How to Add Someone to a Deed in Georgia: Taxes, Forms, and Recording

Adding someone to a deed in Georgia takes a new deed, two witnesses (one of them a notary or other authorized official), a PT-61 transfer tax declaration, and a trip to the Superior Court Clerk’s office in the county where the property sits. The recording fee is $25.00, and most family transfers qualify as gifts and owe no state transfer tax.¹² The mechanics are simple. The decisions inside the deed, and the tax consequences that follow, are where people get hurt.

Pick the Deed Type

Two options cover almost every situation.

A quitclaim deed transfers whatever interest you currently hold and makes no promises about the title. If a lien or competing claim surfaces later, the new owner has no recourse against you. Quitclaim is the usual choice when you’re adding a spouse, child, or partner and no money is changing hands.³

A warranty deed guarantees clear title and puts you on the hook if a defect turns up later. It’s the standard in sales, but heavier than most family additions call for.³

Choose the Co-Ownership Structure

How the new deed names the owners decides what happens when one of them dies. This is the single most consequential line in the document.

Georgia’s default when two or more people own together is tenancy in common. Each owner holds a separate share that passes through their estate at death and goes through probate.⁴

If you want the surviving owner to inherit automatically without probate, you need joint tenancy with right of survivorship, and Georgia requires exact language to create it. The deed must call the owners “joint tenants,” “joint tenants and not as tenants in common,” or “joint tenants with survivorship.” Anything less specific defaults back to tenancy in common no matter what you intended.⁵

People routinely add a child to a deed specifically to avoid probate, use a generic form, and produce the opposite result. Get this phrase right or have a lawyer draft the deed.

What the Deed Must Contain

Georgia law and the recording statutes require several specific items. Missing any of them can bounce the deed at the clerk’s counter or create trouble later.

Full legal names of every current owner (grantors) and every person being added (grantees). To add someone, the grantor conveys the property to both themselves and the new person.
Mailing addresses for the parties, plus the name and address of whoever should receive the recorded deed back, printed at the top of the first page.⁶
The complete legal description, copied exactly from the current deed. Land lot, district, county, lot number, subdivision, plat book and page. A street address is not enough.
Consideration. Georgia law requires a deed to be “made on a good or valuable consideration.” For gifts, the standard phrasing is “ten dollars and love and affection.”⁷
The co-ownership language, including the exact survivorship phrase if that’s what you want.

Blank forms exist, but attorney fees for a simple deed usually run a few hundred dollars, which is cheap insurance against a wording mistake that could take years to surface.

Signing and Witnessing

The grantor signs the deed in front of two witnesses. One must be an authorized official: a notary public, a judge of a court of record, a magistrate, or a superior court clerk or deputy clerk. The second can be any competent adult.⁷⁸

In practice, that means a notary and one other person. Notary fees in Georgia are capped at $2.00 per act.⁹ The grantee does not sign; only the person giving up an interest does.

Recording the Deed

An unrecorded deed is valid between you and the new owner but doesn’t protect them against outside claims. Take the signed deed to the Superior Court Clerk’s office in the county where the property is located. You can file in person or by mail. The recording fee is $25.00 per instrument.¹¹⁰

Before the clerk accepts the deed, you also need a PT-61 Real Estate Transfer Tax Declaration. File it electronically through the Georgia Superior Court Clerks’ Cooperative Authority website and bring the confirmation to the clerk. The PT-61 is required even when the transfer is exempt from transfer tax; you just indicate the exemption on the form.¹¹

Georgia Transfer Tax and the Gift Exemption

Georgia imposes a transfer tax on deeds conveying property for more than $100 in value, at $1.00 for the first $1,000 and $0.10 for each additional $100.¹² Several transfers common when adding someone to a deed are exempt:

Deeds of gift, which covers most additions of a family member without payment.
Transfers between spouses in connection with a divorce.
Transfers to an LLC or corporation in which you hold majority ownership.
Divisions among existing joint tenants or tenants in common where no other consideration changes hands.

Most family additions qualify as gifts and owe nothing, but the PT-61 still has to be filed to document the exemption.

Your Mortgage: The Due-on-Sale Problem

Adding someone to the deed does not add them to your mortgage. You stay solely liable for the loan. The bigger issue is that most mortgages contain a due-on-sale clause letting the lender call the loan if you transfer any ownership interest.

The federal Garn-St. Germain Act blocks lenders from enforcing that clause on residential property of fewer than five units for certain transfers, including:¹³

Transfers to a spouse or children.
Transfers required by a divorce decree or separation agreement.
Transfers into a living trust where you remain a beneficiary and keep occupying the home.
Transfers to a relative after the borrower’s death, or by operation of law when a joint tenant dies.

Adding a sibling, a parent, or an unrelated partner is not on that protected list. The lender technically has the right to accelerate the loan. Whether it actually will varies, but call the lender before you record if the transfer falls outside the protected categories.

Title Insurance

Your existing owner’s policy was issued to the original owners. Adding a spouse or dependent usually doesn’t void it, but transferring an interest to someone outside the insured parties, or to an entity you don’t fully control, may require an endorsement or a new policy. Check with the title insurer before you record.

Federal Gift Tax

Adding someone to your deed without receiving fair market value is a gift equal to the interest you transferred. A 50 percent interest in a $400,000 home is a $200,000 gift.

The annual gift tax exclusion for 2026 is $19,000 per recipient, or $38,000 for a married couple electing to split gifts. Amounts above that don’t necessarily produce a tax bill, but they have to be reported on IRS Form 709 and they count against the lifetime exemption, which is $15,000,000 per person for 2026.¹⁴¹⁵

Inherited property is different. It gets a stepped-up basis equal to fair market value on the date of death, which can wipe out decades of appreciation for capital gains purposes. Bought your house for $80,000, worth $400,000 now? Giving your child a half interest locks in your $80,000 basis on their share. Leaving it to them through your will resets that share to $400,000, and they could sell shortly after with little or no capital gains tax.

For many families, adding a child to the deed is the wrong move on pure tax grounds. If probate avoidance is the goal, a revocable living trust often gets you there without the basis hit. Talk to a tax advisor before deciding.

Quick Checklist

Decide on tenancy in common or joint tenancy with right of survivorship, and use the exact survivorship phrasing if that’s what you want.
Pick a deed type. Quitclaim covers most gift transfers; warranty deed if the new owner needs title guarantees.
Prepare the deed with full names, addresses, the complete legal description from your current deed, the consideration line, and the return-to name and address at the top.
Sign in front of a notary (or other authorized officer) and one additional witness. Only the grantor signs.
File the PT-61 electronically and claim any exemption.
Record the deed with the Superior Court Clerk in the property’s county with the $25.00 fee.
Contact your mortgage lender if the transfer isn’t covered by Garn-St. Germain.
Check with your title insurer that coverage carries over.
File IRS Form 709 for the following tax year if the gift exceeds the annual exclusion.

1
Justia. Georgia Code 15-6-77 – Fees
2
Justia. Georgia Code 48-6-2 – Exemption of Certain Instruments
3
Georgia.gov. Transfer Property with a Quit Claim Deed
4
Justia. Georgia Code 44-6-120 – Tenancy in Common Defined
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Justia. Georgia Code 44-6-190 – Creating Joint Tenancy with Survivorship
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Justia. Georgia Code 44-2-14 – Requirements for Recordation
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Justia. Georgia Code 44-5-30 – Requisites of Deed to Lands
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Justia. Georgia Code 44-2-15 – Officers Authorized to Attest Registrable Instruments
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Justia. Georgia Code 45-17-11 – Fees of Notaries
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Justia. Georgia Code 44-2-2 – Duty of Clerk to Record Certain Transactions Affecting Real Estate and Personal Property
11
Georgia Superior Court Clerks’ Cooperative Authority. PT-61 E-Filing Help
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Justia. Georgia Code 48-6-1 – Transfer Tax Rate
13
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 12 USC 1701j-3 – Preemption of Due-on-Sale Prohibitions
14
Internal Revenue Service. Gifts and Inheritances
15
Internal Revenue Service. Property (Basis, Sale of Home, etc.)