Virginia has adopted the Uniform Real Property Transfer on Death Act, which lets an individual transfer property to one or more beneficiaries effective at the moment of their death through a transfer-on-death deed. This is Virginia's own statutory TOD deed — not Florida's enhanced life-estate deed — so its requirements and consequences need to be read under Virginia law specifically, rather than borrowed from another state's rules (Virginia Code § 64.2-624).
For the deed to be valid, it has to carry all the formalities of a recordable inter vivos deed, state explicitly that the transfer takes effect at the transferor's death, and actually be recorded in the correct circuit-court land records before the transferor dies. If the property has joint owners, every one of them has to sign for the deed to be effective — and a form that's signed but never recorded before death simply doesn't satisfy the statute (Virginia Code § 64.2-628).
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