Guides › Transfer-on-Death Deeds
Updated July 31, 2026. Quick answer: no — Michigan has never adopted a TOD deed statute for real property. What Michigan has instead is the country’s most established Lady Bird deed practice: a common-law enhanced life estate deed, recognized in Michigan practice for decades and treated by the State Bar’s own journal as the standard tool. If an article told you to record a “Michigan transfer-on-death deed,” it was describing an instrument that does not exist here.
What the Michigan Lady Bird deed does
You deed the remainder to your beneficiary NOW while keeping a life estate plus unrestricted power to sell, mortgage, gift or revoke without the beneficiary’s consent — so nothing is complete until death, no gift occurs at recording, and the property passes outside probate with a full basis step-up (the same tax profile as a TOD deed). Its Michigan superpower is Medicaid planning: because you keep control, recording one is generally not a countable transfer — a large part of why the instrument thrives here. The full comparison: Lady Bird vs TOD deed.
What avoiding probate saves here: Michigan probate cost. Which states have which instrument: the verified 51-jurisdiction table.
Michigan’s tool is older and better-tested than most TOD statutes.
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