How to Fill Out the Vermont Enhanced Life Estate Deed: Lady Bird Deed

To fill out a Vermont enhanced life estate deed, use the optional statutory form at 27 V.S.A. § 660, enter the grantor and grantee information, paste in the exact legal description from your current deed, keep the reserved-rights clause intact, sign in front of a notary, and record the original with the town clerk where the property sits along with a Property Transfer Tax Return.

What to Gather Before You Start

Pull your most recent deed from the town land records before you draft anything. You will copy several items from it word for word.

Full legal name, mailing address, and county of residence for each grantor (the current owner or owners). If spouses hold title together, list both.
Full legal name, mailing address, and county for each grantee (the beneficiary). If you are naming more than one, decide whether they take as joint tenants or as tenants in common, because that choice controls what happens if one grantee dies before you.
The property’s legal description, usually metes and bounds, a lot number, or a reference to a recorded plat. A street address alone will not do.
The book and page number (or document number) where your current deed is recorded.

Pull the grantor’s name exactly as it appears on the current deed of record. A misspelling creates a break in the chain of title that will surface years later when the grantee tries to sell or refinance.

Filling In the Statutory Form

Vermont publishes a ready-made enhanced life estate deed form at 27 V.S.A. § 660.¹ You are not required to use it; any deed that meets the statutory requirements works. But the form has the advantage of language the legislature has already approved, and completing it is mostly a matter of filling the blanks:

Names, addresses, and counties for the grantors.
Names, addresses, and counties for the grantees, and the form of co-ownership between them if there is more than one.
The legal description of the property, copied from the prior deed.
A reference to that prior deed by book and page.
The date of execution.

If you draft your own deed instead of using the statutory form, expressly reference the Enhanced Life Estate Deed Act (27 V.S.A. Chapter 6) in the body of the document. Without that reference and the reserved-rights language described below, you may end up with an ordinary life estate, which ties your hands considerably.

Keep the Reserved-Rights Clause Intact

The clause that makes the deed “enhanced” rather than ordinary is the reservation of rights. The statutory form’s language reads: “The Grantors, or the survivor of them, hereby reserve unto themselves: (a) a common law life estate, with the exclusive use, possession, and enjoyment of the property; and (b) the right to convey the property.”¹ That language, combined with the Chapter 6 reference, is what preserves your ability to sell, mortgage, revise, or revoke later without the grantee’s consent or even knowledge.²

Do not edit this clause to sound more natural or to shorten it. It is doing legal work.

If you want the default rules for predeceased grantees changed (for example, you want a deceased grantee’s share to go to their children rather than through their probate estate), add that instruction directly to the deed. The statutory defaults apply “unless the ELE deed provides otherwise.”³

Signing and Notarizing

Only the grantor signs. The grantee does not sign the deed, and does not need to be told about it.

Vermont requires the grantor’s signature to be acknowledged before a notary public. A common misconception is that the notary must apply an official stamp or seal; the statute explicitly provides that the acknowledgment is valid without one.⁴

Recording With the Town Clerk

Vermont manages land records at the town level, not the county level. Bring the signed, notarized original to the Town Clerk’s office in the specific municipality where the property sits.⁴ Recording fees are typically $15.00 per page. The clerk will record the deed and return the original to you.

The deed is not effective to put the world on notice until it is recorded, so do not sit on it after signing.

Filing the Property Transfer Tax Return

Every deed recorded in Vermont must be accompanied by a Property Transfer Tax Return on Form PTT-172, filed either on paper or electronically through myVTax.⁵ This requirement applies to enhanced life estate deeds even when no money changes hands.

Whether you actually owe tax depends on who the grantee is. Vermont’s general transfer tax rate is 1.25 percent of value plus a 0.22 percent clean water surcharge. Transfers between spouses, between a parent and child (or child’s spouse), or between a grandparent and grandchild (or grandchild’s spouse) are exempt when made without actual consideration.⁶ Most family enhanced life estate deeds fall into one of those exemptions.

If the grantee is not a qualifying family member, the transfer is taxable. The taxable value is calculated from the property’s grand list value multiplied by an IRS actuarial factor based on the grantor’s age and the applicable interest rate for the month of the transaction. Younger grantors see a higher taxable value attributed to the remainder.⁶

Changing or Revoking the Deed Later

You can revoke the deed entirely or revise it (new grantee, different terms) at any time, without the grantee’s consent or knowledge and without a court order.⁷ To do it, record a new deed that references the prior deed and either conveys the property back to yourself or names a new grantee. Follow the same signing, notarization, and recording steps as the original.

If you paid property transfer tax on the original deed, you can petition for a refund after a revocation. A revision, by contrast, triggers a new transfer tax calculation on the revised interest.⁶

Taking out a mortgage does not automatically revoke or revise the deed. Instead, the mortgage encumbers both your life estate and the grantee’s contingent remainder, and if you die with the loan outstanding, the grantee inherits the property subject to it.⁷

What the Deed Does Not Do

A few boundaries are worth understanding before you file.

The deed does not shield the property from your own creditors during your lifetime. Judgment liens, tax liens, and other creditor claims against the grantor still attach, because the statute confirms the deed does not affect the grantor’s or the grantor’s creditors’ rights. On the other side, the grantee’s creditors cannot reach the property while you are alive, because the grantee holds no present interest.²

The deed does not, by itself, resolve Medicaid planning questions. Whether an enhanced life estate deed keeps the home outside Vermont’s Medicaid estate recovery program depends on timing and other facts, and the rules change. If Medicaid planning is the reason you are doing this, talk to an elder law attorney before you record.

And if the grantee is not a relative and the property is mortgaged, the lender’s treatment of the eventual transfer is worth confirming in advance.

1
Vermont General Assembly. Vermont Code 27 V.S.A. 660 – Optional Form for Enhanced Life Estate Deed
2
Vermont General Assembly. Vermont Code 27 V.S.A. 654 – Execution and Recording of an Enhanced Life Estate Deed
3
Vermont General Assembly. Vermont Code Title 27 Chapter 6 – Enhanced Life Estate Deeds
4
Vermont General Assembly. Vermont Code 27 V.S.A. 341 – Requirements Generally, Recording
5
Vermont Department of Taxes. Town Clerks: Mailing Paper Property Transfer Tax Returns to the State
6
Vermont General Assembly. Vermont Code Title 32 Chapter 231 – Property Transfer Tax
7
Vermont General Assembly. Vermont Code 27 V.S.A. 656 – Revocation, Revision, Mortgages