Oregon Transfer on Death Deed

Oregon has a transfer on death deed. ORS 93.948 to 93.979, the Uniform Real Property Transfer on Death Act, lets you name the person who takes your house when you die, and the house passes to that person without a probate case. You keep every right of ownership while you are alive. The deed does nothing at all unless you record it with your county clerk before your death.

Two features of the Oregon version deserve attention up front. The state prints the deed form inside the statute at ORS 93.975, so the document is published and free. And ORS 93.973 leaves the house answerable for your debts, because your estate can reach the property once the probate estate runs short. Every rule below was read on the 2025 Edition of the Oregon Revised Statutes on August 25, 2026, at the Legislature's own site, which prints each section's amendment history inline. This page is general information about Oregon law rather than advice about your property. Ask a licensed Oregon attorney to draft or review any deed that affects your home.

The Act, and Which Deaths It Covers

ORS 93.948 states the short title in one line: ORS 93.948 to 93.979 may be cited as the Uniform Real Property Transfer on Death Act.

The whole act arrived as 2011 Oregon Laws chapter 212, and every section from 93.948 through 93.979 carries that chapter in its history line. Two sections inside the act were touched afterward, ORS 93.967 and ORS 93.969, both by 2013 Oregon Laws chapter 688. Three more sections sit just past the act and came from the same 2011 chapter: ORS 93.981, 93.983 and 93.985, of which the last two were amended by 2019 Oregon Laws chapter 461, and ORS 93.985 again by 2023 Oregon Laws chapter 18.

ORS 93.950 sets the reach in one sentence. The act applies to a transfer on death deed made before, on or after January 1, 2012, by a transferor dying on or after January 1, 2012.

One quirk of the printing throws people off. An editor's note under ORS 93.948 records that sections 93.948 to 93.985 were enacted into law by the Legislative Assembly but were not added to or made a part of ORS chapter 93 by legislative action. That is why they print at the end of the chapter under the heading Uniform Real Property Transfer on Death Act instead of running in numerical order with the other conveyancing sections. The note explains the placement and nothing else.

Chapter 93 carries a notice that new sections enacted during the 2026 regular session are likely to be compiled in the chapter, naming 2026 Oregon Laws chapters 64 and 86. Both were read for this page. Chapter 86 concerns fire hardening of residential properties, chapter 64 concerns the sale of single family residences, and neither one mentions a section in the 93.9 range. The 2026 table of ORS sections amended, repealed or added to carries no section number from chapter 93 at all, only a chapter level entry for those new sections. The 2025 Edition text of the deed act stands.

What the Deed Must Contain, and Where It Goes

ORS 93.961 sets four requirements, and the fourth is the one that fails in real life. A transfer on death deed:

1. must contain the essential elements and formalities of a properly recordable inter vivos deed;
2. must state that the transfer to the designated beneficiary is to occur at the transferor's death;
3. must identify the designated beneficiary by name; and
4. must be recorded before the transferor's death in the deed records in the office of the county clerk for the county in which the property is located.

Subsection (2) voids a beneficiary designation that identifies beneficiaries only as members of a class. Wording such as to my children fails on its face. Name each person.

The first requirement sends you to ordinary Oregon deed law. ORS 93.010 says a conveyance may be made by deed, signed by the person of lawful age from whom the interest is intended to pass, and acknowledged or proved, and recorded. ORS 205.130(2)(a) has the county clerk record deeds when properly acknowledged or proved. So the deed gets signed in front of a notary, which is why the statutory form at ORS 93.975 closes with a notarial acknowledgment block.

Recording goes to the county clerk. Oregon has no county recorder and no register of deeds, and ORS 205.130(1) gives the county clerk custody of the files and records of deeds and mortgages of real property. Record in the county where the land sits, which is not always the county where you live. Our Oregon probate court directory lists the county offices next to the court that would open an estate.

Two formalities sit outside the deed act and still stop a filing. ORS 205.232 keeps the clerk from accepting an instrument unless the text is typed, written or printed in 10 point type or larger, on paper no more than 14 inches long and 8 1/2 inches wide. ORS 205.234(1) sets what the first page has to carry, including the name and address the instrument goes back to after recording. Under ORS 205.327 the clerk records a nonconforming instrument anyway and charges a $20 penalty for it.

Oregon Prints the Form Inside the Statute

ORS 93.975 prints a complete transfer on death deed under the heading Form of transfer on death deed. ORS 93.977 prints a matching instrument for revoking one.

The statutory deed opens with a notice to the owner telling you to read the whole form, consider talking to a lawyer, and record the deed before your death or it will not be effective. Then it carries blocks for the tax statement address, the owner or owners making the deed, the legal description of the property, a beneficiary, an optional alternate beneficiary who takes if the first one does not survive you, an optional special terms box, the address the clerk returns the deed to, the signatures and the acknowledgment.

That return address block explains itself once you read ORS 205.234(1)(c), which requires the first page of a recorded instrument to name the person it goes back to. The form was drafted around the recording statute.

Two practical consequences follow. An Oregon transfer on death deed form sold as a download is somebody's typesetting of a document the Legislature already published. And the alternate beneficiary line is worth filling in, because ORS 93.953(2) lets you name one or more alternates who take the property only if nobody named first is qualified or survives you.

Nothing Changes While You Are Alive

ORS 93.967 answers most of the worry people bring to this deed. During a transferor's life, a transfer on death deed does not:

• affect an interest or right of the transferor or any other owner, including the right to transfer or encumber the property;
• affect an interest or right of a designated beneficiary, even where that person has actual or constructive notice of the deed;
• affect an interest or right of a secured, unsecured or future creditor of the transferor, even where the creditor has notice;
• affect the eligibility of the transferor or a designated beneficiary for any form of public assistance or medical assistance, as defined in ORS 414.025;
• create a legal or equitable interest in favor of the designated beneficiary; or
• subject the property to claims or process of a secured, unsecured or future creditor of the designated beneficiary.

You can sell the house, refinance it, or give it away. The person you named cannot stop you, and that person's creditors cannot touch the property while you live.

ORS 93.963 removes the paperwork people expect. The deed works without notice or delivery to the designated beneficiary during your life, without that person's acceptance, and without consideration. You do not have to tell anyone you signed it. ORS 93.955 keeps the deed revocable even where the deed or another instrument contains a contrary provision, and ORS 93.957 makes it nontestamentary, so it operates outside your will.

ORS 93.959(1) sets the standard for signing: the capacity required to make or revoke a transfer on death deed is the same as the capacity required to make a will. Oregon will requirements works through that standard and the two witness rule that goes with it.

How to Revoke It

ORS 93.965(1) is narrow about method. An instrument revokes a recorded transfer on death deed only where three things are true together. It has to be acknowledged by the transferor after the transferor acknowledged the deed being revoked. It has to be recorded before the transferor's death in the deed records of the county where the property sits. And it has to be one of three documents: a later transfer on death deed that revokes the earlier one expressly or by inconsistency, an instrument of revocation that expressly revokes it, or an inter vivos deed that transfers an interest in the property, to the extent of the interest transferred.

Subsection (4) closes the shortcut people reach for first. After a transfer on death deed is recorded, the deed may not be revoked by a revocatory act on the deed. Tearing up your copy or writing across it revokes nothing. A will does not revoke it either, since the statute lists three instruments and a will is not among them.

Oregon carries one route readers rarely expect. Under ORS 93.965(2), where authority is expressly granted by the transfer on death deed, a designated agent of the transferor may revoke it. The authority has to be written into the deed, so a general Oregon power of attorney signed later does not supply it.

Where two or more people made one deed, ORS 93.965(3) says revocation by one transferor does not affect the transfer of another transferor's interest. Subsection (5) leaves an ordinary lifetime sale alone, since selling the property answers the question by itself.

Divorce handles itself. ORS 93.981 says that unless the deed evidences a different intent, the divorce or annulment of the transferor's marriage after the deed is recorded revokes every provision in favor of the former spouse, and the deed then operates as though the former spouse did not survive. ORS 107.115(1)(b) states the same rule from the other direction: a judgment of annulment or dissolution shall revoke a transfer on death deed pursuant to ORS 93.981.

What Happens When You Die

ORS 93.969 runs the transfer, and several of its rules surprise families.

The person you named has to outlive you. Subsection (1)(a) transfers the interest where the designated beneficiary survives the transferor and lapses it where that person does not. Survival is not a photo finish. ORS 112.570(2)(c) names a transfer on death deed under ORS 93.948 to 93.979 as a governing instrument, and ORS 112.578 then treats a person as having died first unless clear and convincing evidence establishes survival by at least 120 hours. ORS 112.586 lists the exceptions, among them a governing instrument that expressly sets its own survival period or expressly requires none.

Naming two people works differently than most expect. Subsection (1)(b) gives concurrent beneficiaries equal and undivided shares with no right of survivorship, and sends a share that lapses or fails for any reason to the remaining beneficiaries in proportion to their interests in the rest of the property held concurrently. Two children who both outlive you take half each as tenants in common. If one of them dies first, the other takes the whole.

Joint ownership outranks the deed. Subsection (3) says that where the transferor is survived by one or more other joint owners, the property belongs to the surviving joint owners with a right of survivorship, and the deed becomes effective only where the transferor is the last surviving joint owner.

The beneficiary takes the house as it stands. Subsection (2) passes the property subject to all conveyances, encumbrances, assignments, contracts, mortgages, liens and other interests to which it is subject at the transferor's death. The mortgage comes with the house. Subsection (4) transfers the property without covenant or warranty of title even where the deed contains a contrary provision.

Someone who does not want the property can walk away. ORS 93.971 lets a beneficiary disclaim all or part of the interest as provided by ORS 105.623 to 105.649, the Uniform Disclaimer of Property Interests sections.

Two rules cancel a gift outright. ORS 112.465(1) names a transfer on death deed inside the slayer and abuser rule, so property that would have passed to a slayer or an abuser of the decedent passes and vests as if that person had predeceased. And ORS 93.983 sends a transfer to a parent through as though the parent had predeceased, where the parent willfully deserted the transferor or neglected without just and sufficient cause to provide proper care and maintenance, measured over a one year or three year period depending on who stands to gain from the forfeiture. ORS 93.985 puts that forfeiture behind a petition filed in the probate proceeding, due four months after the ORS 113.145 information reaches the petitioner, or four months after publication of notice to interested persons, or one year after the death where nothing was published.

Anyone attacking the deed itself works on a longer clock than the forfeiture windows above. ORS 93.959(2) voids a transfer on death deed or a revoking instrument procured by fraud, duress or undue influence, and subsection (3) requires a proceeding to contest the transferor's capacity or to establish that voidness to begin not later than 18 months after the transferor's death.

Creditors and the Statutory Allowance Still Reach the House

ORS 93.973 is the section competitors skip. Where the probate estate cannot satisfy a claim allowed or established by summary determination or separate action under ORS 114.505 to 114.560 or under ORS chapter 115, or a statutory allowance to a surviving spouse or child under ORS 114.015, the transferor's estate may enforce that liability against the property the deed transferred. Where one transferor moved several properties by transfer on death deed, subsection (2) apportions the liability among them in proportion to the net value of each at the death. Subsection (3) gives 18 months from the death to start the proceeding.

Read that plainly. The deed moves the title out of probate and leaves the value within reach. Oregon creditor claims covers the four month window a personal representative runs and how a claim becomes allowed.

Oregon's statutory allowance is worth knowing before you plan around it. That is the phrase ORS 93.973(1)(b) uses for it: "a statutory allowance to a surviving spouse or child under ORS 114.015". ORS 114.015 has the court make necessary and reasonable provision from the estate for the support of the decedent's spouse and dependent children, on petition and after notice. That section prints no dollar figure, but the division around it does set limits: where the estate will be insolvent, ORS 114.065 caps the provision at one-half of the estimated value of the estate's property and stops periodic payments one year after the death, and ORS 114.055(1)(c) stops periodic payments two years after the death in any case.

A surviving spouse reaches further than the creditors do. Oregon measures an elective share against an augmented estate, and ORS 114.630(1)(b) folds the nonprobate estate into it. ORS 114.665(2) puts inside that nonprobate estate the decedent's ownership interest in property held under a payable on death designation or deed, to the extent the interest passed to someone other than the estate or the surviving spouse. ORS 114.605(2) scales the share by the length of the marriage, from 5 percent of the augmented estate under two years up to 33 percent at fifteen years or more. ORS 114.610 gives the spouse nine months from the death to elect, and ORS 114.705 makes recipients of the nonprobate estate contribute their proportional part. A deed naming an adult child does not put the house past a spouse who elects.

Medicaid Recovery Follows the House

The deed does not shake off the state's claim. ORS 93.969(2) passes the property subject to a claim or lien by a state authorized to seek reimbursement for public assistance or medical assistance, as defined in ORS 414.025, where the assets of the transferor's probate estate are insufficient to pay the amount claimed.

Oregon then reads estate broadly on the recovery side. ORS 416.350(6)(a) counts assets conveyed to a survivor, heir or assign through joint tenancy, tenancy in common, survivorship, life estate, living trust or other similar arrangement. The administrative rule is explicit where the statute stays general: OAR 461-135-0832(12)(f) lists a transfer on death deed by name inside the definition of estate used for medical assistance recovery, alongside tenancy by the entirety, joint tenancy, life estate, living trust and an annuity purchased on or after April 1, 2001.

So the deed keeps the house out of a probate file. It does not keep the house out of estate recovery, and a plan built on the opposite assumption fails at the worst moment.

What Recording Costs

Two sections set the statewide floor. ORS 205.320(1)(d)(A) charges $5 for each page to record an instrument, with a minimum of $5, where a page means one side of a sheet no more than 14 inches long and 8 1/2 inches wide. ORS 205.323(1) adds three further fees on the same instrument, of $1, $10 and $60. A one page deed lands at $76 under those two sections, and a nonconforming one adds the $20 penalty in ORS 205.327. Ask your county clerk for the current schedule before you mail anything.

The death transfer does not draw a local transfer tax across most of the state. ORS 306.815(1) forbids a city, county, district or other political subdivision from imposing a tax or fee upon the transfer of a fee estate in real property, and subsection (4) preserves a tax whose ordinance was in effect and operative on March 31, 1997.

Real Property Only, and No Joint Tenancy Behind It

ORS 93.949(5) defines property for the whole act as an interest in real property located in this state. A car, a boat and a bank account fall outside it. Vehicle titling after a death runs through the Oregon DMV on its own rules, so that answer never comes out of ORS chapter 93.

One Oregon rule catches people who plan around the deed rather than with it. ORS 93.180(3) abolishes joint tenancy in real property, and the words joint tenants in a deed, with nothing more, create a tenancy in common. Under subsection (1)(a), a conveyance or devise to two or more people creates a tenancy in common unless it clearly and expressly declares a right of survivorship. Under subsection (1)(b), a conveyance to spouses married to each other creates a tenancy by the entirety unless it clearly and expressly declares otherwise. A declaration of survivorship builds a tenancy in common in the life estate with cross contingent remainders in the fee simple under subsection (2). Adding an adult child to your deed as a joint tenant is a plan Oregon does not offer.

ORS 93.951 keeps the act nonexclusive. It does not affect any method of transferring property otherwise permitted by the law of this state, so survivorship title between spouses, beneficiary designations and a funded revocable trust all stay open. The other ways to avoid Oregon probate sets them side by side with this deed.

A house that passes by deed still leaves the rest of the estate to settle. Read how Oregon probate works and the Oregon simple estate affidavit next, and where no will covers the remainder, Oregon intestate succession decides who takes it. The person who ends up running that file will want Oregon executor duties early. A beneficiary who plans on selling the property afterwards faces the recording and basis steps in the same sequence.

Sources:

• Title: ORS Chapter 93, Conveyancing and Recording, 2025 Edition, sections 93.010, 93.180, 93.948 to 93.985. Publisher: Oregon State Legislature. Publication Date: 2025 Edition, accessed August 25, 2026. URL: https://www.oregonlegislature.gov/bills_laws/ors/ors093.html
• Title: ORS Chapter 205, County Clerks, 2025 Edition, sections 205.130, 205.232, 205.234, 205.320, 205.323, 205.327. Publisher: Oregon State Legislature. Publication Date: 2025 Edition, accessed August 25, 2026. URL: https://www.oregonlegislature.gov/bills_laws/ors/ors205.html
• Title: ORS Chapter 112, Intestate Succession and Wills, 2025 Edition, sections 112.465, 112.570, 112.578, 112.586. Publisher: Oregon State Legislature. Publication Date: 2025 Edition, accessed August 25, 2026. URL: https://www.oregonlegislature.gov/bills_laws/ors/ors112.html
• Title: ORS Chapter 114, Administration of Estates Generally, 2025 Edition, sections 114.015, 114.505 to 114.560, 114.605, 114.610, 114.630, 114.665, 114.705. Publisher: Oregon State Legislature. Publication Date: 2025 Edition, accessed August 25, 2026. URL: https://www.oregonlegislature.gov/bills_laws/ors/ors114.html
• Title: ORS Chapter 115, Claims, Actions and Suits, 2025 Edition. Publisher: Oregon State Legislature. Publication Date: 2025 Edition, accessed August 25, 2026. URL: https://www.oregonlegislature.gov/bills_laws/ors/ors115.html
• Title: ORS Chapter 107, Marital Dissolution, Annulment and Separation, 2025 Edition, section 107.115. Publisher: Oregon State Legislature. Publication Date: 2025 Edition, accessed August 25, 2026. URL: https://www.oregonlegislature.gov/bills_laws/ors/ors107.html
• Title: ORS Chapter 105, Property Rights, 2025 Edition, sections 105.623 to 105.649, Uniform Disclaimer of Property Interests. Publisher: Oregon State Legislature. Publication Date: 2025 Edition, accessed August 25, 2026. URL: https://www.oregonlegislature.gov/bills_laws/ors/ors105.html
• Title: ORS Chapter 416, Recovery and Reimbursement of Aid, 2025 Edition, section 416.350. Publisher: Oregon State Legislature. Publication Date: 2025 Edition, accessed August 25, 2026. URL: https://www.oregonlegislature.gov/bills_laws/ors/ors416.html
• Title: ORS Chapter 306, Property Taxation Generally, 2025 Edition, section 306.815. Publisher: Oregon State Legislature. Publication Date: 2025 Edition, accessed August 25, 2026. URL: https://www.oregonlegislature.gov/bills_laws/ors/ors306.html
• Title: OAR 461-135-0832, Estate Administration, Definitions. Publisher: Oregon Secretary of State, Oregon Administrative Rules. Publication Date: Amended December 22, 2020, effective January 1, 2021. URL: https://secure.sos.state.or.us/oard/view.action?ruleNumber=461-135-0832
• Title: ORS Sections Amended, Repealed or Added To, Oregon Laws 2026 Regular Session. Publisher: Oregon State Legislature. Publication Date: 2026. URL: https://www.oregonlegislature.gov/bills_laws/lawsstatutes/2026OrLawAR.pdf
• Title: Oregon Laws 2026, Chapter 86, Senate Bill 1551, relating to fire hardening of residential properties. Publisher: Oregon State Legislature. Publication Date: 2026. URL: https://www.oregonlegislature.gov/bills_laws/lawsstatutes/2026orLaw0086.pdf
• Title: Oregon Laws 2026, Chapter 64, House Bill 4128, relating to sale of single-family residences. Publisher: Oregon State Legislature. Publication Date: 2026. URL: https://www.oregonlegislature.gov/bills_laws/lawsstatutes/2026orLaw0064.pdf
• Title: Oregon Laws 2025, Chapter 31, House Bill 3386, amending ORS 106.120 and 205.320. Publisher: Oregon State Legislature. Publication Date: Approved by the Governor May 7, 2025, effective January 1, 2026. URL: https://www.oregonlegislature.gov/bills_laws/lawsstatutes/2025orLaw0031.pdf

It is not legal advice.