In this Elder Law Minute, Wes Coulson discusses when deeds are considered a done deal.
Transcript:
I’m going to delve into real estate law just a bit for this Elder Law Minute because estate planning and elder law deals with real estate, and so we have to use and apply some real estate law in the course of doing that. An interesting question that can come up sometimes is, when is a deed to property a done deal?
Well, for a deed to be a done deal you have to show that it was delivered. One of the main reasons deeds get recorded at the courthouse is that once a deed has been recorded, that is per say, meaning it’s absolutely locked air-tight evidence that the deed was delivered. But, that’s not the only evidence.
Sometimes, if we don’t want to record a deed right away we will have the grantee, the person that the property is being deeded to, sign something called an affidavit of receipt of delivery, that’s also evidence that a deed has been delivered.
But if you just sign a deed intending to give it to somebody and stick it away in your personal papers, and it’s not delivered to them and it’s not recorded, people are going to be able to challenge that deed because you may have been thinking in your mind, “Well, I’m going to sign this while I’m here at the lawyers office in case I want to do this at some point in the future,” but until it’s delivered, the law says you haven’t really decided yet whether or not you want this to be a done deal.
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