A Wyoming-specific statute, not the uniform model
Wyoming's Nontestamentary Transfer of Real Property on Death Act, Wyo. Stat. §§ 2-18-101 to 2-18-106, went into effect July 1, 2013, letting an owner sign and acknowledge a deed that expressly states it's effective at death, then record it with the county clerk before death. Unlike many other states covered in this series, Wyoming's version is a genuinely Wyoming-specific enactment rather than an adoption of the national Uniform Real Property Transfer on Death Act model — the statute uses "owner" and "grantee" terminology, rather than the "transferor" and "beneficiary" language URPTODA states typically use.
Simple execution
The owner signs an instrument that expressly makes the transfer effective at death and acknowledges it before a notarial officer — no witnesses are required, and no beneficiary signature, consent, agreement, or notice is necessary at all. A TOD deed may also be used to transfer an interest in real property to the trustee of a trust, even a revocable one.
The exclusive, mandatory death-proof mechanism
Here's Wyoming's most distinctive feature: proof of the owner's death, and the transfer of ownership by operation of law, must be established exclusively through a specific statutory process. This requires filing a statutory affidavit of death, together with an accompanying certificate of clearance from the Wyoming Department of Health. This certificate confirms one of two things: either that no Medicaid-related claim is being asserted against the property, or the specific amount of any lien that must be satisfied before clear title can actually pass to the beneficiary. Building this Medicaid-clearance step directly into the mandatory, exclusive title-clearing process is a genuinely distinctive administrative safeguard — most other states simply note that Medicaid recovery is a general possible claim against TOD-deeded property, without requiring this specific affirmative certificate as part of the core death-proof paperwork itself.
The last recorded deed controls
If multiple TOD deeds happen to be recorded for the same property over time, the last one recorded before the owner's death is the effective deed, and it supersedes every prior TOD deed recorded for that property. This gives Wyoming a clean, simple rule for resolving what might otherwise be a confusing situation with multiple competing beneficiary designations.
Revocation: recorded instruments only
The owner may revoke the deed by executing and recording a revocation instrument before death; the last recorded TOD deed for the property controls, consistent with the superseding rule above. A will does not revoke a Wyoming TOD deed — only a properly recorded revocation, a later TOD deed, or an inter vivos conveyance accomplishes that.
Multiple beneficiaries and joint ownership
A Wyoming TOD deed may name any number of beneficiaries, who can hold title as joint tenants with right of survivorship, as tenants in common, or in any other co-ownership form Wyoming law recognizes. If the property is held in joint tenancy with right of survivorship before the TOD deed is made, the underlying joint tenancy generally has more legal force unless all of the joint owners sign the TOD deed together — if fewer than all the joint tenants sign, the deed is only valid if the last surviving owner turns out to be one of the people who executed it; otherwise the transfer lapses and the deed becomes void. See our guide to Wyoming joint tenancy rules for the fuller picture of how that underlying co-ownership question gets decided.