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District of Columbia Transfer on Death Deed
Support GuideDistrict of Columbia15 min read

District of Columbia Transfer on Death Deed

A District of Columbia transfer on death deed passes D.C. real estate at death without probate, but only if the Recorder of Deeds records it first.

By Settled Editorial

A District of Columbia transfer on death deed passes your house, condo or land to the people you name when you die, with no probate case in the Probate Division. You keep full ownership while you live, you can change your mind at any time, and nobody you name has to know about it. The one rule that sinks these deeds is timing: the deed works only if the Office of Recorder of Deeds records it before you die (D.C. Code § 19-604.09(c)).

The District adopted the Uniform Real Property Transfer on Death Act as D.C. Code §§ 19-604.01 to 19-604.19, in D.C. Law 19-230, effective March 19, 2013. The statute is short and plain. Here is what it requires, what it costs to record, and what it does and does not protect. For the wider set of tools, see other ways to avoid probate in the District.

What The Deed Can Carry

D.C. Code § 19-604.05 says an individual may transfer property to one or more beneficiaries, effective at the transferor's death, by a transfer on death deed. Three definitions in § 19-604.02 set the edges:

  • Property means an interest in real property located in the District of Columbia that is transferable on the owner's death. A D.C. deed cannot carry a house in Maryland or Virginia.
  • Transferor means an individual. A company or a trust cannot sign one.
  • Beneficiary can be any person, and the definition of person reaches estates, businesses, nonprofits and government bodies. You can name a charity or the trustee of a trust.

Section 19-604.03 applies the Act to a deed signed at any time by a transferor who dies on or after its effective date. Section 19-604.04 keeps every other lawful method of transfer open, so the deed sits beside joint tenancy and a living trust rather than replacing them.

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The Three Requirements In § 19-604.09

Here is the whole checklist. D.C. Code § 19-604.09 says a transfer on death deed:

  1. Carries the elements and formalities of a properly recordable inter vivos deed. That means it has to satisfy the Recorder of Deeds the same way an ordinary deed does.
  2. States that the transfer to the designated beneficiary is to occur at the transferor's death. This sentence separates the deed from a gift deed that conveys the property today.
  3. Is recorded before the transferor's death in the Office of Recorder of Deeds.

Two more rules shape how you sign it. § 19-604.08 sets the mental capacity to make or revoke the deed at the same level required to make a will. In the District that means at least 18 years old and of sound and disposing mind (§ 18-102); our guide to D.C. will requirements covers that test. And § 19-604.10 makes the deed effective without notice to the beneficiary, without delivery, without acceptance and without payment.

The Act also prints an optional fill-in form at § 19-604.16 and an optional revocation form at § 19-604.17. You do not have to use them, but they show exactly what the Council expected a valid deed to say.

Recording With The Recorder Of Deeds

The District has no counties, so there is one recording office for every parcel: the Office of Recorder of Deeds, part of the D.C. Office of Tax and Revenue, at 1101 4th Street, SW, 5th Floor, Washington, DC 20024, phone (202) 727-5374.

The Recorder publishes its own version of the statutory form, ROD 39, Transfer-On-Death Deed. It asks for the owners' names and mailing addresses, the legal description of the property "including the square, suffix and lot number", a first-choice beneficiary, an optional alternate beneficiary, signatures and a notary's acknowledgment.

Here is what recording costs and requires, from the Recorder's fee page:

  • Fee: $25 to record any document other than a deed of trust or mortgage, plus a $5 surcharge that D.C. Code § 42-1211(a) charges on every document. ROD 39 states the total plainly: the cost to record a revocable transfer on death deed is $30.00.
  • Notarized signatures: every signature on a recorded document must be notarized, with the notary's seal, signature, name and commission expiration date.
  • Full legal description: lot, square and subdivision, plus any A&T lot number.
  • A "Return to" address printed on the document, and a check made payable to the DC Treasurer for the exact amount.

One question we could not settle from an official source. The same fee page lists a $250 late fee for a deed recorded more than 30 days after it is signed and notarized, citing § 47-1433(c). That penalty backs the 30-day recording duty in § 47-1431 for documents that transfer title, and a TOD deed transfers nothing during your life. Record within 30 days of signing and the question never comes up. The page also lists an FP 7/C tax form for deeds; ask the Recorder whether it wants one with a TOD deed.

The Recorder's page says its staff cannot give legal advice or help fill out forms, and that it does not decide whether a document is valid under the law. Recording proves the deed is on file. It does not prove the deed works.

What The Deed Does While You Are Alive

Nothing, and that is the design. D.C. Code § 19-604.12 says that during the transferor's life the deed does not:

  • affect the owner's right to sell, mortgage or otherwise transfer the property;
  • affect a buyer's or lender's interest, even one who knew about the deed;
  • affect the rights of the owner's current or future creditors;
  • affect the owner's or the beneficiary's eligibility for any form of public assistance;
  • give the beneficiary any legal or equitable interest; or
  • expose the property to the beneficiary's creditors.

§ 19-604.06 keeps every transfer on death deed revocable, even if the deed or another document says otherwise. Section 19-604.07 makes it nontestamentary, so the deed is not a will and does not go through the Register of Wills. If you sell the property, the deed has nothing left to transfer.

Revoking Or Changing The Deed

This is the rule people get wrong, because the natural instinct is to tear up the paper or write a new will.

D.C. Code § 19-604.11(a) accepts only three instruments. Each must be acknowledged by the transferor after the acknowledgment of the deed it revokes, and recorded before the transferor's death in the Office of the Recorder of Deeds:

  1. a later transfer on death deed that revokes the earlier one expressly or by inconsistency;
  2. an instrument of revocation that expressly revokes it; or
  3. an inter vivos deed that expressly revokes it.

Section 19-604.11(c) is blunt: after the deed is recorded, a revocatory act on the deed revokes nothing. Burning or shredding your copy changes no record. A will cannot revoke it either, and the statutory form's own instructions say so: "You may not revoke the TOD deed by will."

Where more than one owner signed, § 19-604.11(b) says one transferor's revocation leaves the other transferors' interests alone, and a deed made by joint owners is revoked only if every living joint owner revokes it. Before you record, you can simply destroy an unrecorded deed, as the § 19-604.16 form notes.

What Happens At The Transferor's Death

D.C. Code § 19-604.13 decides who ends up on title.

  • The beneficiary has to survive you. A designated beneficiary's interest is contingent on surviving the transferor and lapses if they do not, under § 19-604.13(a)(2). The section also yields to § 19-502, which treats anyone not shown by clear and convincing evidence to have survived by 120 hours as having died first.
  • Co-beneficiaries share, with no survivorship. Two or more beneficiaries take equal, undivided shares with no right of survivorship, under § 19-604.13(a)(3). A share that lapses passes to the other concurrent beneficiaries in proportion to their interests, under § 19-604.13(a)(4).
  • Joint owners come first. If the transferor is a joint owner and another joint owner survives, the property belongs to the survivor by right of survivorship, under § 19-604.13(c). The deed operates only when the transferor is the last surviving joint owner, under § 19-604.13(d). Joint tenants and tenants by the entirety count as joint owners; tenants in common do not.
  • The mortgage comes with the house. Under § 19-604.13(b) the beneficiary takes subject to every conveyance, mortgage, lien and other interest on the property at death.
  • No warranty of title. Section 19-604.13(e) says the deed transfers the property without covenant or warranty of title, even if the deed says otherwise.

Section 19-604.13(a) also defers to several other sections it names by number, including the slayer rule in § 19-320 and the property-division statute in § 16-910. The simplest way to avoid a fight over a lapsed share is to name an alternate beneficiary in the deed, which ROD 39 lets you do.

A beneficiary who does not want the property can refuse all or part of it under § 19-604.14, which points to Chapter 15 of Title 19. Selling after the death is a separate step, covered in selling inherited property in D.C..

The death also brings two tax exemptions. A deed transferring the property to the named beneficiary of a revocable transfer on death deed, by reason of the grantor's death, is exempt from the District's deed recordation tax under § 42-1102(34) and from its transfer tax under § 47-902(26). The Act itself prints no post-death affidavit, so ask the Recorder of Deeds what it needs to show the transfer of record.

Creditors And Family Allowances Can Still Reach It

A transfer on death deed moves property out of probate. It does not move it out of reach.

D.C. Code § 19-604.15 makes the beneficiary liable for allowed claims against the transferor's probate estate, and for statutory allowances to a surviving spouse and children, to the extent provided in § 19-601.02. That section sets the limits:

  • Only if the estate falls short. Liability arises to the extent the probate estate cannot pay those claims and allowances, and it never exceeds the value the beneficiary received, under § 19-601.02(b).
  • An order of payment. A transferee named in the will or another governing instrument pays first, then the trustee of a trust that serves as the main nonprobate plan, then other nonprobate transferees in proportion to what they received, under § 19-601.02(c).
  • A written demand first. No proceeding starts until the personal representative receives a written demand from the surviving spouse, a child or a creditor, under § 19-601.02(g).
  • One year. The proceeding must start within one year after the death, under § 19-601.02(h).

Section 19-601.02(a) reaches transfers by a transferor whose last domicile was in the District. Our D.C. creditor claims guide explains the 6-month claim window that runs in the probate estate itself.

Is It The Right Tool?

A transfer on death deed is the cheapest way to keep a D.C. home out of the Probate Division: one form, one notary, and $30 at the Recorder of Deeds. It fits an owner who wants the house to pass to named people, wants to keep full control, and has no need for a trustee to manage the property after death.

It also shrinks what is left for the court. Without the house, an estate may fit D.C. small estate procedures. That matters because the no-court affidavit route is closed to any estate that includes an interest in real property, which is why the affidavit cannot move a house (D.C. Code § 20-361(a), as amended by D.C. Law 26-164, a temporary act effective until March 27, 2027).

Choose a living trust instead when you need someone to manage the property for a minor or a beneficiary with special needs, when you own real estate in more than one place, or when you want one document to cover the house and your other assets. Our D.C. probate guide shows what the estate goes through when neither tool is in place.

Common Questions

Does the District of Columbia allow a transfer on death deed?

Yes. D.C. Code §§ 19-604.01 to 19-604.19, enacted by D.C. Law 19-230 and effective March 19, 2013, authorize it. Section 19-604.05 lets an individual transfer D.C. real property to one or more beneficiaries, effective at death.

Where do you record a D.C. transfer on death deed?

With the Office of Recorder of Deeds, 1101 4th Street, SW, 5th Floor, Washington, DC 20024. Section 19-604.09(c) requires recording there before the transferor's death.

How much does it cost to record?

$30: the $25 document fee plus the $5 surcharge under § 42-1211(a). The ROD 39 form states the same total.

Can a will revoke a D.C. transfer on death deed?

No. Only a later TOD deed, a recorded instrument of revocation, or an inter vivos deed that expressly revokes it, each acknowledged and recorded before death, can revoke it under § 19-604.11.

Can creditors reach the property?

Yes, if the probate estate cannot pay allowed claims and family allowances. Section 19-601.02 caps the liability at the value received and requires the proceeding to start within one year after the death.

Related Guides

Confirm every fee and requirement with the Recorder of Deeds before you record. This guide is general information about District of Columbia real property law.

Sources:

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Information current as of October 5, 2026

Settled Estate is not a law firm, and this content is for informational purposes only and does not constitute legal advice. Probate laws and procedures in District of Columbia can change. Consult with a qualified attorney for advice specific to your situation. Full disclaimer.

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