Any person can be the grantee
While the grantor needs to have the capacity to convey title, any existing person (individual or entity) may take and hold title to real estate as the grantee. [Calif. Civil Code §671]
A child or an incompetent person has the capacity to receive and hold title as a grantee even though that person does not have the legal capacity to convey the same property. [Turner v. Turner (1916) 173 C 782]
Additionally, a deed is considered valid if the individual identified as the grantee takes title under a fictitious name by which they are also known or have assumed for the purpose of receiving title.
However, if the fictitious name is established for the purpose of committing a fraud against the grantor, the grantor may set aside the deed as voidable.
Sometimes an unintentional error misnames the grantee in a recorded deed, such as by misspelling the grantee’s name. A deed with a misnamed grantee is still a valid conveyance of the real estate.
Another deed from the same grantor to the grantee named with the correct spelling of the grantee’s name will not correct the error, nor will re-recording the original deed with an amendment containing the grantee’s correct name. The recording of a corrective deed falls outside the chain of title in the grantor-grantee index since the grantor no longer has any interest to convey. The grantor has already conveyed their title, albeit to a grantee with an erroneously spelled name. [Walters v. Mitchell (1907) 6 CA 410]
A grantor who has conveyed title cannot do so again even as an attempt to convey title to the same grantee.
Editor’s note — Title companies are only concerned the grantor on a deed is the same person who took title under the incorrect name. Title companies will generally accept a deed conveying title which identifies the grantor by both their correct name and the incorrect (misspelled) name under which they originally took title as a grantee.
