Quitclaim Deed After Divorce in Mississippi

What a Quitclaim Deed Does After Divorce

When your divorce decree awards the marital home (or other real property) to one spouse, the other spouse must transfer their ownership interest. In Mississippi, the standard instrument for this is a quitclaim deed — it releases whatever interest the grantor has in the property to the grantee without making any guarantees about the title.

A quitclaim deed is different from a warranty deed. It doesn't promise that the title is clean or that no one else has a claim. For post-divorce transfers between known parties, this is fine — both sides know what the property is and what encumbrances exist.

Preparing the Deed

Mississippi has specific formatting requirements. The deed must:

• Be printed on white paper (some counties reject colored paper)
• Include the preparer's name and address
• List the full legal names and contact information of both the grantor (the spouse giving up their interest) and the grantee (the spouse keeping the property)
• Contain a complete legal description of the property — not just the street address, but the metes and bounds or lot/block description from the county land records. Pull this from the existing deed or the county assessor's records.
• Reference the divorce decree as the basis for the transfer

Execution Requirements Under Mississippi Law

Mississippi Code § 89-3-1 requires the grantor's signature to be either acknowledged before a notary public or attested by at least two subscribing witnesses. In practice, Mississippi attorneys recommend using both — notary acknowledgment plus two witnesses — to protect the title against future challenges.

The witnesses must be present when the grantor signs. The notary must complete the acknowledgment and affix their seal. All names should be printed clearly beneath each signature — some county registrars reject documents where printed names are missing.

Recording the Deed

Take the executed deed to the Chancery Clerk's office in the county where the property is located — not the county where you live, if that's different. This is the land records division.

Recording fees:

• $25 for the first five pages
• $1 for each additional page after that
• Some counties charge a $10 non-conforming formatting penalty if the document doesn't meet their specifications (wrong paper size, missing printed names under signatures, insufficient margins)

Pay by check or money order — not all Chancery Clerk offices accept credit cards.

Once recorded, the deed becomes part of the county's permanent land records. The Chancery Clerk assigns a book and page number, and the transfer is official.

What a Quitclaim Deed Does Not Do

Two critical limitations:

It doesn't release you from the mortgage. If both names are on the mortgage loan, removing one name from the property title does nothing to the debt obligation. The lender can still pursue the departing spouse if the retaining spouse stops making payments. The mortgage must be refinanced into one name to truly separate the debt.

It doesn't trigger a property tax reassessment. Mississippi doesn't reassess property taxes on divorce-related transfers the way some states do on sales. But if you're claiming the Mississippi homestead exemption, you'll need to update your filing status with the county assessor after the transfer.

Timing Matters

Record the deed as soon as the grantor executes it. An unrecorded deed is valid between the two parties, but it doesn't protect the grantee against third-party claims. If the grantor incurs a judgment lien or files for bankruptcy before the deed is recorded, the property could be at risk.

The Mississippi After-Divorce Checklist covers the full property transfer process — quitclaim deed preparation, execution, recording, and the separate mortgage refinancing steps — alongside every other post-decree update.

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