What’s the difference between a Quit Claim Deed and a General Warranty Deed? Real estate investing lesson for beginners.

by | Uncategorized, Indy Anna, Real Estate Investing

Quitclaim deeds vs. General Warranty Deeds

So what’s the difference between a quitclaim deed and a general warranty deed
anyway?

If we start by defining these two terms, it will be easier to answer this question,
and seeing the difference between the two.

(oh but first the BigReia Trivia: What was the last word uttered by Napoleon?  Answer in the comic below)

Let’s start by defining.

A quitclaim deed – is when someone relinquishes their interest of a property
without stating reason or intentions in the property.

This can be used for situations like removing a spouse after divorce, to clarify
ownership in matters of inheritance, transfer property in or out of a trust, etc.

Keep in mind…

As an investor accepting a quitclaim deed, you’re accepting that the person stated
on the quitclaim doesn’t have interest in the property, but not that they actually
have legal ownership of the property.

Example of a quit claim deed

Let’s say Jim’s father passed away, and Jim does a quitclaim deed on the house his
father lived in because he wants to sell it.  Investor Mark comes along and puts an offer on the property and plans to buy it from Jim. 

Mark moves forward with getting items ordered for rehabbing the home after closing.  After the
property goes through probate however, it turns out that Jim was not the owner and that Jim’s father willed the house to his long lost sister Mary, and she wants to live in it and not sell it to Mark.

Mark is now stuck with all of the time, effort, and resources (including
prematurely purchased rehab items) he put forth on the property based on false
quitclaim ownership assumption.

Now let’s define a general warranty deed.

A general warranty deed is a deed that provides the buyer with the assurance of
the title being free and clear, the buyer would have the legal right to transfer the property via
means of selling it, or transferring it. 

The title would not be breach-able by a third party (question of ownership, etc.), and the person or company that is making these claims about the cleanliness of the title they provided, will do whatever it takes to uphold them.

For reasons stated in the definition…

Title companies are usually the issuing parties of general warranty deed insurance
in the form of title insurance , which is protection against any claims that are being or will be made being made against the deed or ‘grantor’ of the deed and the title.

So the title company is guaranteeing AND insuring that the deed is as “clean” as they say it is.

So to answer the question about the difference in the types of deed:

Think of it like this: A quitclaim deed is like the lightest most ‘unsecured’ form of
someone stating their ownership of a property and their giving up the rights and
interest to it…

… while a general warranty deed is the most secured type of deed (especially with title insurance) to assure that ownership is valid and therefore interests of the rightful owner.

You can read more about quit claim deeds and warranty deeds on the wikipedia pages too.

Download these forms for FREE from us:

I had some of our attorneys send me a few examples and then I put them in a Word document for you guys so that you can download and edit them as much as you like so you can use them again and again.  Although these are specific to the states you can re-use them with slight changes if necessary.

One of the main things I wanted to make sure was here was an area for the public notary to notarize, you want to make sure that is in all your documents.

The Word version of a Quit Claim Deed is here.

A Word version of a General Warranty Deed is here.

Okay also below are a few other places you can check for more on this…

Some more helpful places:

https://www.rocketlawyer.com/form/quit-claim-deed.rl#/ (quitclaim deeds)

https://www.rocketlawyer.com/form/warranty-deed.rl#/ (general warranty deeds)

https://www.ctic.com/ (Chicago title for title insurance and searched titles/deeds)

https://www.eForms.com – this is a place where you can search by stated and download an example of a general warranty deed.

https://www.eForms.com – this page you can search by state and get quit claim deeds for your specific state.

Check out our comic below too.

Thanks all!

Annisa  = )

 

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