How to Complete and Record a North Dakota Transfer on Death Deed

A North Dakota transfer on death deed lets you name someone to receive your real property automatically when you die, without probate. To make one, you fill out a deed that identifies the property and the beneficiary, state clearly that the transfer takes effect at your death, sign it in front of a notary, and record it with the recorder in the county where the property is located — all while you’re still alive. The authority for this comes from Chapter 30.1-32.1 of the North Dakota Century Code, the state’s Uniform Real Property Transfer on Death Act.¹

Who Can Make One

Any individual who owns an interest in North Dakota real property can create a transfer on death deed (TODD). The statute’s definition of eligible property covers any interest in real property that is transferable at the owner’s death, so it works for a house, farmland, a vacant lot, or mineral interests.¹

The capacity standard is the same one used for making a will: you need to understand what you own, who you’re naming, and what the deed does.¹ If capacity could be questioned later, prepare the deed while that question has an obvious answer.

What the Deed Has to Contain

North Dakota does not publish an official state TODD form. Blank templates circulate online and some county recorders provide one, but whichever version you use has to meet the statute’s requirements and the general rules for recordable deeds. Pull the following together before you start filling in blanks.

Names and Addresses

Every owner and every beneficiary needs a full legal name and current mailing address on the deed. North Dakota requires the post-office address and any known street address for each grantee on a deed presented for recording.² Match names to government ID or to existing property records. Inconsistent spellings and nicknames cause rejections at the counter and title problems later.

The Legal Description

A street address is not enough. The deed needs the full legal description — lot, block, subdivision, or township-range-section — copied verbatim from your current recorded deed, title policy, or the recorder’s office. If the description uses metes and bounds, the deed must also include the name and address of the person who drafted the description, or a statement that the description was taken from a previously recorded instrument.² A small discrepancy here can cloud your beneficiary’s title.

Language That Makes It a TODD

The deed has to say, in so many words, that the transfer to the beneficiary happens at your death. Without that language, you may have created an immediate conveyance instead of a transfer on death deed.¹ Most templates include it; confirm the clause is there before you sign.

Multiple and Backup Beneficiaries

You can name more than one beneficiary. If you do and say nothing more, they take equal, undivided shares with no right of survivorship. But if one of them dies before you, the statute shifts that share to the surviving named beneficiaries rather than letting it lapse.¹ Naming an alternate (contingent) beneficiary gives you more control over who steps in if that happens.

Signing Before a Notary

A TODD must satisfy the formalities of a recordable deed, which means your signature has to be acknowledged before a notary public or other authorized officer before the county will accept it.¹ You have to appear in person; the notary cannot be a party to the deed or the spouse of a party.² North Dakota caps notary fees at $5 per notarial act, and charging more is an infraction.³

One point that often surprises people: the beneficiary does not sign the deed, does not need to be given a copy, and does not even need to know the deed exists. The statute says notice, delivery, acceptance, and consideration are all unnecessary during your lifetime.¹

Recording With the County

A notarized TODD sitting in a drawer does nothing. You must record it in the office of the county recorder for the county where the property is located, and recording must happen while you’re alive. A deed found in your papers after death but never recorded has no legal effect.¹

The recording fee tracks document length. A deed of one to six pages costs $20 to record; documents longer than six pages cost $65.⁴ A typical TODD falls in the $20 tier. Call the recorder’s office in the county where the property sits to confirm whether they want the deed in person or by mail.

What the Deed Does and Doesn’t Do While You’re Alive

Recording a TODD changes nothing about your ownership during your lifetime. The statute is explicit: the deed does not affect any interest or right you have in the property, including the right to sell, mortgage, or otherwise encumber it. It creates no legal or equitable interest for the beneficiary while you’re alive, and a creditor of the beneficiary cannot reach the property based on the deed.¹ If you sell the property before you die, the TODD becomes meaningless because you no longer own what it was going to transfer.

The deed also does not affect your eligibility, or the beneficiary’s eligibility, for public assistance programs during your lifetime.

What Happens at Your Death

When you die, the property passes to your named beneficiary automatically, outside probate. The beneficiary has to have survived you. If a sole beneficiary died first and you named no alternates, the interest lapses; if you named several and one died first, the deceased person’s share goes to the survivors.¹

The beneficiary takes the property subject to every conveyance, mortgage, lien, and encumbrance in place at your death. The deed does not wipe out the bank’s mortgage or a tax lien, and it transfers the property without any warranty of title, even if the form language suggests otherwise.¹

If You Own the Property With Someone Else

If you own as a joint tenant with right of survivorship and a co-owner outlives you, that co-owner takes the property; the TODD does not override joint tenancy. The deed only takes effect if you are the last surviving joint owner.¹

Creditors of Your Estate

Avoiding probate does not automatically shield the property from your debts. If your probate estate is too small to pay allowed claims or the statutory allowances owed to a surviving spouse or child, the estate can reach the transferred property to cover the shortfall. When more than one property was transferred by TODD, the liability is split in proportion to the net values of those properties at your death. A claim to enforce this liability must be filed within eighteen months of your death.¹

Changing or Revoking the Deed

You can revoke or change a TODD at any time while you’re alive and competent. Section 30.1-32.1-08 gives you two methods:¹

Record a new TODD that expressly revokes the earlier deed, or that names a different beneficiary for the same property and so overrides the old one by inconsistency.
Record a separate instrument of revocation that identifies and cancels the earlier deed.

Either way, the revoking instrument must be notarized after the acknowledgment date on the deed being revoked, and it must be recorded in the same county recorder’s office before your death. Tearing up your copy at home does not revoke a recorded TODD; the statute specifically forbids revocation by physical act on the deed.¹

Divorce

North Dakota has a revocation-on-divorce statute at § 30.1-10-04 that automatically revokes certain dispositions to a former spouse when a marriage ends in divorce or annulment. The statute reaches revocable dispositions made in a “governing instrument,” and the term is defined broadly enough to include beneficiary designations like those on a TODD.⁵ The TODD statute defers to state law on revocation by divorce when determining a deed’s effect at death.¹ Rather than relying on the automatic effect, record a new TODD or a formal revocation after a divorce so there is nothing to argue about.

Taxes for Your Beneficiary

A TODD is not a lifetime gift, so recording the deed triggers no gift tax. When the property actually passes at your death, the beneficiary receives a stepped-up basis equal to the property’s fair market value on the date of death under IRC § 1014.⁶ If the beneficiary sells shortly after inheriting for roughly the date-of-death value, there is little or no capital gains tax. Property given during life, by contrast, carries the owner’s original basis to the recipient, who can then owe tax on years of appreciation at sale.

The property’s value is included in your gross estate for federal estate tax purposes. For 2026, the federal exemption is $15,000,000 per individual.⁷ Estates below that threshold owe no federal estate tax and still get the stepped-up basis. North Dakota imposes no separate state estate tax or inheritance tax.

1
North Dakota Legislative Branch. North Dakota Code 30.1-32.1 – Uniform Real Property Transfer on Death Act
2
North Dakota Legislative Branch. North Dakota Century Code 47-19 – Recording of Conveyances
3
North Dakota Legislative Branch. North Dakota Century Code 44-06.1 – Notaries Public
4
North Dakota Legislative Branch. North Dakota Code 11-18 – Recorder
5
North Dakota Legislative Branch. North Dakota Century Code 30.1-10-04 – Revocation by Divorce
6
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 26 USC 1014 – Basis of Property Acquired From a Decedent
7
Internal Revenue Service. Estate Tax