically. Counties may take deeds online, though the law doesn't require it.

Step 2: Set Up the Deed With Pennsylvania's Wording

Pennsylvania's deed law sets out short model wording you can follow. It starts with the date and the names and home addresses of you and the grantee, then what's being paid, then the words that hand over the property, then the description. For a quitclaim deed, those words are "release and quit-claim." Here's how it opens, with blanks for your details:

Quitclaim Deed

THIS DEED, made the [day] day of [month], [year], between [grantor's name], of [grantor's residence], and [grantee's name], of [grantee's residence];

WITNESSETH, That in consideration of [amount] dollars, in hand paid, the receipt whereof is hereby acknowledged, the said grantor does hereby release and quit-claim to the said grantee, all [description of the property].

Stick with "release and quit-claim." In Pennsylvania, the words "grant and convey" or "warrant" turn a deed into a promise about the title, and that's a different kind of deed. The old wording also has lines for witnesses and a seal, which you can skip. Your county may have its own rules for margins and paper size.

Step 3: Write Your Name and Check Whether Your Spouse Needs to Sign

Write your full legal name the way it appears on the deed that gave you the property, along with your home address. Matching the old deed keeps the county's records consistent. Property held in a trust is signed over by its trustee, which may be you. If a company owns it, the person signing gives the company's exact name and their own title.

If your spouse isn't an owner of the property, their signature generally isn't required just because you're married. If you and your spouse both own it, you both sign.

Many married couples own property in a form only married couples can have, called tenancy by the entirety. A divorce changes that: unless the court decides otherwise, each former spouse then owns an equal half. A quitclaim deed is how one of them passes that half to the other.

Step 4: Name the Grantee and Choose How Title Is Held

Next comes the grantee: their full legal name and home address. For a trust, name the trustee, something like "Jane Doe, Trustee of the Doe Family Trust." For a company, use its exact legal name.

If you're deeding to two or more people, decide what should happen when one of them dies. Pennsylvania has followed the same rule since 1812: the survivor doesn't take the other's share unless the deed says so. Without that wording, each person's share goes to their own heirs, or to whoever their will names.

Say you're deeding the property to your two children and want whichever one lives longer to end up with all of it. Put this right after their names: "as joint tenants with right of survivorship and not as tenants in common."

For a married couple, write "as tenants by the entirety" after their names. Either way, spell it out, so no one has to guess later.

Step 5: Copy the Legal Description and Add the Parcel Number

Copy the legal description from the deed that gave you the property, word for word. It's the paragraph that pins down exactly which land this is, by lot number or by boundary lines. A street address isn't a legal description. You can also add a line saying how you got the property, with the book and page of that deed. It isn't required, but it helps anyone tracing the property's history.

Then add the property's parcel number. This one is a county-by-county rule. A Pennsylvania county can adopt a uniform parcel identifier, the number its tax map gives each piece of land, often the same as the parcel number on your tax bill. Where your county has, the recorder can refuse a deed without it. Some counties have their assessment office stamp the number onto the deed before you record it, for a fee.

Step 6: Show the Price, or File Form REV-183

Every Pennsylvania deed must show the real price or come with a statement of the property's value. In the blank for the price, write what the grantee is actually paying, if anything.

Do you need Form REV-183? Form REV-183 is the Department of Revenue's statement of value. If the grantee is close family, you don't, though the Department suggests filing one anyway; just say in the deed why no tax is due, for example "This is a transfer from parent to child for no consideration." Otherwise, you need it whenever the deed is a gift, doesn't show the full price, or claims that no tax is due. That includes a deed into your own living trust, which also needs a complete copy of the trust.

You file it with the recorder in two copies. It asks for the property's full value even when no tax is due. One of the parties, or someone acting for them, signs it, and the recorder can send back a deed whose form is incomplete.

Step 7: Attach the Certificate of Residence

Every Pennsylvania deed comes with a certificate of residence attached: a short, signed note giving the grantee's home address and mailing address. Unlike the parcel number, this one is statewide, and the recorder has to refuse a deed without it. The county uses it to send the property tax bill to the right person. The grantee can sign it, or someone can sign on the grantee's behalf.

Pennsylvania doesn't print exact wording for it. Something like this covers what the law asks for:

I certify that the precise residence and complete post office address of the grantee is: [street address, city, state, ZIP code]. [signature], [grantee, or on behalf of the grantee]

Use a real street address. The law asks for both the home address and the mailing address, so a post office box by itself won't do.

Step 8: Sign in Front of a Notary

Take the deed to a notary and sign it there. The notary fills in a short certificate, called the acknowledgment, saying you appeared and confirmed the signature is yours. That's what lets the deed be recorded. Everyone transferring the property signs. Bring a current driver's license, passport or state ID. If you're out of state, a notary where you are will do, because Pennsylvania accepts other states' notaries.

You can also sign from home over live video with a Pennsylvania notary, and you can do it from anywhere, even overseas, as long as the country you're in allows it. The notary has to be in Pennsylvania and use a service the Department of State has approved. Expect a few identity checks, and a recording of the session that the notary keeps. A deed signed this way is an electronic document, and each county decides whether it takes those. Our Remote Online Notarization by State page explains how it works.

Step 9: Calculate the Realty Transfer Tax

No transfer tax is due on a deed between close family members in Pennsylvania. That covers a deed between:

• spouses
• former spouses, for property either of them owned before the divorce was final
• a parent and child, or the child's spouse
• a stepparent and stepchild, or the stepchild's spouse
• brothers and sisters, or a brother's or sister's spouse
• a grandparent and grandchild, or the grandchild's spouse

Great-grandparents and great-grandchildren count too. If the grantee sells or gives the property away within a year, that transfer is taxed as if you had transferred the property directly to the new owner.

Other transfers with no tax

Neither of you owes transfer tax on a deed into your own living trust, or on the deed bringing the property back out to you. Here, a living trust means a trust you set up in place of a will, one that pays out to no one but you during your lifetime. No tax is due, either, on a deed from an estate to an heir, or on a no-cost deed that only fixes a mistake in an earlier one.

When transfer tax is due

Other gifts are taxed, including a gift to an aunt, uncle, niece, nephew, cousin, friend or unmarried partner. The state's tax is 1 percent of the property's value. The local municipality and school district usually add another 1 percent between them, and more in some places.

For a sale, the value is the price, and that includes a mortgage that stays on the property. For a gift, it's the county's assessed value multiplied by the common level ratio factor, a number the Department of Revenue sets for each county to turn assessed value into market value. Form REV-183 walks you through that math.

The recorder collects the tax when you record, and you and the grantee are each responsible for it until it's paid.

Step 10: Take Your Deed to the Recorder

Bring or mail the signed deed to the recorder of deeds with the certificate of residence attached, Form REV-183 if you need it, a copy of your trust if you're deeding into one, and the fee and any tax. What Will Recording Cost? covers the charges.

Record it soon after signing. Recording puts the grantee's ownership on the public record, where later buyers, lenders and creditors are treated as knowing about it. Once it's recorded, look it up in the county's index and make sure it's listed under both names.