Beneficiary Deed Provision

An Arizona beneficiary deed is a recorded deed that names one or more beneficiaries to receive the property when the grantor dies. During life, the grantor remains the owner. They can sell, mortgage, or revoke the deed. At death, the property passes to the named beneficiary by operation of law, with no probate required, simply by recording a certified copy of the death certificate.

Families include a beneficiary deed when probate avoidance is the goal but a full revocable living trust is more than the situation calls for. It is a clean, inexpensive instrument for a single homestead property with a simple distribution. It is not a substitute for a trust when the goal includes incapacity planning, multi-property administration, or staged distributions.

Beneficiary deeds are authorized by ARS § 33-405. The deed must be signed, notarized, and recorded with the county recorder during the grantor's life. Recording is not optional — an unrecorded beneficiary deed is void. The deed is revocable at any time during the grantor's life, also by recorded instrument. The beneficiary takes subject to all mortgages, liens, and encumbrances that exist at the grantor's death.

Documents that include a beneficiary deed provision typically contain language along these lines: "I, [Grantor], hereby convey to [Beneficiary], effective on my death, the following described real property in [County] County, Arizona: [legal description]. This conveyance is revocable." Descriptive only.

• Single beneficiary. One person receives the property at death.
• Multiple beneficiaries. Two or more take as tenants in common or with right of survivorship, as the deed specifies.
• Contingent beneficiary. If the primary beneficiary predeceases the grantor, a backup beneficiary takes.
• Beneficiary deed into a trust. The trust is named as the grantee, which lets the trustee distribute under the trust's terms.

The most common failure is signing a beneficiary deed but never recording it. ARS § 33-405 requires recording during the grantor's life. A second failure is assuming the deed avoids ALTCS estate recovery — it generally does not, because Arizona pursues recovery against assets the decedent had any interest in. A third pitfall is naming a beneficiary outright when a trust beneficiary would have provided creditor protection or controlled distribution. A fourth pitfall is failing to revoke or replace the deed after a divorce or beneficiary's death.