Ohio Easement Deed

An Ohio easement deed gives a neighboring lot, a landlocked tract, or a buried utility line a permanent right to use a defined strip of someone else's land without transferring ownership of it. This form prepares a recorded grant of easement under Chapter 5301 of the Ohio Revised Code: the burdened parcel's owner signs, the deed fixes the strip and the use, and the easement runs with the land it serves.

A strip, a purpose, and the land it serves

The deed works through three descriptions. The Servient Property is the whole parcel the grantor owns. The Easement Area is the part of it the easement occupies, such as the westerly fifteen feet of a lot, described by reference to the lot, by metes and bounds, or by a surveyor's drawing. The Benefited Property is the parcel the easement serves. The operative section grants a perpetual easement over, under, and across the Easement Area for the purpose the deed states, with the right of entry reasonably necessary to exercise it, and makes the easement appurtenant to the Benefited Property so that it passes with that land to every later owner. Where the Benefited Property entry reads None, the deed describes an easement in gross, held by the grantee personally. The grantor keeps every use of the strip that does not interfere with the easement, and the deed carries no covenant of title, the posture Section 5302.03 gives the word grant.

Why the prior deed reference matters in Ohio

Section 5301.011 provides that a recorded grant creating an easement shall contain a reference, by volume and page, to the record of the deed under which the grantor claims title, while adding that omitting the reference does not affect validity; the form carries a prior instrument reference line for that entry. Section 5301.25(B) places the statement A survey of this property was made by in a deed whenever a survey of the land conveyed is made, and the form prints that statement with a blank for the surveyor's name.

One or two grantors, with dower released

The form recites one or two grantors who are natural persons signing in their own right, conveying to one or two grantees. It carries two signature blocks, headed GRANTOR and SECOND GRANTOR (if applicable), each followed by its own acknowledgment certificate in the Ohio statutory short form of Section 147.55(A), so two grantors may acknowledge on different dates or before different officers. Nothing about marital status or co-ownership is preprinted; the open grantor and grantee blocks receive the names with the status and any survivorship designation they carry. Two co-owners granting a shared driveway to the lot next door, and a married owner joined by a spouse who signs to release dower, present the two-grantor pattern the form recites; because dower under Section 2103.02 reaches a married grantor's real property, the operative section has each grantor release all rights of dower in the Easement Area. The form is not set up as a deed by an entity, a trustee, or an attorney-in-fact, or a deed with three or more owners on either side; it states no maintenance, cost-sharing, or termination terms, which belong to a two-party easement agreement.

Recording with the county recorder

The acknowledged deed is recorded with the county recorder of the county where the Servient Property lies; under Section 5301.25 an unrecorded easement is fraudulent as to a later bona fide purchaser of the burdened land who buys without knowledge of it. The form is built to the Section 317.114 standard, with a three inch blank top margin on the first page, one inch side and bottom margins, and twelve point type against the ten point minimum, and statewide fees are thirty-four dollars for the first two pages and eight dollars for each additional page. County auditors differ on easements: Montgomery and Hamilton counties take an easement through the auditor's transfer desk for a transfer not necessary stamp before recording, while Athens County stamps easements without a conveyance form and Hocking County exempts them from auditor review.

The package includes the fillable easement deed form, a completed example filled in for a Franklin County driveway easement, and the guide that walks through every numbered section, the dower release, and the recording steps. This description and the guide describe the form and the governing Ohio statutes in general terms; they are not legal advice.