Van Wert County Mineral Deed (Two Individuals to Trust) Form

When two people move their Ohio mineral rights into a trust, the deed names the trustee, not the trust, as the grantee, and that one choice decides how the title reads for every later sale or lease. This Ohio mineral deed (two individuals to trust) passes the grantors' oil, gas, coal, and other mineral rights beneath one described tract to the trustee of an identified trust, with general warranty covenants under Section 5302.05 of the Ohio Revised Code. Two natural persons sign as grantors, each in the individual's own right.

Title in the trustee, not the trust

Ohio title practice places record title to trust property in the trustee. The deed's grantee section collects the trustee's name, the trust's name and date, and the grantee's tax-mailing address, and its fixed text states that the grantee takes title as trustee of the trust identified there, with the trustee's successors in trust. Section 5301.255, as amended by Senate Bill 101 effective June 16, 2026, requires a memorandum of trust to be of record whenever the trustee of a disclosed trust conveys any interest in real property; that memorandum is executed by the trustee and is prepared and recorded separately, not included in this package. Section 5301.071(E) adds a cure for a recorded deed that names the trust itself rather than the trustee; naming the trustee in the first instance is the practice that cure assumes.

What general warranty covenants promise about a mineral title

A deed in substance following the Section 5302.05 form, duly executed under Chapter 5301, carries the covenants Section 5302.06 defines: that at delivery the grantors were lawfully seized in fee simple, that the premises were free from all encumbrances, that the grantors had good right to sell and convey, and that the grantors warrant and will defend against the lawful claims of all persons. On a mineral deed those covenants attach to the interest the fixed text defines, all of the grantors' right, title, and interest in the minerals in, on, and under the land, with the grantors' interest under any oil and gas lease covering it. An existing lease, a prior royalty reservation, and any share the grantors keep go in the encumbrances, reservations, and exceptions section, and the covenants run subject to that list.

Two grantors, two certificates, and dower between spouses

The form recites exactly two grantors and prints a signature block for each, headed FIRST GRANTOR and SECOND GRANTOR, followed by a separate acknowledgment certificate for each in the short form of Section 147.55(A), so the two may acknowledge on different dates or before different officers. Each grantor's name is followed by a mailing address and a marital status entry, and the deed fixes nothing about whether the two grantors are married to each other. Where they are, each signature is also that spouse's release of dower in the other's interest under Section 2103.02, printed as fixed text. Spouses conveying an inherited royalty interest to themselves as co-trustees of their joint revocable living trust, and two co-owners funding a family trust with the mineral rights under a shared tract, present the two-grantor-to-trustee pattern this deed recites. A grantor whose spouse is not the other grantor, a single grantor, an entity or fiduciary grantor, and three or more grantors present a different pattern, because the form carries two signature blocks and two certificates and no third.

The conveyance fee when the grantor can revoke the trust

Section 319.54(G)(3) lists the transfers on which the county auditor charges no conveyance fee, and division (t) names a transfer to a trustee of a trust when the grantor of the trust has reserved an unlimited power to revoke the trust. Division (d) separately exempts a gift in trust between husband and wife or parent and child. The grantee files form DTE 100EX with the auditor under Section 319.202 where one of those divisions describes the transfer, and the auditor's endorsement under Section 317.22 is what lets the recorder accept a conveyance of mineral rights for record. The deed's consideration section states what passed.

The package includes the fillable mineral deed, a completed example prepared for a Guernsey County fact pattern in which spouses convey an undivided one-half mineral interest to themselves as co-trustees, and the guide covering each section, the trustee grantee, the dower release, the auditor's step, and recording. This description and the guide explain the form and the Ohio statutes behind it in general terms, and neither is legal advice.