medium · National Real Estate Exam transfer-title
A homeowner conveys her residence by deed to her nephew, signs it before a notary, but keeps the deed locked in her safe-deposit box, telling no one. Her written will, executed the same week, devises the same residence to her daughter. The homeowner dies; both the unrecorded deed and the will surface. The nephew claims under the deed, the daughter under the will.
Who takes title, and why?
- The daughter, because the deed was never delivered—the grantor retained exclusive control with no present intent to pass title, so the inter vivos transfer failed and the property passed under the will
- The nephew, because a deed signed and duly acknowledged before a notary public is presumptively delivered, and a later-executed will cannot revoke an already-completed conveyance of the land itself.
- The nephew takes title outright, because recording is not required for validity as between the two original parties themselves, and the deed's execution date predates the later-signed will.
- The daughter, because a deed and a will purporting to convey the very same parcel create a legal ambiguity that courts resolve in favor of the later testamentary instrument as the grantor's truer final intent.
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