Geauga County Assignment of Mortgage Form

An Ohio Assignment of Mortgage moves a recorded mortgage, and the promissory note it secures, from the person who holds it to a new holder, and places that change on the county record. This form prepares the separate instrument of assignment that Ohio Revised Code Section 5301.32 describes, for one or two individual assignors signing in their own names.

Two ways Ohio assigns a mortgage

Ohio law offers two paths. Under Section 5301.31 the holder may write the assignment on the original mortgage or on the margin of the recorder's record and sign it. Under Section 5301.32 the holder signs a separate instrument of assignment, acknowledged as Section 5301.01 provides, which the recorder records in the official records at the fee charged for recording a deed. The separate instrument is the path this form takes. Ohio prescribes no statutory form for a mortgage assignment, so the instrument's words are the conventional words of an assignment, drawn around what the statutes require it to contain.

What the assignment carries with it

Section 5301.31 states the effect in one sentence: an assignment, whether on the mortgage, on the margin, or by separate instrument, transfers not only the lien of the mortgage but also all interest in the land described in the mortgage. The form carries that sentence inside its assignment clause, beside the operative words: the assignor assigns, transfers, and sets over to the assignee all of the assignor's right, title, and interest in the mortgage, together with the note and the other indebtedness it secures. In Fed. Home Loan Mtge. Corp. v. Schwartzwald, 2012-Ohio-5017, the Supreme Court of Ohio held that a foreclosing party with no established interest in the note or mortgage at filing had no standing, and that an assignment obtained afterward did not cure the defect; the recorded chain of assignments is where that interest is shown.

The assignee's address and the indexing description

Sections 5301.31 and 5301.32 each require an assignment of a mortgage to contain the then current mailing address of the assignee, and the form's assignee section carries a dedicated address blank for it. Section 5301.46 adds that, in a county with sectional indexes, a separate instrument of assignment carries a description of the land sufficient for indexing, including the permanent parcel number; the property section receives the legal description copied from the mortgage, the parcel number, and the street address. The mortgage itself is identified by mortgagor, original mortgagee, date, original principal amount, and recording reference, and a separate section identifies any earlier assignment of record under which the assignor holds.

One or two individual assignors

The form recites one or two assignors who are natural persons holding the mortgage in their own names, and one or two assignees. A seller who financed the buyer's purchase and later sells the loan, two spouses who took back a purchase-money mortgage on the home they sold, and an individual investor passing along a mortgage acquired by an earlier recorded assignment present the patterns this form recites. Nothing about marital status, capacity, or how two assignees will hold the mortgage is preprinted; those entries are the filler's own words in open blanks. The form is not set up as an assignment by a corporation, limited liability company, bank, trustee, executor, or attorney-in-fact, or by three or more assignors; its acknowledgment certificates carry the individual short form of Section 147.55(A).

Signing and recording

Each assignor signs before a notary public or another officer Section 5301.01 names, and the form carries a separate acknowledgment certificate for each signer, so two assignors may acknowledge on different dates or before different notaries. The instrument is formatted to Section 317.114, with a three inch blank top margin on the first page, one inch side and bottom margins, and twelve point type above the ten point minimum. It carries the preparer statement Section 317.111 requires and a return address block, and it records with the county recorder at the deed fee of Section 317.32: thirty-four dollars for the first two pages plus any county preservation surcharge, eight dollars for each further page, and four dollars for the marginal reference to the mortgage being assigned.

The package includes the fillable Assignment of Mortgage form, a completed example filled in for a Franklin County mortgage held by two spouses, and the guide that walks through each section, the acknowledgment requirements, and county recording. This description and the guide describe the form and the governing Ohio statutes in general terms; they are not legal advice.