How to Fill Out and Record a Mississippi Transfer on Death Deed

A Mississippi transfer on death deed lets you name someone to receive your real property when you die, without the property passing through probate. To be valid, the deed has to do three things: use language that meets the statutory requirements (the optional form at Miss. Code Ann. § 91-27-33 is the simplest route), be signed in front of a notary, and be recorded with the Chancery Clerk in the county where the property sits before your death.¹ You keep full ownership and control of the property while you are alive; the beneficiary receives nothing until you die.

What to Gather Before You Start

Pull these details together first, because a missing or mismatched item is what usually sends people back to the Chancery Clerk a second time:

The full legal name and current mailing address of every owner making the deed. If two spouses own the property together, both names go on the form and both must sign.
The full legal name and mailing address, if you have it, of the person you want to receive the property.
The name and address of an alternate beneficiary, if you want a backup. This is optional, but the statutory form has a field for it.
The legal description of the property, taken exactly from your current recorded deed. Not a street address. This is typically a metes-and-bounds description or a lot-and-block reference precise enough that a surveyor could locate the parcel from it.²

The legal description causes more problems than anything else on the form. Find it on the most recent recorded deed for your property, which is on file with the Chancery Clerk. If you don’t have a copy, the county tax assessor’s office can help you locate the parcel’s legal identifiers. Copy the description exactly. A vague or incorrect description can make the deed unenforceable.

Filling Out the Statutory Form

Mississippi provides an optional form at § 91-27-33 that covers every required field.³ You are not required to use this exact form, but it is the path least likely to create recording issues. What goes in each section:

Owner or owners making the deed: print each owner’s full legal name and mailing address. Spell names exactly as they appear on the current deed and on your government-issued ID. A mismatch between the name on this deed and the name in the existing chain of title can stall the transfer later.
Legal description of the property: enter the full legal description from your current deed. Do not abbreviate or paraphrase.
Primary beneficiary: print the beneficiary’s full legal name and mailing address if you have it.
Alternate beneficiary: fill in a backup name and address if you want one. If your primary beneficiary dies before you and you haven’t named an alternate, that interest lapses and the property falls into your estate.

The form includes a built-in notice reminding you that it must be recorded before your death, and it references your right to revoke under § 91-27-21. Neither the primary nor the alternate beneficiary needs to sign the form, and neither needs to know it exists, for the deed to be valid.

Naming More Than One Beneficiary

You can name several beneficiaries to receive the property together. They take equal and undivided shares with no right of survivorship, which means each beneficiary’s share belongs to that person’s own heirs if they later die, rather than automatically passing to the other beneficiaries.⁴ If one of the named beneficiaries dies before you do, that person’s share does not fall into your probate estate; it gets divided proportionally among the surviving beneficiaries.

If the Sole Beneficiary Dies Before You

A beneficiary’s interest is contingent on surviving you. If your only primary beneficiary predeceases you and you didn’t name an alternate, the TOD deed has no effect, and the property passes through your estate, which likely means probate — the very thing the deed was meant to avoid.⁴ Naming an alternate on the form is the easiest guard against that outcome. You can also record a new deed at any point if circumstances change.

Signing and Notarization

The deed has to be acknowledged, meaning you sign it in front of a notary public who verifies your identity and confirms you are signing voluntarily.⁵ Mississippi applies the same acknowledgment rules that govern any deed conveying real property.⁶ The notary completes an acknowledgment block at the bottom of the deed with their signature, official seal, and commission expiration date.

You need the mental capacity to make a contract to execute a TOD deed, which is the same standard that applies to any business agreement, not the higher standard sometimes required for wills. Every owner listed on the deed must sign, and each signature must be notarized. The beneficiary does not sign.

Recording With the Chancery Clerk

A signed and notarized TOD deed sitting in your desk drawer does nothing. It has to be filed with the Chancery Clerk in the county where the property is located before you die.¹ If the property spans more than one county, record the deed in each. Recording puts the public on notice that you have designated a beneficiary and integrates the deed into the county’s land records.

Recording fees in Mississippi run roughly $25 to $27 for the first five pages, plus $1 for each additional page. Some counties add a $1 archive fee on top of the base charge.⁷ A standard TOD deed rarely runs beyond two or three pages, so most filers pay the base fee and nothing more. Call the Chancery Clerk’s office ahead of time to confirm the exact amount and which payment methods they accept; some offices take only cash or checks.

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

A recorded TOD deed creates no interest in the beneficiary during your lifetime. You can sell the property, mortgage it, lease it, or do anything else an owner would normally do. The deed does not affect your homestead rights, your property tax exemptions, or your eligibility for public assistance programs like Medicaid.⁸

Creditors of the beneficiary have no claim to the property while you’re alive, even if they know about the deed. Your own creditors are also unaffected; they can still pursue their claims against the property as if the deed didn’t exist. Recording the deed will not trigger a due-on-sale clause in your mortgage, which is reinforced by both the Mississippi statute and federal law.⁹

How to Revoke or Change the Deed

You can revoke a TOD deed at any time before you die, using one of three methods:¹⁰

Record a new TOD deed. A later deed that names a different beneficiary, or that expressly revokes the earlier one, supersedes the previous version.
Record a separate revocation instrument that identifies and expressly revokes the original TOD deed.
Transfer the property during your lifetime. Conveying it through a warranty deed, quitclaim deed, or any other inter vivos transfer effectively eliminates the TOD deed, because you no longer own the interest it was set to transfer.

Whichever route you take, the revocation must be notarized and recorded with the Chancery Clerk before your death to take effect. Tearing up or burning a home copy does nothing to a version already on file in the county records. The most recently recorded valid instrument controls.

What the Beneficiary Does After You Die

When the owner dies, the beneficiary records an affidavit of death in the deed records of the county where the property is located.¹¹ The affidavit is typically accompanied by a certified copy of the death certificate. That establishes the chain of title and allows the beneficiary to be recognized as the legal owner. No probate proceeding is required.

The property transfers without any warranty of title, even if the original TOD deed contained warranty language. The beneficiary also takes the property subject to every mortgage, lien, easement, and encumbrance in place at the owner’s death. A $150,000 mortgage stays a $150,000 mortgage. Federal law prevents the lender from calling the full loan due solely because of the death transfer, so the beneficiary can continue making the existing payments.⁹

Two Things a TOD Deed Won’t Do

A TOD deed does not shield the property from the deceased owner’s debts, and it is not a Medicaid planning tool on its own. Mississippi’s Medicaid estate recovery program can seek reimbursement for nursing facility and home-and-community-based services paid on behalf of a recipient who was 55 or older at the time of those services, and federal law lets states define “estate” broadly enough to reach property that passed outside probate, including through TOD deeds.¹² If you or a family member is receiving Medicaid long-term care benefits, get separate advice before assuming a TOD deed will keep the house away from recovery.

On the tax side, property received through a TOD deed qualifies for a stepped-up basis under federal law. The beneficiary’s cost basis resets to the fair market value on the date of the owner’s death rather than the owner’s original purchase price.¹³ Mississippi imposes no state estate or inheritance tax, so the transfer itself typically generates no state-level tax liability for the beneficiary.

1
Justia. Mississippi Code 91-27-17 – Requirements
2
Mississippi Bar Association. Mississippi Title Examination Standards
3
Justia. Mississippi Code 91-27-33 – Optional Form for Transfer-on-Death Deed
4
Justia. Mississippi Code 91-27-27 – Effect of Transfer-on-Death Deed
5
Secretary of State. Mississippi Notary Rules and Regulations
6
Justia. Mississippi Code 89-3-7 – Forms of Acknowledgment
7
Hinds County Mississippi. Mississippi Recording Fees
8
Mississippi Legislature. Senate Bill 2851 – Mississippi Real Property Transfer-On-Death Act
9
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 12 USC 1701j-3 – Preemption of Due-on-Sale Prohibitions
10
Justia. Mississippi Code 91-27-21 – Revocation by Instrument Authorized; Revocation by Act Not Permitted
11
Land Title Association of Mississippi. Transfer on Death Deeds
12
Mississippi Division of Medicaid. Estate Recovery
13
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 26 USC 1014 – Basis of Property Acquired From a Decedent