Michigan law, for title research

Michigan transfer on death deed: no statute creating one found, and what MCL 700.6101 says

Every rule below is quoted from the Michigan Compiled Laws or another official source, linked and checked on the date shown. General information, not legal advice.

Does Michigan have a transfer on death deed statute?

We did not find one. On November 8, 2026 we searched the text of all 227 chapters on the Legislature's chapter index, compiled through Public Act 114 of 2026, for transfer on death, beneficiary deed, enhanced life estate and lady bird. The phrase transfer on death turned up in Article VI of the estates code, in section 700.6101 and in part 3, which sets rules for registering securities in beneficiary form.

That search covers statute text only. It does not cover court decisions, title standards or pending bills, a word search cannot rule out a statute that describes the same deed in other words, and it does not mean every Michigan deed with a reserved power fails. Ask a Michigan attorney before relying on any particular form.

What does MCL 700.6101 say about deeds?

Section 700.6101 lists a conveyance and a deed of gift among the written instruments in which a provision for a nonprobate transfer on death is nontestamentary. The written provisions it includes are ones intended to result in money or a benefit being paid to a designated person, money ceasing to be payable on a death, or, under (1)(c), property the decedent controlled or owned before death passing to a person the decedent designates, in the instrument or in a separate writing.

So the code does speak to a death-time provision in a conveyance, which is why this page does not answer with a flat no. Yet the section sets no form, no recording step and no revocation procedure, and it never names a transfer on death deed. Subsection (2) adds that it does not limit creditors' rights under another law.

What if a Michigan deed reserves a power to revoke?

Other sections speak to this without using any of the searched words, which shows the limit of a word search. Section 566.103 makes a provision in a conveyance of land for revocation or alteration at the grantor's will void against later purchasers for value from that grantor. Section 556.128 deems a grantor who reserves an unqualified power of revocation still the absolute owner as far as creditors and purchasers are concerned, and if the grantor dies without using it, the legal representative may reach the estate conveyed for a filed and allowed claim the probate estate cannot satisfy.

The powers of appointment act says a power of appointment may include a power of amendment or revocation, and it lists a deed as a creating instrument. Section 554.33 says an expectant estate is not void in its creation because it can be defeated in a way its creator provided or authorized. None of these sections names a lady bird or transfer on death deed, and this page does not say they make one work.

What about a lady bird or enhanced life estate deed in Michigan?

Neither term appears in the chapters searched, and neither appears in the State Tax Commission's Transfer of Ownership Guidelines, revised February 25, 2025. The statutes searched do not define them, and this page does not say that any such deed works or fails. Court decisions were outside this check.

Older sections on future estates also bear on the idea. MCL 554.10 defines a future estate as one limited to commence in possession at a future day, and MCL 554.24 says a freehold estate may be created to commence at a future day, subject to the rules in that chapter. Neither section mentions a transfer on death deed, a power to revoke or a recording rule at death, so we do not read them as creating that kind of deed.

Does a retained life estate uncap Michigan property taxes?

A conveyance by deed is a transfer of ownership under MCL 211.27a(6) unless a subsection (7) exclusion applies. No life estate is needed for two of them: (7)(a) covers a transfer between spouses or from a decedent to a surviving spouse, and (7)(u) covers residential real property going to the transferor's or the transferor's spouse's listed relatives if no commercial use follows.

Subsection (7)(c) excludes the portion of property subject to a life estate or life lease the transferor retained, until it expires or terminates, and the guidelines treat the two interests alike for uncapping.

The end of that interest is where the tax question lands. The guidelines say termination generally results in a transfer of ownership, and their example of a parcel conveyed to a neighbor uncaps at the owner's death. Subsection (7)(d) excludes residential real property passing on termination to the transferor's or the transferor's spouse's mother, father, brother, sister, son, daughter, adopted child, grandson or granddaughter, if no commercial use follows, and that transferee must furnish proof within 30 days of a request from the assessor or the Department of Treasury. When a transfer of ownership does occur, the transferee has 45 days to notify the assessing office.

Neither source says whether a deed labeled lady bird is a retained life estate for this rule, so read the deed itself against the statute.

How must a Michigan deed be made and recorded?

Section 565.1 says conveyances of land may be made by deed, signed and sealed by the person conveying or an agent, then acknowledged or proved and recorded as that chapter directs. Section 600.1401 adds that no deed of conveyance is invalid for want of a seal. Deeds executed in the state are acknowledged before a judge, a clerk of a court of record or a notary public. A register of deeds will not receive a deed of conveyance without each grantee's address on it.

Recording order matters. An unrecorded conveyance is void against a later good faith purchaser for value whose conveyance is recorded first. A deed naming two or more people creates an estate in common unless it expressly declares joint tenancy, and section 554.45 excepts grants to husband and wife from that rule.

Does divorce change a deed naming a former spouse?

It can. The estates code's definition of governing instrument starts with a deed. Under section 700.2807, divorce or annulment revokes a revocable disposition of property to the former spouse or the former spouse's relative in a governing instrument, unless its express terms, a court order or a contract between them relating to the division of the marital estate provides otherwise. Revocable means the owner alone could cancel the designation at the time of the divorce, and the rule reaches instruments executed before the divorce.

Co-ownership changes too. Section 700.2807(1)(b) severs the former spouses' joint tenancy with the right of survivorship into tenancies in common, subject to the same exceptions. Section 552.102 makes a husband and wife holding real estate as joint tenants or tenants by entireties tenants in common on divorce, unless the decree determines ownership otherwise.

Can creditors or Medicaid reach land passing this way?

MCL 700.6101(2) preserves creditors' rights under other law. If an estate falls short and the personal representative knows of nonprobate transfers that may be liable for claims and allowances, section 700.3805 directs the representative to collect the deficiency, unless the will provides otherwise.

Section 400.112g sets up the Medicaid estate recovery program, and section 400.112h defines the estate for it: property and other assets subject to probate administration, with assets otherwise subject to claims under section 3805(3) not part of it. This page does not say how that applies to any particular deed.

Recovery from a recipient's home is barred while a spouse or another listed individual lawfully lives there. The department shall not place or record a TEFRA lien on qualifying property. The hardship definition it must develop includes an exemption for homestead value up to half the county's average home price, an exemption for the survivors' primary income-producing asset such as a family farm or business, and a rebuttable presumption of no hardship where it resulted from estate planning methods that diverted assets to avoid recovery.

What a title search checks after a Michigan owner dies

A probate title search reads the last recorded deed and any interest it reserves, then looks for what section 565.451a allows on record: an affidavit of a death or of an event that may terminate an estate. If an estate makes distribution in kind, section 700.3909 calls for an instrument or deed of distribution as evidence of the distributee's title.

The Michigan rules on this page, with their sources

Sources: MCL 700.6301; MCL 700.6101; MCL 566.103; MCL 556.128; MCL 556.112; MCL 554.33; MCL 700.6305; MCL 700.1104; MCL 700.2807; MCL 700.2806; MCL 552.102; MCL 700.3805; MCL 211.27a; Transfer of Ownership Guidelines, State Tax Commission; MCL 600.1401; MCL 565.1; MCL 565.8; MCL 565.201; MCL 565.29; MCL 554.44; MCL 565.451a; MCL 700.3909; MCL 400.112g; MCL 400.112h; MCL 554.24. Each row links the section it summarizes.

Questions people ask

More on how Michigan property law shapes a title search: title research in Michigan.