Ohio Assignment of Leases and Rents

An Ohio Assignment of Leases and Rents pledges the income stream of a rental property to the lender alongside the mortgage. One or two owners, the assignors, assign to one or two lenders, the assignees, all of their interest in the leases of the property and the rents payable under them, as additional security for a promissory note and the mortgage that secures it. It is the document a court reads when a lender asks for the rents after a default.

A present assignment with a license that ends on default

Ohio has no statute prescribing the form of an assignment of rents, so the instrument is read by its own words. This form states that the assignment is a present assignment, not merely a lien, given as security for the debt. It then grants the assignors a revocable license to collect and keep the rents, not more than one month in advance, until an event of default under the note, the mortgage, or the assignment itself. On default the license ends automatically, the assignees may collect the rents directly from the tenants, and each tenant is authorized to pay the assignees on written notice of the default. In 255 Fifth St. Holdings, L.L.C. v. 255 Fifth Ltd. Partnership, 2022-Ohio-851, the First District read a license-until-default assignment to give the lender rights only in rents accruing after the default, not in rents the borrower had already collected and banked.

The receiver consent Ohio's statute invites

Ohio Revised Code Section 2735.01, rewritten in 2015, authorizes a court to appoint a receiver to enforce a contractual assignment of rents and leases (division (A)(3)) and, in a mortgage foreclosure, where the mortgagor has consented in writing (division (A)(2)(b)). Section 7 of this form records the assignors' consent to a receiver under division (A)(3), with or without a foreclosure, so the written consent is on the face of the recorded instrument. The form also carries the assignors' representations that they are the landlords and that the leases have not been assigned before, with their covenant not to cancel or materially modify a lease without the assignees' written consent.

What the recorded pages carry

The instrument identifies the note and the mortgage by date, principal amount, and recording reference; describes the property by county, legal description, permanent parcel number, municipality, street address, and prior instrument reference, the parcel and municipality entries answering Section 5301.46(B) in sectional-index counties; and lists the leases in effect at signing while reaching every lease made later. The assignment conveys no title, so it goes to the recorder directly, not through the auditor's transfer process Section 317.22 imposes on deeds. The recorder records it under Section 317.08(A)(19) in the county where the property lies, at the Section 317.32 fee of thirty-four dollars for the first two pages and eight dollars for each page after, plus any county surcharge. The form is drawn to the Section 317.114 standard format, with its three inch first-page top margin.

Two assignors, two certificates, no assignee signature

The form carries free-form party blocks for one or two natural-person assignors and one or two natural-person assignees, with nothing preprinted about marital status, capacity, or how title is held; the filler supplies those words as the vesting deed and the mortgage state them. It carries two signature blocks, headed ASSIGNOR and SECOND ASSIGNOR (if applicable), and a separate acknowledgment certificate for each, printed with the Section 147.55(A) short form sentence for an individual acting in the individual's own right. Separate certificates let two assignors sign on different dates or before different notaries; that is the form's architecture, not a statutory requirement. Co-owning spouses who both signed the mortgage, and two investors who co-own a building, present the two-assignor pattern this instrument recites; a single landlord with one private lender presents the one-to-one pattern. The form is not set up as an instrument for an entity, trustee, or attorney-in-fact on either side, each of which changes the recital and the certificate, or for three or more owners. Ohio is a dower state, and the form prints no dower release; a spouse who is a record owner signs as the second assignor.

The package contains the fillable Ohio Assignment of Leases and Rents form, a completed example showing a Franklin County assignment by two owners to two private lenders, and a guide covering each section, the acknowledgment rules, and recording. The guide and this description explain the form and the statutes in general terms and are not legal advice.