Ohio Gift Deed (Married Couple as Grantors)

When a husband and wife give away Ohio real estate together, the deed has two grantors and two dower interests to release, one running each way. This Ohio Gift Deed (Married Couple as Grantors) is drafted for that signing pattern: two spouses named together as grantors, a grant made for no consideration, a single dower sentence that reaches both of them, and an acknowledgment certificate for each signature.

One dower release, running in both directions

Dower survives in Ohio. Under Ohio Revised Code Section 2103.02 each spouse holds a life estate in a third of the realty the other spouse owned at any point in the marriage, until it is released or barred, and the Chapter 5302 deed forms close with a sentence in which the grantor's spouse releases it. Where both spouses are grantors the release has to work twice, and this form carries it as one sentence addressed to each grantor as the spouse of the other. Whether the couple holds the property together or the title stands in one name with the other spouse joining, each signature conveys that signer's own interest and releases that signer's dower in the other's.

A grant with no price and no covenants

Section 5302.01 allows the statutory forms to be altered as circumstances require, and the alteration in a deed of gift is the consideration clause: this deed states that it is a gift and that no money or other consideration has been paid or is to be paid. The operative word is grant, which under Section 5302.03 implies no covenant, and the deed says in its own text that it is made without covenants of any kind on the part of the grantors, the posture Section 5302.11 assigns to the statutory quitclaim form.

What the auditor does with a gift from both spouses

Every Ohio deed of absolute conveyance goes to the county auditor before the recorder will accept it, under Section 317.22. Section 319.202(D) values a gift at the price the property would bring on the open market, not at the zero the deed states, and the Section 319.54(G)(3) fee of ten cents per hundred dollars is measured on that value unless an exemption applies. Division (d) exempts a gift between husband and wife, or between parent and child or the spouse of either, so spouses deeding a condominium to their adult daughter file the DTE 100EX exemption statement and pay no fee, while the same spouses deeding a wooded lot to a grandson file the DTE 100 statement of value and pay on the market value.

Both spouses sign, each before an officer

Section 5301.01 requires each grantor's signature to be acknowledged before a notary public or another officer the section names, and Ohio requires no witnesses on a deed. The form carries two signature blocks, FIRST GRANTOR and SECOND GRANTOR, and a separate acknowledgment certificate for each, printed in the Section 147.55(A) short form, so the spouses may sign on different days or in different places. The two certificates are the form's arrangement; Ohio notarial law states no one-signer limit for a certificate.

The configuration this form recites

The form recites exactly two grantors who are married to each other, both natural persons signing in their own right; the recital is fixed deed text. The grantee side is open: one or two grantees and, for two, any designation of how they take, from the tenancy in common Section 5302.19 supplies by default to the survivorship tenancy that the Section 5302.17 phrase, for their joint lives, remainder to the survivor of them, creates. Spouses conveying a condominium to their adult daughter, and the same spouses passing a wooded lot to a grandson, present the pattern this deed recites. It is not set up as a conveyance by one grantor, by a married grantor whose spouse does not join, by two grantors who are not married to each other, by a trustee or an entity, or by three or more grantors or grantees. Built to the Section 317.114 page format, the deed runs four recorded pages.

The package includes the fillable deed, a completed example for a Hamilton County gift from a husband and wife to their two adult children as survivorship tenants, and the guide that walks through each section, the dower release, the conveyance-fee forms, and the auditor and recorder steps. This description and the guide describe the form and Ohio law in general terms and are not legal advice.