Defiance County Memorandum of Trust (Individual Trustee) Form

One trustee, one signature, one certificate. This form prepares an Ohio memorandum of trust under Ohio Revised Code Section 5301.255 for a trust administered by a single individual trustee: the instrument recites that the person signing is an individual and the sole trustee of the named trust, and it puts the trustee's name and address, the date the trust was executed, and the trustee's real property powers into the county records without recording the trust itself.

A sole trustee's memorandum, start to finish

The form fixes its configuration as instrument text rather than leaving it to a blank. Section 2 opens with the statement that the trustee named there is an individual and the sole trustee of the trust identified in Section 1 and executes the memorandum in that fiduciary capacity; the name and mailing address follow. The signature area carries a single TRUSTEE block, and one acknowledgment certificate follows it, worded in the Section 147.55(F) short form for a trustee. Nothing on the instrument contemplates a second signer.

The pattern that presents this configuration most often in Ohio records is the settlor of a revocable living trust serving as its own trustee, with the residence deeded into the trust and the memorandum recorded ahead of any later deed from the trustee. A successor trustee who has taken office alone after the original trustee's death or resignation presents the same pattern and completes the form as the current trustee. What the form is not set up as: a trust with cotrustees, whose memorandum carries every cotrustee's signature and certificate; a bank or trust company trustee, which executes through an officer under the corporate acknowledgment form; or an attorney in fact signing for the trustee.

What the record learns, and what it does not

Section 5301.255(A) fixes the required contents, and the form's first three sections carry them: the trust and its execution date, the trustee and the trustee's address, and the powers the trust gives the trustee to acquire, sell, encumber, and convey real property, with any restrictions on those powers copied from the trust instrument. Section 4 is optional and carries what division (B) permits, the substance or text of further trust provisions, most often the successor trustee designation. Division (C) draws the line on the other side: the memorandum constitutes notice only of the information contained in it, so a power or restriction left out of the memorandum is not disclosed by the recording.

Section 5 is optional as well, and completing it decides the recorder's filing. A memorandum that describes a specific parcel, with the legal description, parcel number, and prior deed reference copied from the deed into the trustee, is recorded in the series Section 317.08(A)(17) names and indexed against that parcel; a memorandum with no parcel description goes into the Section 317.08(A)(23) series with the powers of attorney.

Of record before the trustee's deed

Since June 16, 2026, under Senate Bill 101 of the 136th General Assembly, a memorandum satisfying division (A) shall be of record when a trustee of a disclosed trust conveys any interest in Ohio real property. Section 5301.071(F) adds a four-year cure for a trustee's deed recorded without one; a memorandum recorded while the trustee holds the parcel keeps that question from arising. The instrument is sometimes called an abstract of trust or a trust memorandum; the certification of trust under Section 5810.13, furnished privately to a lender or buyer, is a different document.

Signing and recording in Ohio

The trustee signs and acknowledges the memorandum under Section 5301.01, the execution rule for an Ohio deed, before a notary public or another officer that section names; no subscribing witnesses are involved. Because the memorandum conveys, mortgages, and leases nothing, Ohio's dower statute does not reach it, and no spouse signs. The county recorder takes it on the Section 317.32 fee, $34 for the first two pages and $8 for each page after that before any county preservation surcharge, with no auditor transfer stamp and no conveyance fee statement, since it is not a deed. The form is laid out to the Section 317.114 standard format, so the $20 nonstandard format charge does not apply.

The package includes the fillable memorandum of trust form, a completed example built on a Hamilton County fact pattern with one individual trustee, and the guide covering each numbered section, execution, and recording. The description and the guide explain the form and the Ohio statutes behind it in general terms and are not legal advice.