Geauga County Memorandum of Trust (Two Individual Cotrustees) Form

This form prepares an Ohio memorandum of trust for a trust that has exactly two cotrustees, both of them individuals. The memorandum names both cotrustees, both sign it, and each acknowledges on a certificate of that cotrustee's own, so the record shows every person who holds the office of trustee and that each of them executed it. It is the Ohio Revised Code Section 5301.255 instrument built around a two-person trusteeship.

Two cotrustees, and no majority between them

Ohio's trust code treats a pair of cotrustees differently from a larger group. Section 5807.03(A) lets cotrustees act by majority decision only when three or more are serving. With two there is no majority to reach, and division (C) applies instead: a cotrustee must participate in the performance of a trustee's function unless unavailable for the reasons the division lists or unless the function has been properly delegated. The trust's own terms override those defaults under Section 5801.04, so the question a title examiner asks of a two-cotrustee trust is whether the trust requires both signatures on a deed, and this memorandum is where the answer goes of record.

Where the trust's rule on acting together goes

Section 5301.255 requires the memorandum to state the trust's real property powers together with any restrictions upon them, and a requirement that both cotrustees consent to a sale is exactly such a restriction. Section 3 of the form carries it, drawn from the trust instrument by article and section. Division (B) then lets the memorandum set forth further trust provisions, and Section 4 is built for the two a two-cotrustee trust most often needs of record: the clause naming the pair as successor cotrustees and the clause saying how they act. The completed example sets forth a trust article under which two siblings serve as successor cotrustees after both settlors have died and act jointly.

The configuration the form recites

The form recites, as fixed text in Section 2, that the trust has two cotrustees now serving, that both are individuals serving in an individual capacity, and that both are named there and execute the memorandum; the only entries in that section are two names and two mailing addresses. Section 6 repeats that the undersigned are the two cotrustees and all of the trustees now serving. The signature area carries a FIRST COTRUSTEE block and a SECOND COTRUSTEE block, neither optional, and two acknowledgment certificates on the Section 147.55(F) trustee short form, each by-line holding a name followed by Cotrustee of the named trust. The two certificates are the form's architecture rather than a rule of Ohio law, and they let the cotrustees acknowledge in different counties on different days, as the example's Hamilton County and Warren County certificates show.

A settlor's two adult children serving as successor cotrustees, two relatives named as original cotrustees of an irrevocable trust, and a settlor serving beside one other individual present the two-cotrustee pattern this memorandum recites. The form is not set up as a sole trustee's memorandum, an instrument for three or more cotrustees, a bank or trust company's execution through an officer, or a signing through an attorney in fact; each carries a different recital, and the last two a different statutory certificate. A memorandum signed by only one of two serving cotrustees is likewise a different instrument.

A notice instrument that conveys nothing

The memorandum constitutes notice only of the information contained in it, under Section 5301.255(C), and the form says on its face that it is not a conveyance and transfers no interest in real property. That keeps the county auditor's transfer stamps and conveyance fee statement off the filing: those attach to deeds. What the recorder needs is each cotrustee's acknowledgment under Section 5301.01, the Section 317.114 standard format with its three-inch blank first-page top margin, and the recording fee, fifty-eight dollars for a five-page memorandum before any county preservation surcharge. Sometimes searched as a trust certificate or certificate of trust, the recorded memorandum is a different instrument from the certification of trust a trustee hands to a bank under Section 5810.13; that one is furnished, this one is recorded.

Three items make up the package: the fillable memorandum of trust form, a completed example worked through for a Hamilton County trust with two sibling cotrustees, and a guide covering each numbered section, signing, and recording. The description here and the guide treat the form and the Ohio statutes behind it in general terms only and are not legal advice.