Georgia quitclaim deed

Georgia Code 44-5-30 requires a deed conveying real estate to be signed by the grantor and attested by a notary public or another officer the statute names. The attestation is not a courtesy: a deed without it can be refused for recording or challenged later.

Citation: Ga. Code § 44-5-30 (opens the official source in a new tab).

The notary must watch the grantor sign or take an acknowledgment. The witness line should be completed by an adult who is not the grantee. A deed signed outside Georgia can sometimes be acknowledged under the law of the place where it was signed, but a Georgia clerk may still want the Georgia certificate.

Record the original signed deed with the clerk of the superior court in the county where the property is located. The clerk stamps the deed with a recording date and a book and page number, and returns a copy. That stamped copy is the one to keep with the title papers.

Georgia charges a recording fee based on the number of pages, and the clerk may require a cover sheet or a transfer tax declaration. Call the clerk before mailing the deed to confirm the current fee and the county's formatting rules. A deed that misses a required cover sheet is returned rather than recorded.

Georgia charges a real estate transfer tax at $1 for each $1,000 of the value of the property, with a small exemption for the first part of the consideration. The tax is usually paid when the deed is recorded, and the clerk will not accept the deed without it or a proper exemption.

A gift or a nominal price can still need a transfer tax declaration that states the value and the reason for the exemption. Do not write a low price to reduce the tax. A price that does not match the value can create a tax review and a title problem at the same time.

A Georgia deed needs a legal description that a surveyor or a title examiner can locate on the ground. Most residential deeds use the lot and block from a recorded plat, with the subdivision name, the phase and the county. Rural property often uses a metes and bounds description with a beginning point, courses and distances. A street address alone is not enough.

Copy the description from the current deed or a title commitment rather than retyping it from memory. A missing line, a wrong lot number or a description that mixes two plats can send the deed back or create a title exception. The tax parcel number helps the assessor, but it does not replace the legal description.

Georgia offers a homestead exemption that lowers the property tax on an owner's principal residence. The exemption is not automatic in every county, and a new owner usually has to apply with the tax assessor by a deadline. A transfer between family members can change who is eligible and for how much.

If the property is a marital home, read the divorce decree before preparing the deed. The decree may require one spouse to sign a quitclaim deed, or it may require a sale. Georgia also gives a surviving spouse rights in the estate, so a transfer that ignores the estate plan can be undone later.