Geauga County Gift Deed Form

An Ohio gift deed conveys real property for nothing: no purchase price, no promise to pay, no exchange of other value. This Ohio Gift Deed form, sometimes called a deed of gift, prepares that conveyance under Ohio Revised Code Chapters 5301 and 5302, with a gift recital in place of the consideration clause, the dower release Ohio deeds carry, and the county auditor's transfer items built in.

A grant with the price taken out

Ohio's statutory deed forms open with the words for valuable consideration paid. Section 5302.01 lets them be altered as circumstances require, and a gift deed is that alteration: the deed states that it is a gift and that no money or other consideration has been paid or is to be paid. Under Section 5302.03, grant conveys without more words and implies no covenant, so the deed states its warranty posture in its own text: it is made without covenants of any kind on the part of the grantor, the effect Section 5302.11 gives the statutory quitclaim form. The grantee receives whatever interest the grantor holds and no promise about the condition of the title.

Why the auditor reads the gift recital

Under Section 317.22 every deed of absolute conveyance passes through the county auditor before the recorder accepts it, and the auditor collects the Section 319.54(G)(3) conveyance fee or stamps the exemption claimed on form DTE 100EX. The gift exemption is narrower than the word suggests. Division (d) exempts a gift between spouses, or between parent and child or the spouse of either. Division (m), the no-consideration exemption, applies only when the transaction is not a gift. A gift to a sibling, a grandchild, or a friend therefore pays the fee, and Section 319.202(D) values a gift at its open-market price, not at the zero the deed recites.

Dower rides with the signature

Ohio keeps dower. Section 2103.02 gives a spouse a life estate in one third of the real property the other spouse owned during the marriage, unless released, and the statutory deed forms end with a sentence releasing it. This deed carries that release as a sentence reaching every person who signs, as a grantor or as the spouse of a grantor. When a married owner gives away property held in that owner's name alone, Ohio deeds name the owner and the spouse together in the grantor section, and both sign; the spouse's signature is what releases the interest.

One or two grantors, one or two grantees

The form is the general configuration of the Ohio Gift Deed. Its grantor section is an open block for one or two natural persons with the marital status Ohio deeds recite, and its grantee section is an open block for one or two grantees and any designation of how two grantees hold title, from a tenancy in common, the Section 5302.19 default, to the survivorship tenancy created by the Section 5302.17 words for their joint lives, remainder to the survivor of them. Two signature blocks follow, each with its own acknowledgment certificate in the Section 147.55(A) short form; when one grantor conveys, the second block stays blank. Parents giving a house to a married child and the child's spouse, and a widowed owner passing a lot to one adult child, present the patterns this deed recites. The form is not set up as a conveyance by a trustee, an entity, or an attorney in fact, or by three or more owners on either side.

Built for the Ohio auditor and recorder

The deed carries the grantee's tax-mailing address and the prior instrument reference that Section 319.20 requires for transfer, the survey statement of Section 5301.25(B), and the preparer statement that Section 317.111 makes a condition of recording. It is laid out to the Section 317.114 standard: ten-point minimum type (the form prints at twelve), one-inch side and bottom margins, a three-inch blank first-page top margin for the auditor's and recorder's stamps, and a one-and-one-half-inch top margin on later pages. Signing takes one acknowledgment per grantor before a notary public or another officer named in Section 5301.01, and no witnesses.

The package includes the fillable deed, a completed example for a Franklin County gift from parents to their son and his spouse, and the guide that walks through every section, the dower release, the conveyance-fee forms, and recording. The form and this description state what Ohio law provides in general terms; they are not legal advice.