Ohio Lis Pendens

In Ohio, a lawsuit over real estate becomes a lis pendens the moment the complaint is filed. Revised Code Section 2703.26 charges third persons with notice of a pending action from that filing and provides that no interest acquired while the action is pending stands against the plaintiff's title. Ohio prescribes no notice-of-lis-pendens form, so this Ohio Lis Pendens form takes the shape the Revised Code does allow: as an affidavit of facts relating to title under Section 5301.252, sworn by the plaintiff and recorded in the county where the property lies, indexed under the record owner's name where a title search finds it.

A notice the complaint already gives

Because the complaint itself is the lis pendens, the recorded affidavit does one job: it moves knowledge of the suit from the clerk's docket into the recorder's index, where a buyer, lender, or title examiner actually looks. The doctrine's reach is set by the courts. Under Cook v. Mozer, the Ohio Supreme Court's leading decision, the litigation must be about some specific thing necessarily affected by the outcome; an action for money damages only is outside the doctrine, and Ohio appellate decisions describe a recorded notice of lis pendens in a money-only suit being quashed. Lis pendens is not a lien and does not stop a sale: a person who acquires an interest during the action takes it subject to the judgment, which is what the recorded notice tells that person in advance.

Why the form is an affidavit

Section 317.13(B)(1) lets a county recorder refuse an instrument the Revised Code neither requires nor authorizes to be recorded, and no section authorizes an unsworn notice of a pending suit. Section 317.08(A)(5) does authorize affidavits under Section 5301.252, by which a person having knowledge of the facts records facts that may affect title, including an event that may create or terminate an estate or interest. The statute requires three things in every such affidavit, and the form carries each: a description of the land, a reference to the recorded instrument containing that description, and the name of the record owner. A knowingly false statement is falsification under Section 2921.13.

One or two affiants, each with a jurat

The form identifies one or two affiants, natural persons swearing in their own right, in a single free-form block; in the pattern it carries, the affiant is the plaintiff whose own knowledge of the filing supports the oath. The pending-action section records the court, case number, parties, filing date, and the relief sought, each copied from the complaint, and the operative section states under oath the pendency of the action, gives notice of it as to the described property, and says plainly that the affidavit is not a judgment and creates no lien. Two signature blocks follow, AFFIANT and SECOND AFFIANT (if applicable), each with its own jurat, so co-plaintiffs may swear on different dates or before different notaries; on a one-affiant affidavit the second block and its jurat stay blank. A single buyer suing for specific performance of a purchase contract, and two co-owners suing to quiet title against a stranger's recorded claim, present the one- and two-affiant patterns this affidavit recites. The form is not set up as the affidavit of an attorney, agent, entity officer, or fiduciary, or of three or more affiants.

Property in another county, and registered land

Ohio ties the statutory notice to filings this affidavit does not replace. When the property lies wholly or partly outside the county where the action is pending, Civil Rule 3(G)(1) conditions notice to third persons on a certified copy of the complaint filed with the clerk of courts of each county where the property sits, and Section 2703.27 requires a certified copy of the judgment recorded with that county's recorder before it operates there as notice. For registered land, Section 5309.58 withholds lis pendens until the clerk's certificate of pendency is filed with the recorder and memorialized on the certificate of title. The affidavit is recorded alongside those filings, on letter paper meeting the Section 317.114 format standard, for the deed recording fee of Sections 317.32 and 317.36.

The package includes the fillable affidavit, a completed example showing two co-plaintiffs giving notice of a Franklin County specific performance action, and the guide that walks through every section, the jurat, and the recording path. This description and the guide describe the form and the governing Ohio law in general terms; they are not legal advice.