This analysis is educational and is not legal or tax advice; deed law is state-specific, and each figure below is labeled with its effective date or data year at first mention.
TL;DR — Quick Verdict
- Recording a transfer-on-death deed (TOD deed) costs $25 in Harris County, Texas, $30 in Maricopa County, Arizona, $43 statewide in Colorado, and roughly $103 for a one-page deed in Los Angeles County — a rounding error against probate.
- On a $700,000 California home, California Probate Code §§10800 and 10810 produce $17,000 for the attorney and $17,000 for the personal representative: $34,000 in statutory probate fees, calculated on gross value with the mortgage ignored.
- A TOD deed beats a revocable living trust on price ($499 for an individual trust plan at Trust & Will; about $2,700 for a median attorney-drafted trust package) but loses on incapacity planning, minor beneficiaries, and out-of-state property.
- The federal estate tax exemption is $15,000,000 per person in 2026, so for almost every household the reason to plan is probate cost and delay — not estate tax.
- Maryland’s Transfer-on-Death Deed Act takes effect October 1, 2026, and exempts residence TOD deeds from state recordation and county transfer tax.
- Recommendation: if you own one home, in one state, and your beneficiaries are competent adults, record a TOD deed. Everyone else should price a trust.
Probate takes about 20 months on average, according to a Trust & Will survey of 1,000 Americans — and the same survey found that 56% of respondents believed the process costs $1,000 or less, against an actual range of 3% to 7% of estate value. Apply that range to the June 2026 median existing-home price of $440,600 reported by the National Association of REALTORS®, and a single house running through court costs a family somewhere between $13,218 and $30,842. None of that spending buys anything the heirs did not already have coming to them.
Real estate is the asset that drags families into probate, because unlike a brokerage account at Fidelity or a 401(k) at Vanguard, a deed has no beneficiary line by default. You have to add one. This article prices the five instruments that add one — TOD deeds, lady bird deeds, revocable living trusts, joint tenancy, and community property with right of survivorship — using county fee schedules, state statutes, and vendor pricing from Trust & Will and LegalZoom. It also shows where each one quietly fails.
Five Legal Routes That Move a House Without a Court Order
Thirty-two U.S. jurisdictions permitted TOD deeds as of the American Bar Association’s September 2025 count, with the Uniform Real Property Transfer on Death Act itself enacted in 19 states plus the District of Columbia and the U.S. Virgin Islands. That leaves roughly a third of the country without the cheapest tool on the list — which is why the alternatives matter.
Each instrument trades control for cost differently. A TOD deed is fully revocable and transfers nothing during your lifetime; joint tenancy is a completed lifetime gift you cannot unwind unilaterally. The gap between those two facts is where most planning errors happen, and it is worth reading alongside the broader menu of probate avoidance strategies before committing to a deed.
Sources: American Bar Association, Uniform Laws Update (Sept/Oct 2025); county fee schedules cited in the following section; Trust & Will and LegalZoom published pricing (2026).
Small estates get a sixth option, though it rarely covers a house: most states have small estate affidavit thresholds that cover personal property only. California is an outlier — Probate Code §13151 now allows a succession petition for a primary residence valued at $750,000 or less for deaths on or after April 1, 2025.
What Recording a TOD Deed Costs at the County Counter
County recorders charge for pages, not for property value, which is why the cheapest probate-avoidance tool in America costs less than a tank of gas in most of it. The spread across jurisdictions is real but narrow — and it is entirely driven by state surcharges rather than by the deed itself.
Sources: Maricopa County Recorder; Harris County Clerk, Real Property; Los Angeles County Registrar-Recorder/County Clerk; Maryland General Assembly, SB 651 Fiscal and Policy Note. Colorado figure from the Logan County Clerk & Recorder fee notice implementing HB 24-1269 (verify at colorado.gov).
Owning property in two states doubles the exposure, not the cost of fixing it. A vacation condo in another state triggers a second court proceeding entirely — ancillary probate for out-of-state property — and a second TOD deed recorded in that county’s land records prevents it for another $25 to $103.
TOD Deed vs. Revocable Living Trust: Which Is Better for a One-Property Estate?
Run the numbers on a concrete case. A widowed retiree in Sacramento owns a home appraised at $700,000 with a $200,000 mortgage, plus $150,000 in retirement accounts that already name beneficiaries. The house is the entire probate estate.
Under Probate Code §10810, the attorney’s statutory fee is 4% of the first $100,000 ($4,000), plus 3% of the next $100,000 ($3,000), plus 2% of the remaining $500,000 ($10,000) — $17,000. Section 10800 awards the personal representative the identical amount, bringing statutory probate fees to $34,000. Both figures are calculated on gross appraised value; the $200,000 mortgage does not reduce them. That is 6.8% of the home’s value, consistent with the way probate attorney and executor fees by state escalate in statutory-fee jurisdictions.
Now price the alternatives. A TOD deed prepared without counsel and recorded in Sacramento County costs roughly $100. An individual trust plan runs $499 at Trust & Will, and a 2026 Legal Templates study of 909 U.S. law firms put the median attorney-drafted trust package — trust, pour-over will, and two powers of attorney — at about $2,700. Against $34,000, both win. Against each other, the margin is $2,600 and the trust buys real functionality: a successor trustee who can act if the owner develops dementia, staged distributions for a beneficiary who cannot manage a lump sum, and a single instrument that covers property in several states.
Verdict
For a single home, in a single state, passing to competent adults who will sell or split the proceeds, the TOD deed wins outright — roughly $100 versus $34,000 in statutory probate fees, with no ongoing administration. Choose the revocable living trust instead when any of four facts apply: property in more than one state, a beneficiary who is a minor or has special needs, a blended family where you want conditions on distribution, or a genuine concern about incapacity. The trust’s $2,600 premium buys control that a deed cannot deliver.
Delay carries its own price. Even an uncontested estate keeps the house frozen through the creditor claim window, and probate duration by state ranges from a few months to well past a year while taxes, insurance, and maintenance keep accruing.
What Determines Whether the Transfer Actually Holds Up
Recording is the trigger. A TOD deed signed, notarized, and left in a desk drawer does nothing — the Uniform Act requires recording in the land records of the county where the property sits before the transferor dies, and states that adopted it kept that rule. This is the single most common failure, and it is unfixable after death.
Consider a Phoenix homeowner who records a TOD deed in 2022 naming her son, then sells the house in 2024 and buys a smaller one. The old deed becomes meaningless because she no longer owns what it describes, and the new house passes through probate unless she records a fresh deed. Revocability cuts both ways: nothing follows you to the next parcel.
Debt follows the property. A beneficiary who takes a house by TOD deed takes it subject to the mortgage and any recorded liens, and in most adopting states the transferred property remains reachable by the estate’s creditors if the probate estate cannot cover allowed claims — the Uniform Act builds in that liability rule explicitly. Anyone inheriting this way should understand creditor claim priority before assuming the house arrives clean.
Long-term care is the wildcard. Federal law at 42 U.S.C. §1396p(b) requires every state to run a Medicaid estate recovery program, and §1396p(b)(4)(B) lets states define “estate” to reach assets that never touch probate. Washington does exactly that under RCW 43.20B.080, which reaches nonprobate assets as defined in RCW 11.02.005; Oregon’s ORS 416.350 similarly captures transfer-on-death deeds. In those states, a TOD deed dodges the courthouse and not the recovery claim.
What Most People Get Wrong
Four mistakes account for most of the damage, and three of them are expensive in tax rather than fees.
Mistake 1: adding a child to the deed as joint tenant. The consequence is a completed lifetime gift of a half interest — reportable above the $19,000 annual exclusion for 2026 — and carryover basis on the gifted share under IRC §1015 rather than a date-of-death basis under §1014. Take a home bought for $100,000 that is worth $440,600 at death: a full step-up erases the entire $340,600 of appreciation, while a lifetime gift of the whole property leaves the child with $51,090 in federal tax at the 15% long-term capital gains rate, more at 20%. The correct action is a TOD deed, which leaves title untouched until death and preserves the cost basis step-up at death.
Mistake 2: assuming a deed defeats Medicaid recovery. In Washington and Oregon it does not, and the family learns this when the state files its claim. Check whether your state uses the expanded estate definition before treating the deed as protection.
Mistake 3: buying a trust and never funding it. An unfunded trust is a $2,700 document that avoids nothing, because the house is still titled to the individual. Funding requires a new deed recorded with the county — the same $25 to $103 as any other deed.
Mistake 4: naming no alternate beneficiary. If the sole named beneficiary predeceases the owner and no contingent beneficiary is listed, the property drops back into the estate and into probate. Naming an alternate costs nothing at drafting time.
California adds a fifth trap. Transferring a home to a child during life, or after death without meeting Proposition 19’s conditions, triggers reassessment; the Board of Equalization set the intergenerational exclusion at $1,044,586 above the parent’s factored base year value for transfers between February 16, 2025 and February 15, 2027, and the child must occupy the home within one year. Heirs who plan to sell rather than move in should model the tax on selling inherited property before choosing an instrument.
What Changed in 2026
Governor Wes Moore signed the Maryland Transfer-on-Death Deed Act (SB 651 / HB 738) on May 26, 2026, effective October 1, 2026. Two provisions stand out: the Act applies retroactively to deeds executed before the effective date so long as the transferor dies on or after it, and it exempts TOD deeds covering a transferor’s primary or secondary residence from state recordation tax and county transfer tax. Both chambers passed it without a dissenting vote.
The federal picture moved in the opposite direction — toward irrelevance for most households. Section 70106 of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, signed July 4, 2025, set the basic exclusion amount at $15,000,000 per individual for 2026, confirmed by the IRS in Revenue Procedure 2025-32, with inflation indexing resuming in 2027. Married couples reach $30,000,000 with portability. The practical effect: the federal estate tax threshold now excludes virtually every family that owns a single home, so the case for planning rests entirely on probate cost, delay, and privacy.
California’s AB 2016 reshaped the middle ground for deaths on or after April 1, 2025. A primary residence worth $750,000 or less can now clear title through a succession petition under Probate Code §13151 instead of full administration, the personal property affidavit threshold sits at $208,850, and the small-value real property affidavit under §13200 covers interests up to $69,625. None of these eliminate court involvement — the succession petition still requires a filing and a probate referee appraisal — but they cut months and thousands of dollars off the alternative.
Who Should Use a Non-Probate Transfer — and Who Shouldn’t
Record a TOD deed if you own one property, in a TOD-deed state, and your beneficiaries are adults who get along. The math is not close: about $100 against a probate bill that runs 3% to 7% of gross value, or $34,000 under California’s statutory schedule on a $700,000 home.
Buy the trust instead if two or more of these are true: you own property in more than one state, a beneficiary is a minor or receives needs-based benefits, you have children from a prior marriage, you want distributions staged rather than immediate, or you want a named person able to manage the property if you lose capacity. The $2,600 gap between a median trust package and a recorded deed is small relative to the litigation a poorly matched instrument invites.
Talk to an elder law attorney before doing either if long-term care is foreseeable and you live in an expanded-recovery state, or if you are in California and a child intends to keep the home. In both cases the deed that saves probate can cost more in recovery claims or reassessment than it saves in fees.
Do nothing only if you have already handled it another way — spousal survivorship, a funded trust, or a state where the entire estate clears a small-estate procedure. Doing nothing by default is the most expensive choice available, and it hands distribution to the inheritance order without a will if no valid will exists.
Frequently Asked Questions
Does a TOD deed override my will?
Yes. A recorded TOD deed is a nontestamentary instrument that operates outside the will, and a will provision purporting to revoke it generally has no effect — Delaware’s legislative analysis of the Uniform Act flagged this point specifically. Revocation must happen through a recorded document during your lifetime. If your will and your deed name different people, the deed controls the real estate.
Can I record a TOD deed on a mortgaged house?
Yes, in every TOD-deed state. The deed transfers nothing during your lifetime, so it does not accelerate the loan. The beneficiary takes the property subject to the mortgage and must either assume it, refinance, or sell. A $700,000 home carrying a $200,000 balance delivers $500,000 of equity, not a debt-free house.
Does the beneficiary still get a stepped-up basis?
Yes. Because the owner retains full ownership until death, the property is included in the taxable estate and receives a date-of-death basis under IRC §1014. On a home bought for $100,000 and worth $440,600 at death, that erases $340,600 of taxable appreciation — the outcome a lifetime gift destroys.
What does the beneficiary have to do after the death?
Typically record an affidavit of survivorship with a certified death certificate at the county recorder where the property sits. Costs run to the same order as the original recording — $30 flat in Maricopa County, $25 for a first page in Harris County. Maryland’s Act, effective October 1, 2026, provides for recording a notice of the transferor’s death.
How We Researched This Article
Cost figures in this analysis come from three source tiers, in descending order of authority. Statutory figures were taken from the codes themselves: California Probate Code §§10800, 10810, 13100, 13151, and 13200; Internal Revenue Code §§1014, 1015, and 2010; and 42 U.S.C. §1396p(b), including the expanded-estate option at §1396p(b)(4)(B). State long-term care recovery scope was checked against RCW 43.20B.080 and RCW 11.02.005 for Washington and ORS 416.350 for Oregon.
Recording fees were pulled directly from the recording offices rather than from aggregators, including the Maricopa County Recorder, the Harris County Clerk, and the Los Angeles County Registrar-Recorder/County Clerk. The Los Angeles number is a build-up ($15 base plus $75 Building Homes and Jobs Act fee plus $10 fraud fee) and assumes no statutory exemption applies. Housing figures come from the National Association of REALTORS® Existing-Home Sales release for June 2026; the $440,600 median covers all existing home types, and NAR’s single-family series carries a different value. The Proposition 19 exclusion amount is taken from California State Board of Equalization News Release NR 25-02, and the count of TOD-deed jurisdictions from the American Bar Association’s Uniform Laws Update.
Three limitations deserve stating plainly. First, the $34,000 California figure is modeled, not measured: it applies the statutory schedule to a hypothetical $700,000 gross estate and excludes extraordinary compensation, filing fees, appraisal, publication, and bond, all of which push the real total higher. Second, the 3%-to-7% national probate range and the 20-month average duration come from a Trust & Will survey of 1,000 Americans, not from court administrative data, and no federal agency publishes a national probate cost series. Third, attorney and online pricing is a market range compiled from vendor list prices and a 2026 study of 909 law firms; quoted fees in high-cost metropolitan markets routinely exceed it. Research was last conducted in August 2026. All figures were verified against named primary sources before publication.