West Virginia Transfer-on-Death Deed

West Virginia has adopted the Uniform Real Property Transfer on Death Act, which lets an individual name one or more beneficiaries to receive real property automatically at death via a TOD deed. That places West Virginia among the states with a statutory beneficiary-deed option, rather than one where families have to rely solely on a conventional life-estate deed to handle death-time real-property transfers.

The deed has to meet specific formal requirements: it needs the essential elements of a recordable inter vivos deed, must explicitly state that the beneficiary transfer happens at death, and must be recorded in the property's county before the transferor dies. Under West Virginia Code §36-12-9 and §36-12-6, recording the deed does not transfer any present interest to the beneficiary, and the transferor retains full authority to revoke the deed at any point during their life.