How can I remove someone from a house title?

Q: How do I remove someone from a house title?

Sometimes, when there is more than one owner of a house, one of the owners would like to be removed from the title themselves, or an owner would like to remove their co-owner from the deed completely. Of course, all of this depends on the situation as to how one can exactly go about this. 

A: You have a few options.

Removing a name from a house title depends on the situation. Here are some options:

• Removing your name from the house deed
  • If it's your own name that you would like to remove from the house deed, you can do so yourself. This involves with having a mutual agreement with the other co-owners, agreeing on all sides to removing your name from the deed. To transfer ownership to the remaining owners, you must create a new deed, normally called a quitclaim deed. Once that deed has been executed and filed, your name will no longer appear on the house deed. However, once this ownership transfer has been completed and you are no longer on the deed, it cannot be undone. Your name will never appear on the deed again.
• Removing someone else's name from the house deed
  • Doing this can be different, depending on the situation. 
    • For existing deed owners, a deed of conveyence can be made between the remaining owner(s) and the owner who is to be removed from the deed. For example, if your sister's name needed to be removed from the house deed, she would have to agree to a deed of conveyence and transfer her ownership rights to you and your wife.
    • If you're wanting to remove someone's name from a house deed, but they do not want their name removed, that could be a trickier situation. That could spiral into partition lawsuits between the owners, resulting in the sale of their portion or forcing a party to give up their deed rights. This could ultimately be expensive in court and lawyer fees, and cause lots of strife between the owners on a personal level.