Spouse confused about home ownership documentation after husband’s death
Q: After my husband’s death, my daughter went to pick up the deed to our house. There was a quitclaim deed that our old mortgage lender put in place with my signature on it. Also, I can’t find the transfer on death (TOD) instrument either. All records and insurance on the house are gone. Where should I start looking?
A: Oh, boy, do we have questions.
For starters, when you said that you found a quitclaim deed that your old mortgage lender had you sign, did you mean that you signed over your interest in the home to your husband and he became the sole owner of the home?
There are times when a lender simply can’t approve a loan to a husband and wife when the credit of one of the spouses is so bad. In this situation, the lender will have the spouse with the bad credit convey their share of the home over to the other spouse. Do you recall if this is what happened to you?
If you had terrible credit and signed the quitclaim deed, the usual thing is to have the owner spouse convey the home back into the name of both spouses. Did that happen? From where we sit, it looks like a second deed wasn’t signed and recorded that would put you back into the title to the home.
But you mentioned something about a TOD. Did your husband sign the TOD and file or record in the government office that handles real estate documents? That would be a lucky break.
So, that’s where you should start. Go to that government office (or if they have an online site, go there) and check to see if the TOD was recorded or filed. If you go in person, you might find someone kind to help you look it up. You’ll need your property address and the property tax identification number. This identification number is assigned to your home by the local taxing authorities. You’ll find this number on your property tax bills. It should also be on that quitclaim deed you found.
Take all of this documentation with you when you go to your local recorder of deeds office. If you go online to the recorder of deed’s official site, you should use that tax identification number to find all documents that have been recorded to that number.
(A warning: Make sure you go to the official site and not a site set up by third parties that require you to pay money to set up or look for an account.)
Scroll through the documents and see if you find the TOD. If you do, see if you can download a copy of the document. Some government websites may require you to pay a fee to download the document. Again, ensure you are dealing with the official site for your local recorder of deeds or other government office. Don’t give anyone your personal information or credit card information unless you are completely confident you are dealing with your local government agency.
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