Ohio Gift Deed (Trustee Grantee)

When Ohio real property is given to a trust, the deed names the trustee, not the trust. This Ohio Gift Deed (Trustee Grantee) prepares that conveyance: one or two natural persons grant real property, for no consideration, to a named trustee of a named trust, identified by name and by the date of its trust instrument, and the deed states that the grantee takes title as trustee and not individually. It is the deed to a living trust, built under Ohio Revised Code Chapters 5301 and 5302.

The trustee is the grantee

Ohio puts legal title to trust property in the trustee, and Section 5301.071(E) shows why the name on the deed matters: an instrument that named a trust rather than its trustee is rescued only where the trust was duly created and a memorandum of trust containing the property description is recorded in the same county. A deed that names the trustee from the start never needs that rescue. This form carries a trustee line, a trust line, and a line for the date of the trust instrument, so the grantee clause reads the way an Ohio title examiner expects: Claire E. Osborne, Trustee of The Claire E. Osborne Revocable Living Trust dated January 22, 2025.

A memorandum of trust travels with the title

Senate Bill 101 of the 136th General Assembly rewrote Section 5301.255 effective June 16, 2026. A memorandum of trust, executed and acknowledged by the trustee and stating the trustee's name and address, the date of the trust, and the trustee's powers over real property, must now be of record when the trustee of a disclosed trust conveys any interest in real property. The gift deed in this package is the conveyance into the trust; the memorandum is a separate instrument, prepared and recorded separately and not included in this package, that the trustee will need of record on the way out. The guide explains both.

Which exemption the auditor reads

The county auditor reads the gift recital against the exemption list in Section 319.54(G)(3) before the recorder will take the deed. Division (t) exempts a transfer to a trustee of a trust when the grantor of the trust has reserved an unlimited power to revoke it, the ordinary revocable living trust an owner funds with the family home. Division (d) exempts a transfer to evidence a gift, in trust or otherwise and whether revocable or irrevocable, between husband and wife, or parent and child or the spouse of either, so the completed example, parents giving a house to their daughter as trustee of her own revocable trust, sits inside it twice. A gift to an irrevocable trust for grandchildren or friends is inside neither, and division (m) excludes gifts by its own terms, so that transfer pays the fee on the open-market value Section 319.202(D) assigns to a gift.

What this configuration recites

The deed recites one or two grantors, natural persons signing in their own right, with the marital status Ohio deeds carry after each name, and a single grantee office: the trustee, or two co-trustees, of one trust. Two signature blocks follow, headed GRANTOR and SECOND GRANTOR, each with its own acknowledgment certificate in the Section 147.55(A) short form, so a second grantor or a spouse releasing dower under Section 2103.02 may acknowledge separately; the second block stays blank when one unmarried owner conveys. An owner funding a self-settled revocable trust, spouses conveying to themselves as co-trustees, and parents giving a house to a child's trust present the patterns this deed recites. It is not set up as a conveyance out of a trust by a trustee, by an entity or an attorney in fact, by three or more grantors, or to a grantee who takes individually.

Ready for the auditor and the recorder

The deed carries the trustee's tax-mailing address and the prior instrument reference Section 319.20 requires before transfer, the Section 317.111 preparer statement, and a dower release reaching every person who signs, laid out to the Section 317.114 standard with its three-inch first-page reserve for the stamps. Ohio deeds take no witnesses; acknowledgment before an officer named in Section 5301.01 is the only execution formality.

The package includes the fillable deed, a completed example for a Hamilton County gift from parents to their daughter as trustee, and the guide that walks through every section, the trust-title rules, the conveyance-fee exemptions, and recording. The form and this description state what Ohio law provides in general terms; they are not legal advice.