Geauga County Disclaimer of Interest (Individual) Form

This Ohio disclaimer of interest form is built for one person who signs for no one but themselves: an individual acting in the disclaimant's own right, which the instrument states in its first section as printed text before the name and address are filled in. No guardian, personal representative, attorney-in-fact, court order, or written authority stands behind the signature; the person refusing the real estate is the person Section 5815.36 of the Ohio Revised Code names as entitled to take it, and that person alone signs and acknowledges the disclaimer.

A capacity the instrument itself states

Section 5815.36(A)(1) defines a disclaimant three ways: the person entitled to the interest, a guardian or personal representative of that person or estate, and an attorney-in-fact or agent holding written authority. This form fixes the first of those as instrument text: Section 1 recites that the disclaimant named below is an individual acting in the disclaimant's own right, and not as a guardian, personal representative, attorney-in-fact, agent, or other fiduciary for any person. The acknowledgment certificate matches, carrying the Section 147.55(A) short form for an individual acting in the individual's own right, one certificate under one signature block.

What the individual form leaves to other instruments

Under division (B)(4), a guardian of a minor's or incompetent's estate, or the personal representative of a deceased person, disclaims only with the consent of the probate division after an application, notice, and hearing; that disclaimer is prepared under the court's order and is not included in this package. An attorney-in-fact disclaims only under written authority and acknowledges in the representative form of Section 147.55(E). An entity beneficiary is not an individual. This form recites exactly one natural person refusing in that person's own right.

The interest, the record, and the extent

Division (B)(3) requires a disclaimer instrument to be signed and acknowledged and to contain a reference to the donative instrument, a description of the interest disclaimed, and a declaration of the disclaimer and its extent; division (F)(4) adds, for real estate, a description of the land and a reference to the record of the instrument that created the interest. The form collects those in order: the property, the decedent or transferor, the donative instrument with its recording or probate reference, and a free-form statement of the interest refused and whether the refusal reaches the whole of it or a described part. The declaration that follows performs the act in one sentence, states that the disclaimant has accepted no benefit and made no assignment, encumbrance, or contract, and retains no power to revoke and gives no direction as to where the interest goes, the points on which division (E) and the federal rule in 26 U.S.C. Section 2518 turn.

A sibling who declines a transfer on death parcel

A sibling named as transfer on death beneficiary in a recorded designation affidavit, declining the parcel so that it passes to the contingent beneficiary the affidavit names, presents the pattern this form recites; so does a trust beneficiary declining a residence the trust's remainder takers then receive. The completed example follows the first pattern in Hamilton County: under Section 5815.36(G)(3) the beneficiary is treated as having died before the affidavit took effect, and Section 5302.23(B)(1) and (2) send the parcel to the contingent beneficiary. A married disclaimant signs alone, since division (F)(4) gives the disclaimant's spouse no dower or other interest in the real estate disclaimed.

Where the signed instrument goes

A transfer on death interest is delivered to the person holding legal title and filed with the recorder of the county where the land lies; a trust interest goes to the trustee; a will or intestate interest is filed in the probate division; and in every real estate case an executed copy is recorded with the county recorder under division (F)(4). The recorded copy meets the Section 317.114 format standard and carries the preparer statement Section 317.111 requires. Division (M) then makes the disclaimer final and binding, and division (N)(2) provides that it is not a transfer or conveyance by the disclaimant and that no creditor of the disclaimant may avoid it.

Three items ship together: the fillable disclaimer form for an individual disclaimant, a completed example worked through on a Hamilton County fact pattern, and the guide covering each numbered section, the delivery and filing paths under division (F), and the recording steps. The description above and the guide describe the form and the Ohio statutes it rests on in general terms, and neither is legal advice.