Deed

Key Takeaways

• In Washington, every conveyance of real estate or any interest in it, and every contract creating or evidencing an encumbrance on real estate, must be by deed (RCW 64.04.010).
• RCW 64.04.020 sets the requisites: a deed must be in writing, signed by the party bound by it, and acknowledged before a person authorized to take acknowledgments.
• Recording does not create the transfer. RCW 65.08.070 makes an unrecorded conveyance void only as against a later good faith purchaser for value whose conveyance is recorded first.
• The deed form chosen at closing decides what the grantor promises: the statutory warranty deed carries full covenants, the bargain and sale deed carries narrow ones, and the quitclaim deed carries none.

What It Means

A deed is the written instrument that moves ownership of real estate from one party to another. The person giving up the interest is the Grantor, the person receiving it is the Grantee, and the deed itself is the evidence that the transfer happened.

Two things about a deed trip up new students. First, a deed is not the same as the contract to sell. A purchase and sale agreement is a promise to convey, and the deed is the conveyance. Second, a deed is not a receipt for money. Personal property changes hands by bill of sale, real estate changes hands by deed, and the price paid does not appear anywhere in the covenants the deed carries.

What a deed does say is which interest is being transferred, which land it covers, and what the grantor is willing to promise about the title behind it. Those promises, the covenants, are what separate one deed type from another. The land can be identical, the parties can be identical, the price can be identical, and the protection the buyer walks away with can still be completely different.

How It Works in Washington

In Washington, chapter 64.04 RCW controls how real estate is conveyed. RCW 64.04.010 states that every conveyance of real estate, or any interest in it, and every contract creating or evidencing an encumbrance upon real estate, shall be by deed. Leases are the main carve out. They do not require acknowledgment, witnesses, or seals, though to be recorded a lease or memorandum of lease must carry acknowledged signatures from both the lessee and the lessor.

RCW 64.04.020 supplies the requisites in one sentence. Every deed shall be in writing, signed by the party bound by it, and acknowledged by that party before a person authorized to take acknowledgments of deeds. Skip the acknowledgment and the deed cannot be recorded, which leaves the buyer exposed to the priority rule in RCW 65.08.070.

The chapter then gives three short forms, each carrying a different level of promise. RCW 64.04.030 supplies the statutory Warranty Deed, whose form binds the grantor to its covenants as fully and with like effect as if they were written at full length in the deed. RCW 64.04.040 supplies the bargain and sale deed, whose implied covenants reach only encumbrances done or suffered by that grantor. RCW 64.04.050 supplies the Quitclaim Deed, which conveys the grantor's then existing legal and equitable rights and does not extend to after acquired title unless words are added expressing that intention.

Example

Marisol sells her Spokane rental to Devin for $415,000. At closing she signs a statutory warranty deed on the RCW 64.04.030 form, naming herself as grantor and Devin as grantee, describing the lot, and acknowledged before a notary. The deed records with the county the same afternoon.

Ten months later Devin gets a letter from a roofing contractor claiming $9,200 for work finished before the sale and secured by a lien recorded two weeks before closing. Because Marisol signed the statutory warranty form, RCW 64.04.030 treats her as having covenanted that at the time of the making and delivery of the deed the premises were free from all encumbrances, so the $9,200 is hers to clear even though she no longer owns the building. Her real proceeds were $415,000 less that $9,200, or $405,800.

Had she signed a quitclaim deed instead, RCW 64.04.050 would have passed only the rights she then held, with no promise attached, and Devin would be writing the $9,200 check himself. Same house, same price, same county, and a $9,200 swing driven entirely by which form went across the closing table.

Common Mistakes and Exam Traps

• A deed and a purchase and sale agreement are different documents. The agreement is the promise to convey and the deed is the conveyance itself.
• Recording is not what makes a deed work. Under RCW 65.08.070 an unrecorded conveyance is void only as against a later purchaser or mortgagee in good faith and for valuable consideration whose conveyance is first duly recorded.
• Washington's bargain and sale deed is narrower than the name suggests. RCW 64.04.040 implies covenants only as to encumbrances done or suffered by that grantor, not as to owners further back in the chain.
• A quitclaim deed does not carry after acquired title. RCW 64.04.050 says the conveyance does not extend to after acquired title unless words are added expressing that intention.