Athens County Assignment of Mortgage (Married Couple or Civil Union Partners) Form

When two spouses hold a mortgage together, both are the mortgagee, and an assignment of it carries both signatures. This Ohio Assignment of Mortgage prepares that instrument for exactly two assignors who are married to each other or are partners in a civil union with each other and who together hold a recorded mortgage and the debt it secures, transferring both to a new holder by the separate instrument Ohio Revised Code Section 5301.32 describes.

Two holders, two signatures, one printed recital

Section 1 names the two assignors and then states, as printed text rather than a blank, that the two are married to each other or are partners in a civil union with each other, that they together hold the mortgage and the indebtedness it secures, and that each signs in the assignor's own right. The instrument carries two signature blocks, headed ASSIGNOR and SECOND ASSIGNOR, and a separate acknowledgment certificate for each, drawn to the individual short form of Section 147.55(A). Neither block is optional. A couple who financed an adult child's home purchase with a mortgage back to themselves and now move that loan to the trustee of their living trust, a couple who sell a mortgage from a private loan to a note investor, and partners in an out-of-state civil union who hold an Ohio mortgage between them present the pattern this instrument recites. The form is not set up for a sole assignor, for three or more assignors, for co-holders who are not married or partnered with each other, or for an assignor signing as a trustee, executor, attorney-in-fact, or entity.

Why the printed relationship reads married or civil union

Ohio has no civil union status of its own. Article XV, Section 11 of the Ohio Constitution provides that the state shall not create or recognize a legal status for relationships of unmarried individuals that approximates marriage, and Section 3101.01(B) of the Revised Code treats an out-of-state record extending marriage benefits to a nonmarital relationship as having no legal force in Ohio; the same section's one man and one woman sentence is unenforceable under Obergefell v. Hodges (2015). A civil union named on this form is therefore a status that exists under another jurisdiction's law, described as the assignors state it. The assignment does not rest on that recital: Sections 5301.31, 5301.32, and 5301.46 name what a mortgage assignment carries and say nothing about the holders' relationship, and the instrument operates because both holders of the mortgage sign and acknowledge it.

No dower release on the lender's side of a mortgage

Ohio deed forms carry a sentence releasing dower because Section 2103.02 gives a spouse a life estate in one third of the real property of which the other spouse was seized as an estate of inheritance during the marriage. This instrument carries no such sentence: it assigns the mortgagee's interest, both holders of that interest sign, and no spouse stands outside it for a release to address.

What the assignee receives

For value received, the two assignors assign, transfer, and set over to the assignee their right, title, and interest in the identified mortgage, together with the promissory note and the other indebtedness it secures, and the form repeats, with its citation, the Section 5301.31 sentence that an assignment transfers the lien and all interest in the land the mortgage describes. Section 2 carries the dedicated line for the assignee's current mailing address that Sections 5301.31 and 5301.32 require.

Indexing and the recorder's fee

The property section asks for the permanent parcel number and the municipal corporation or township along with the legal description copied from the mortgage, the items Section 5301.46 names for a county with sectional indexes, and a separate section identifies any earlier assignment of record so the chain from the original mortgagee to the present holders is complete. The recorder records the instrument at the deed fee of Section 317.32 and, under division (C), collects four dollars for the marginal reference to the mortgage being assigned. A release or satisfaction of the mortgage is a different instrument under Sections 5301.28 and 5301.34, recorded separately and not included in this package.

The package includes the fillable form, a completed example filled in for a Hamilton County mortgage held by two spouses, and the guide that walks through each section, both acknowledgment certificates, and recording with the county recorder. This page and the guide explain the form and the Ohio statutes behind it in general terms only; neither is legal advice.