Arkansas: Affidavit of Surviving Joint Tenant Title-Clearance Requirements

Arkansas recognizes survivorship but prescribes no special recorder instrument

Arkansas Code § 18-12-106 permits real property to be conveyed to two or more
people as joint tenants with right of survivorship. Section 18-12-603 supplies
the opposite default: a grant or devise to two or more people creates a tenancy
in common unless the instrument expressly declares a joint tenancy. The
creating instrument therefore determines whether this survey's survivorship
question arises; a later affidavit cannot add survivorship that the deed lacks.

The current statewide property, probate, recorder, and transfer-tax schemes do
not create an “affidavit of surviving joint tenant” or an “affidavit of death”
for ordinary survivorship real estate. They prescribe no survivor-affiant
class, required recitals, certified-death-certificate attachment, filing clock,
or special vesting or indexing consequence.

Section 14-15-402 is a general recorder statute. It includes affidavits among
land-related writings that a recorder records when they are authorized and
proved or acknowledged according to law, and it supplies general document
format and execution requirements. That provision does not itself authorize a
survivor affidavit or say what such an affidavit proves.

Sections 14-15-403 and 14-15-404 do not fill that gap. A death certificate is
exempt from § 14-15-403's preparer-name-and-address rule, but the exemption does
not prescribe recording it for survivorship title. Section 14-15-404 gives
constructive-notice effect to a qualifying title-affecting instrument filed in
the proper county; it does not say that a survivor affidavit terminates the
decedent's interest or vests title.

Death evidence and uncertain order of death

Arkansas Code § 28-10-205 gives a certified or authenticated death certificate
prima-facie status for the fact, place, date, and time of death and the
decedent's identity. If that evidence is unavailable, death may be established
by clear and convincing evidence, including circumstantial evidence. The
section is an evidence rule; it does not require the certificate to accompany
or be recorded with a land affidavit.

Order of death can matter. Under § 28-10-204, when clear and convincing evidence
does not establish that one of two survivorship co-owners outlived the other by
120 hours, one-half passes as if each had survived the other by 120 hours. For
more than two co-owners, the statute supplies a proportional rule if no one is
shown to have survived the others by 120 hours.

What trips people up

General recordability is not a statutory survivor procedure. Section
14-15-402's reference to affidavits does not supply the signer, facts, death
attachment, or title effect that a survivor-specific statute would provide.

A preparer-statement exemption is not a title rule. The word “death
certificate” appears in § 14-15-403 only as an exception to that section's
preparer-information requirement. It does not say that recording the
certificate clears title.

Common questions

Can an affidavit fix a deed that did not create survivorship? No statewide
statute gives it that effect. Section 18-12-603 makes tenancy in common the
default unless the grant or devise expressly declares joint tenancy.

Does a certified death certificate establish who owns the property next?
Section 28-10-205 makes it prima-facie evidence of death facts and identity. It
does not determine whether the creating deed established survivorship or
whether that survivorship was later severed.

Is a local recorder form the same as a statewide statutory affidavit? No.
A county may have intake practices, but the reviewed statewide provisions do
not create a uniform Arkansas survivor affidavit or give one a special title
effect.

Statutes and sources

• Ark. Code Ann. § 18-12-106 — express joint tenancy with right of
  survivorship. https://raw.githubusercontent.com/unicourt/cic-code-ar/master/transforms/ar/ocar/r78/gov.ar.code.title.18.html
  (accessed 2026-08-03).
• Ark. Code Ann. § 18-12-603 — tenancy-in-common default unless joint
  tenancy is expressly declared. https://raw.githubusercontent.com/unicourt/cic-code-ar/master/transforms/ar/ocar/r78/gov.ar.code.title.18.html
  (accessed 2026-08-03).
• Ark. Code Ann. §§ 28-10-204 to -205 — 120-hour survivorship rule and
  evidence of death or status. https://raw.githubusercontent.com/unicourt/cic-code-ar/master/transforms/ar/ocar/r78/gov.ar.code.title.28.html
  (accessed 2026-08-03).
• Ark. Code Ann. §§ 14-15-402 to -404 — general document acceptance,
  preparer information and death-certificate exception, county filing, and
  constructive notice. https://raw.githubusercontent.com/unicourt/cic-code-ar/master/transforms/ar/ocar/r78/gov.ar.code.title.14.html
  (accessed 2026-08-03).