Deeds in Tennessee: quitclaim, adding a name, and transfer on death

Quitclaim vs warranty: what each one promises

Every deed hands over ownership. The difference is what the person signing it promises about that ownership.

• A general warranty deed promises the most. The person signing it warrants the title "against all persons whomsoever." If somebody turns up later with a claim to the property, from any time, the signer is on the hook. This is the deed a buyer expects in a sale.
• A special warranty deed promises less. The signer warrants the title only against people "claiming under me": problems the signer created, not ones from before they owned it.
• A quitclaim deed promises nothing. It hands over "all my interest," whatever that turns out to be. If the signer owned the whole house, the whole house moves. If they owned half, half moves. If they owned nothing, nothing moves, and the deed says so honestly.

That's why a quitclaim is fine between family members who already know what they own, and the wrong deed when somebody is paying for the house. It's also why "just do a quitclaim" is not always the right answer. A quitclaim isn't always the right one, and an online form can leave title problems you won't see until you sell.

Source: Tenn. Code Ann. § 66-5-103 (the statutory short forms: general warranty, "I warrant the title against all persons whomsoever"; special warranty, "against all persons claiming under me"; quitclaim, "I hereby quitclaim to A. B. all my interest in the following land"). Our wording around the quotes.

Signing it isn't enough. Record it.

A deed is good between the people who signed it the moment it's signed. Against everyone else, it counts only once it's taken to the county register and recorded. Until then, a creditor of the person who signed it, or a buyer who never heard of it, can take ahead of you. Tennessee law says an unrecorded deed is "null and void" as to them.

To be recorded, a deed has to clear the register's checklist. The signature has to be notarized (or proved by two witnesses). The new owner has to swear, on the face of the deed, to what was paid or what the property is worth, whichever is greater. The deed has to say who prepared it, and give the owner's name and address and who pays the property taxes. Miss one and the register can turn it away, or it records with a gap a buyer's examiner will find later.

Sources: Tenn. Code Ann. § 66-24-101 (deeds and deeds of trust may be registered); § 66-26-101 (effective between the parties without registration, but as to others without actual notice only from the noting for registration); § 66-26-103 (unregistered instruments "null and void as to existing or subsequent creditors of, or bona fide purchasers from, the makers without notice"); § 66-22-101(a) (signature acknowledged or proved by two subscribing witnesses; the register may refuse otherwise); § 67-4-409(a)(1)(F)(i) (the oath of consideration or value); § 66-24-115 (preparer's name and address); § 66-24-114 (owner's name and address, and who pays the taxes).

Adding a spouse or child to the deed: what it really does

People think of it as adding a name. The law sees it as giving away part of your house. That's a real transfer, and it comes with consequences most online forms never mention.

• How you'll own it together. Add your husband or wife and Tennessee presumes the two of you own it as tenants by the entirety: married-couple ownership, where the survivor gets the whole house and neither spouse can sell off a piece alone. Add a child, or anyone else, and the default is a tenancy in common, where each of you owns a share and your share goes to your heirs, not to the other owner, unless the deed expressly says there's a right of survivorship. Even then, Tennessee's Supreme Court has held that either joint owner can break the survivorship on their own.
• The mortgage. Most mortgages let the lender call the whole loan due if you transfer the property. Federal law takes some family transfers off the table on a home of one to four units: a transfer where your spouse or children become an owner, a transfer to a spouse in a divorce, and a transfer into a living trust where you stay a beneficiary. Adding anyone else is a different question, and the answer is in your loan papers.
• The title insurance. Your owner's title policy protects the owners it names, plus the people the policy itself lists. The current standard form carries the coverage over to a trust you set up for estate planning and to a spouse who takes the house in a divorce. A child you simply add to the deed isn't on that list, and older policies read differently. Read the policy before you sign the deed, or bring it to us.
• Taxes. Adding a child is a gift. A child who receives a house as a gift generally takes your tax basis in it; a child who inherits it generally takes its value at your death. That difference can matter a great deal when they sell. Talk to your tax adviser before you add anyone.
• Their life becomes your house's life. Once your child owns part of the house, you can't sell or refinance without their signature, and their divorce, their creditors and their bankruptcy can reach their share.

Sometimes adding a name is exactly right. Often a deed into a living trust does what the family actually wanted, without the side effects. Vanderpool Law will tell you which before anything is signed.

Sources: Bryant v. Bryant, No. M2014-02379-SC-R11-CV (Tenn. Apr. 19, 2017) (a conveyance to a married couple prima facie creates a tenancy by the entirety, which neither spouse can sever alone; a joint tenancy with an express right of survivorship can be severed by either co-owner); Tenn. Code Ann. § 66-1-107 (no survivorship in a joint tenancy unless created); § 36-3-505 (tenancies by the entirety not abolished); 12 U.S.C. § 1701j-3(d)(6), (7) and (8) (no due-on-sale on a transfer "where the spouse or children of the borrower become an owner," on a divorce transfer, or "into an inter vivos trust in which the borrower is and remains a beneficiary"); ALTA Owner's Policy (2021), Conditions ¶ 1, definition of "Insured"; 26 U.S.C. § 1015(a) (gift: the giver's basis) and § 1014(a)(1) (inheritance: value at the date of death). Co-owner consent and creditors described generally, in our words.

Taking a name off after a divorce

The divorce decree says who keeps the house. The decree doesn't change the deed. The spouse who's leaving signs a deed, usually a quitclaim, to the one who's staying, and that deed gets recorded. A deed between divorcing spouses that carries out the property settlement is exempt from Tennessee's transfer tax, and federal law keeps the lender from calling the loan just because of it.

Here's what surprises people: taking a name off the deed doesn't take that name off the mortgage. The loan is a promise both of you signed, and the lender isn't a party to your divorce. The spouse who left still owes it until the house is refinanced, sold, or the lender agrees in writing to let them go. We prepare the deed the decree calls for, and in our real estate practice we handle the refinance or the sale that follows. We don't handle the divorce itself.

Sources: Tenn. Code Ann. § 67-4-409(a)(1)(C)(v) (no transfer tax on "domestic settlement decrees and/or domestic decrees and/or deeds that are an adjustment of property rights between divorcing parties"); 12 U.S.C. § 1701j-3(d)(7) (divorce transfers); the mortgage point is general, in our words.

Transfer-on-death deed: Tennessee doesn't have one. Here's what you do instead.

If a house is in your name alone when you die, it goes through probate, even with a will. A will doesn't avoid probate. It guarantees it. In Tennessee there are two real ways to pass a house without the court:

• A deed into your revocable living trust. You stay in charge of the house while you're living. When you're gone, the person you named hands it out by your instructions. No court, no public file. It's the one that covers everything, and the one most families should look at first.
• Ownership with survivorship. Spouses who own as tenants by the entirety, or co-owners whose deed expressly says there's a right of survivorship, pass the house to the survivor. It works until the survivor dies, and then the house is in one name again. And as above, adding a child to get there brings the child's whole life onto your title.

A form from another state with "transfer on death" in the title does not do it here. At best it does nothing. At worst it's a cloud on the title somebody has to clear when the house is sold.

Sources: Tennessee General Assembly, HB 1793 (2026), withdrawn; Tenn. Code Ann. § 66-1-107 and Bryant v. Bryant (Tenn. 2017) (survivorship only when expressly created, or between spouses by the entirety); the "cloud on the title" point is our experience.

Moving the house into your trust

A living trust only controls what's been put into it. For a house, that means a new deed from you to yourself as trustee, prepared correctly and recorded with the county. Skip it and the house goes to probate as if the trust didn't exist. That's the most common problem we see with trusts drawn somewhere else.

The good news is that Tennessee and federal law make this transfer easy on purpose. A deed into your own revocable living trust, or back out to you, is exempt from the transfer tax. If you stay a beneficiary, the lender can't call your loan because of it. And the current standard owner's title policy keeps covering the trustee of a trust you set up for estate planning. More on all of it in our living trust page.

Sources: Tenn. Code Ann. § 67-4-409(a)(1)(C)(vi) (no transfer tax on transfers "to a revocable living trust created by the same transferor or by a spouse of the transferor," or back); 12 U.S.C. § 1701j-3(d)(8); ALTA Owner's Policy (2021), Conditions ¶ 1, definition of "Insured" (a trustee or beneficiary of a trust established for estate planning purposes by an Insured).

Family loans: record it

Most family loans are a handshake. Sometimes that works. But what will the IRS think, and what happens if your relative divorces, dies or files bankruptcy? A handshake makes you a creditor waiting in line.

A deed of trust changes that. It's the same document a bank uses: your relative signs a note promising to repay, and a deed of trust that pledges the house as security for it. Once the deed of trust is recorded, it counts against everyone who comes later: the next buyer, the next lender, the relative's other creditors. Unrecorded, it's "null and void" as to them. So Vanderpool Law documents the loan and records it against the property, so you're protected like a bank, not like a creditor waiting in line.

And the IRS part: a family loan charging less than the federal government's minimum rate can be treated, for tax purposes, as a gift of the interest you didn't charge. Your tax adviser can tell you the current rate.

Sources: Tenn. Code Ann. § 66-5-103 (the statutory deed of trust form: "For the purpose of securing to A. B. a note ... I hereby convey to C. D., in trust, the following property"); § 66-24-101 (deeds of trust may be registered); §§ 66-26-101 and 66-26-103 (effect from registration; unregistered instruments void as to creditors and bona fide purchasers without notice); 26 U.S.C. § 7872 (a "below-market loan" charges less than "the applicable Federal rate"; a "gift loan" is one where the forgone interest is "in the nature of a gift"). Recording secures your place; it doesn't guarantee the house is worth the debt, and a lien recorded shortly before a bankruptcy can be challenged.

What it costs

Less than fixing it later. Our fee depends on what the deed has to do: a deed into your own trust is not the same job as a deed that adds a child, takes an ex off under a decree, or secures a family loan. That's why we don't print a price. There are also the county's charges when the deed is recorded: the register's recording fees, and Tennessee's realty transfer tax, which the new owner pays, figured on the price or the property's value, whichever is greater. Several family transfers are exempt, and a true quitclaim is taxed only on what was actually paid for it. The 30-minute consultation comes first, complimentary, so you know your number, and what the county will charge, before you decide.

Sources: Tenn. Code Ann. § 67-4-409(a)(1)(A) (tax on "the consideration for the transfer, or the value of the property, whichever is greater," paid by the grantee); (a)(1)(C) (exemptions, including tenancy by the entirety, divorce, and revocable living trusts); (a)(1)(D) (a quitclaim deed is taxed "only on the actual consideration given"). No figures printed on purpose.