A Pima County beneficiary deed lets you name who inherits your Arizona real property when you die, without probate. You sign and notarize the deed while you are alive, record it with the Pima County Recorder’s Office for a flat $30 fee, and keep full ownership and control of the property until your death. The person you name has no rights while you are living, and you can revoke or replace the deed at any time.
What to Gather Before You Start
Arizona Revised Statutes 33-405 sets out what a valid beneficiary deed must contain. Pull these details together first:
- Your full legal name as grantor, exactly as it appears on the current deed to the property. A mismatch creates a cloud on title that can delay or block the transfer.
- The full legal name of the person or persons you want to receive the property. Use legal names, not nicknames.
- The complete legal description of the property. A street address is not enough. You need the lot, block, and subdivision (or metes-and-bounds) description from your existing recorded deed.
- The tax parcel number. Pima County uses a nine-character parcel code (eight digits plus one letter or digit), sometimes shown as an eleven-character string with dashes, such as 117-11-001B. You can look it up on the Pima County Assessor’s parcel search.
The legal description is where most errors happen. Copy it character for character from your recorded deed. If you cannot find it, the Assessor’s parcel search lets you look it up by address.
Where to Get the Form
The Pima County Recorder’s Office does not provide legal forms. It points residents to outside resources for blanks, including the Arizona Courts Self-Service Center, the GALE Legal Forms database through the Arizona State Library, the Pima County Superior Court Law Library, and private document preparation sites such as deeds.com.
You can also have an attorney prepare the deed. The statutory form in ARS 33-405(K) fits on a single page, and the statute says a deed is sufficient if it follows “substantially” that format. Private legal document providers sell pre-formatted versions for a small fee.
Filling Out the Deed
At the top of the form, enter the name and address where the Recorder’s Office should mail the document after processing, along with the tax parcel number. Then enter your full legal name as grantor and the beneficiary’s full legal name as grantee.
The operative language must expressly state that the deed takes effect on your death. The statutory template reads: “I (we) [owner] hereby convey to [grantee beneficiary] effective on my (our) death the following described real property.” Insert the complete legal description in the middle section. Your signature line and the notary acknowledgment go at the bottom. Print everything clearly in black ink; recording staff may reject documents that are hard to scan.
Notarization
Arizona law requires every deed conveying real property to be acknowledged before a notary public or another officer authorized to take acknowledgments. Without a proper acknowledgment, the Recorder’s Office will refuse the document, and an unrecorded beneficiary deed is not valid. Bring identification to your notary appointment. The beneficiary does not need to sign or even know about the deed.
If You Co-Own the Property
If you hold title as joint tenants with right of survivorship, a beneficiary deed you sign alone only takes effect if you are the last surviving owner. If you die first, your co-owner receives the property by survivorship, and your beneficiary deed has no effect. To control the property’s destination regardless of who dies first, all co-owners should sign the same beneficiary deed together. Otherwise, whoever survives will have their own deed govern.
Recording the Deed
A beneficiary deed is legally valid only if it is recorded with the county recorder in the county where the property sits before the owner dies. An unrecorded deed, however carefully written, does nothing.
Pima County offers three ways to record:
- In person, at a Pima County Recorder’s office during business hours.
- By mail, sending the notarized original to the Recorder’s mailing address with a self-addressed stamped envelope so the office can return the recorded original.
- Online, through the county’s self-service document recording portal for digital submissions.
The fee is a flat $30 per instrument, regardless of page count. This rate is set by ARS 11-475 and applies statewide. In person, you can pay by check, money order, or credit card. For mail, include a check or money order payable to the Pima County Recorder.
After processing, staff assign an instrument number, scan the image into the public record, and mail the original back with an official recording stamp. Keep the recorded copy somewhere safe, and let your beneficiary know it exists. They will need the recording information later.
Changing or Revoking the Deed
You can cancel a beneficiary deed anytime during your lifetime. The revocation must be signed, notarized, and recorded with the Pima County Recorder before you die. A revocation sitting in a drawer has no legal effect.
The revocation form is also set out in ARS 33-405. It identifies the original beneficiary deed by its recording date and instrument number (or docket and page number) so the Recorder can link the two documents. If you do not have that information, the Recorder’s online records search will pull it up.
You can also simply record a new beneficiary deed naming a different person. Arizona law provides that the last beneficiary deed recorded before the owner’s death controls, so a fresh deed overrides an earlier one without a separate revocation. If more than one owner signed the original, any one owner can individually revoke it, though in a joint tenancy that individual revocation only matters if the revoking owner ends up the last to survive.
What Happens After You Die
The transfer is automatic on the owner’s death, but the beneficiary still has paperwork. To update county records and establish a clean chain of title, the beneficiary should record a certified copy of the death certificate with the Pima County Recorder’s Office. That pairs the death certificate with the already-recorded beneficiary deed and confirms on the public record that ownership has passed. The same $30 recording fee applies.
No probate petition is needed. Once the death certificate is recorded, the beneficiary can obtain a new title insurance policy, refinance an existing mortgage, or sell the property.
What Transfers With the Property
A beneficiary deed does not pay off or remove an existing mortgage. The property passes to the beneficiary subject to every mortgage, lien, and other encumbrance that existed during the owner’s lifetime. The beneficiary inherits the debt attached to the property along with the property itself.
The transfer itself should not trigger a due-on-sale clause. The federal Garn-St. Germain Act prohibits lenders on residential property with fewer than five units from accelerating the loan on a transfer resulting from the borrower’s death, including a transfer to a relative. The beneficiary can generally keep making payments on the existing mortgage.
Tax Basis for the Beneficiary
Property received through a beneficiary deed qualifies for a stepped-up tax basis under federal law. Rather than inheriting the original owner’s purchase price as the cost basis, the beneficiary’s basis resets to the property’s fair market value on the date of the owner’s death. When the beneficiary eventually sells, capital gains tax applies only to appreciation above that stepped-up figure. This is one of the significant advantages a beneficiary deed has over a lifetime transfer, where the recipient keeps the original owner’s low basis.
Medicaid Estate Recovery
A beneficiary deed does not shield the property from Medicaid estate recovery in Arizona. Federal law requires state Medicaid programs to seek repayment from a deceased enrollee’s estate for nursing facility and certain home-based care services provided after age 55. Arizona’s Medicaid program, AHCCCS, can file a claim against the estate even if the home passed by beneficiary deed. Ownership may transfer on paper, but AHCCCS can still pursue a lien or recovery action.
Arizona also applies a five-year look-back period when evaluating eligibility for its long-term care program, ALTCS. Transferring assets for less than fair market value within that window can trigger a penalty period of ineligibility, regardless of the transfer method. If Medicaid planning is a concern, talk to an elder law attorney before recording a beneficiary deed. The interaction between the deed, the look-back, and Arizona’s homestead exemption is case-specific.