How to Fill Out and Record an Arizona Warranty Deed Form

An Arizona warranty deed transfers real estate with the strongest title guarantee the state recognizes, and recording one correctly comes down to using the statutory warranty language in A.R.S. § 33-402, filling in the parties and legal description without error, getting the grantor’s signature notarized, and submitting the deed to the county recorder with either an Affidavit of Property Value or a notation of the exemption that applies.¹ The form itself is short. The details around it are where deeds get rejected.

What the Warranty Actually Promises

Any Arizona deed that uses the word “grant” or “convey” carries two implied promises: that the grantor has not already conveyed the property to someone else, and that the property is free from encumbrances such as taxes, assessments, and liens. Arizona law says those are the only promises implied from those words “and none other.”²

A warranty deed goes further by adding the phrase “and I warrant the title against all persons whomsoever,” or language with the same effect.¹ The grantor stands behind the title not just for their own actions but against claims from any source, including defects that predate the grantor’s ownership. If someone later surfaces with a valid lien or ownership claim, the grantor is responsible. That is why warranty deeds are the default in Arizona residential sales.

Information to Gather Before You Write Anything

Fixing a recorded deed means filing a separate corrective instrument and paying another recording fee, so collect everything before you start typing.

Full legal names of every grantor and every grantee. The grantor’s name should match exactly how it appears on the current deed in the chain of title; a missing middle name or a misspelling can leave a gap that clouds title later.
Marital status of each party. Arizona is a community property state, and how marital status is identified affects whether the property is treated as community property, sole and separate, or something else. A married grantor transferring property held as sole and separate should say so on the deed.
Legal description, copied word for word from the most recent recorded deed. This may be a metes-and-bounds narrative, a lot-and-block reference to a recorded subdivision plat, or a section-township-range description. A transposed number or missing line can create a title problem the recorder will not catch.
Assessor’s Parcel Number (APN). This is the identifier the county assessor uses to track and tax the property, and you can find it on a recent property tax bill or your county assessor’s online parcel search.³
Consideration. In arm’s-length sales this is the purchase price. Gifts and family transfers commonly recite “ten dollars and other good and valuable consideration.”
Vesting language for the grantees, decided in advance.

Blank warranty deed forms are available from title companies and some county recorder sites. If you download one, confirm it includes the warranty phrasing from A.R.S. § 33-402 and a notary acknowledgment block that complies with Arizona law.

Choosing How the New Owners Will Hold Title

The vesting line controls each owner’s rights during life and what happens to the property at death. Pick it deliberately.

Community property. Available only to married couples. Each spouse owns an undivided half, and a deceased spouse’s half passes through their will or Arizona’s intestacy rules, which usually means probate.
Community property with right of survivorship. Also limited to married couples. The surviving spouse automatically inherits the deceased spouse’s half without probate, and the property receives a full step-up in basis at the first spouse’s death. Neither spouse can leave their half to anyone else while the other is alive.
Joint tenancy with right of survivorship. Available to any two or more owners. All owners hold equal shares, and the last survivor ends up with the entire property. A joint tenant can sell their share, but doing so converts that share to a tenancy in common.
Tenancy in common. Owners may hold unequal shares. Each owner can sell or will their share independently, and there is no right of survivorship.

Spell the choice out on the grantee line. “Jane Doe and John Doe, a married couple, as community property with right of survivorship” leaves no ambiguity.

Filling Out the Deed

The statutory warranty deed form in A.R.S. § 33-402 is minimal. Stripped down, it reads: “For the consideration of [amount], I hereby convey to [grantee] the following real property [legal description] and I warrant the title against all persons whomsoever.”¹ Printed forms expand on that skeleton with spaces for the APN, a return-address block, and the notary acknowledgment, but the core statutory language is what makes the deed effective.

Type or print in black ink. County recorders scan documents digitally, and faded ink or cramped handwriting produces an illegible record. Double-check every name, number, and the legal description against the source documents. If you are unsure whether to include a particular reference line in the legal description, include it; redundancy is better than omission.

If a Trust Is Involved

When a trust appears on either side of the deed, Arizona requires extra disclosure. A grantee described as a trustee, or a grantor holding title as a trustee, must disclose the names and addresses of the trust’s beneficiaries along with information identifying the trust.⁴ The disclosure can appear on the deed itself or by reference to a previously recorded document that contains the information.

A conveyance that omits the required beneficiary disclosure is voidable by the other party for up to two years after recording.⁴ If the beneficiaries change later, the trustee has 30 days from learning of the change to record an updated notice. The rule does not apply to trustees under deeds of trust, bankruptcy trustees, personal representatives, guardians, or attorneys-in-fact.

Signing and Notarization

Every Arizona deed must be signed by the grantor and acknowledged before an officer authorized to take acknowledgments, which in practice means a notary public.⁵ The grantee does not sign. Bring a current government-issued photo ID to the notary; the notary will verify identity before witnessing the signature.

The notary completes the acknowledgment block, applies the official seal, and writes in the commission expiration date. A missing or illegible seal is one of the most common reasons recorders flag documents, so look at the seal impression before you leave. Do not alter the deed after it is notarized. Any change, even a corrected typo, requires a fresh acknowledgment.

Formatting Rules the Recorder Enforces

Arizona recorders can reject documents that fail the formatting standards in A.R.S. § 11-480.⁶ Before submitting the deed, check it against these specifications.

Paper no wider than 8½ inches and no longer than 14 inches.
Type at least 10 points.
A first-page top margin of at least 2 inches, reserved for the recorder’s stamps and indexing. The left 3½ inches of that top margin may be used for the name and return address of the person requesting recording.
At least ½-inch margins on all other sides of every page. Text that falls within the ½-inch margin may not provide constructive notice even if the recorder accepts the document.
A caption at the top of the first page identifying the document type. “Warranty Deed” works. The recorder indexes based on the caption.
Original signatures, unless a statute specifically allows otherwise.

The deed must also be legible enough to produce clean certified copies from the scanned image. Combining underlined, bolded, and italicized text in the same passage reproduces poorly on scans.

The Affidavit of Property Value

For most sales, the county recorder will not accept the deed unless an Affidavit of Property Value (Arizona Department of Revenue Form 82162) is attached.⁷ Both the buyer and the seller (or their agents) sign the affidavit, which reports the sale price, financing details, property type, and other transaction information to the Department of Revenue for property tax assessment purposes.

Falsifying information on the affidavit, or knowingly omitting required information, is a class 2 misdemeanor,⁸ punishable by up to four months in jail.⁹

When the Affidavit Is Not Required

A.R.S. § 11-1134 lists more than two dozen exempt transfer types.¹⁰ The common ones:

Deeds of gift.
Transfers between spouses, parents and children, grandparents and grandchildren, or siblings for nominal consideration.
Quitclaim deeds executed for no monetary consideration or to quiet title.
Corrective or confirmatory deeds that fix errors on a previously recorded instrument.
Deeds executed under a court order.
Transfers between parent and subsidiary corporations, between commonly controlled entities, or between members and their LLCs.
Conveyances from a person to a trustee, or from a trustee to a beneficiary, for nominal consideration.
Transfers pursuant to a beneficiary deed for nominal consideration.

A deed claiming an exemption must note the specific exemption on its face at the time of recording. The recorder will reject a deed that has neither an affidavit nor an exemption notation.

Recording With the County

Submit the notarized deed, with the affidavit or exemption notation, to the county recorder in the county where the property is located.¹¹ Most Arizona counties accept documents in person, by mail, or electronically. If mailing, send the original (not a photocopy) along with a check for the recording fee and a self-addressed stamped envelope for the return.

The standard recording fee is $30 per instrument statewide under A.R.S. § 11-475.¹² Arizona does not impose a real estate transfer tax, so the recording fee is the only government charge at the county level.

Once accepted, the recorder stamps the deed with a recording number, date, and time, indexes it in the public land records, and returns the original to the address in the return block, usually within a few weeks. Recording gives constructive notice to the world that ownership has changed, which protects the grantee against later claims from third parties who did not know about the transfer. It also triggers the county assessor to update ownership for future tax bills.

If the Goal Is Transfer at Death, Not Now

A warranty deed transfers ownership immediately. If the point is to pass property to someone at death while keeping full control during life, the right instrument is an Arizona beneficiary deed under A.R.S. § 33-405, not a warranty deed.¹³ The owner signs and records the beneficiary deed during their lifetime, keeps the right to sell, mortgage, or revoke it, and the transfer takes effect only at death, avoiding probate for the property. A beneficiary deed must be recorded before the owner’s death to be valid, and the beneficiary takes the property subject to any mortgages, liens, and encumbrances that existed during the owner’s lifetime.

1
Arizona Legislature. Arizona Revised Statutes Title 33-402 – Forms for Conveyances; Quit Claim; Conveyance; Warranty; Mortgage
2
Arizona Legislature. Arizona Revised Statutes Title 33-435 – Covenants Implied From Word Grant or Convey
3
Pinal County, AZ. Frequently Asked Questions
4
Arizona Legislature. Arizona Revised Statutes 33-404 – Disclosure of Beneficiary; Recording; Failure to Disclose
5
Arizona Legislature. Arizona Revised Statutes Title 33-401 – Formal Requirements of Conveyance; Writing; Subscription; Delivery; Acknowledgment; Defects
6
Arizona Legislature. Arizona Revised Statutes 11-480 – Requirements for Form of Instruments
7
Arizona Legislature. Arizona Revised Statutes 11-1133 – Affidavit of Legal Value
8
Arizona Legislature. Arizona Revised Statutes 11-1137 – Violations; Classification
9
Arizona Legislature. Arizona Revised Statutes 13-707 – Misdemeanors; Sentencing
10
Arizona Legislature. Arizona Revised Statutes 11-1134 – Exemptions
11
Pinal County, AZ. Recorder
12
Arizona Legislature. Arizona Revised Statutes 11-475 – Fees; Exemptions
13
Arizona Legislature. Arizona Revised Statutes Title 33-405 – Beneficiary Deeds