Ohio Notice of Commencement

Before the first shovel goes in the ground on an Ohio improvement, Ohio Revised Code Section 1311.04 calls for the owner, part owner, or lessee who contracted for the work to record a notice of commencement with the county recorder. This Ohio Construction Notice (Notice of Commencement) prepares that filing as the statute describes it: a sworn notice, in affidavit form, naming the property, the improvement, the contracting owner, the designee, the original contractors, the lender, and any surety, and carrying the two statutory statements word for word, for one or two natural persons signing as owner, part owner, or lessee in their own right.

A notice that starts the clock

The notice of commencement creates no lien and conveys nothing. Its work is timing. Once it is of record, a subcontractor or material supplier who wants to preserve lien rights serves a notice of furnishing on the designee and the original contractor it names within twenty-one days after first furnishing labor or materials, under Section 1311.05, and liens for work performed after the recording take their effective date from the recording itself under Section 1311.13. Where no notice is recorded, Section 1311.04 drops the notice of furnishing requirement altogether.

A list, not a printed form

Section 1311.04(B) describes the notice as a list of contents in affidavit form rather than a printed form, and this form follows the list in the statute's order, from the legal description, which may be the one in the deed by which the owner took title, through the designee who becomes the address for notices of furnishing, the original contractors, the lender and surety, the preparer, and the two statutory statements.

Four years, not six

House Bill 96 of the 136th General Assembly, effective September 30, 2025, rewrote the life of an Ohio notice of commencement. The notice now expires four years after its filing date unless it specifies a different date, and the notice itself must say so; the earlier six-year default is gone. The same amendment added a completion affidavit the owner may record once the improvement is finished, after which the recorder marks the notice expired; that affidavit is recorded separately and is not included in this package. This form prints the current four-year statement verbatim and leaves a blank for a different date where the owner specifies one.

Sworn, not acknowledged

Because the statute requires the notice in affidavit form, the signer swears to it rather than acknowledging it. The form closes with a jurat for each signer, carrying the sworn-to-and-subscribed wording Section 147.542 accepts and the venue, date, signature, printed name, seal, and commission expiration every Ohio notarial certificate includes. Two owners may swear on different days or before different officers, because each signature block has its own certificate.

One or two owners signing in their own right

The form recites one or two natural persons as the owner, part owner, or lessee contracting for the improvement, each signing personally, with a capacity line recording which of the three statutory roles the signer holds. A married couple building out a commercial lot they own together, or a single owner contracting alone, presents the pattern the form recites. The form is not set up as a notice signed by an entity officer, a trustee, or an agent of the owner, and it carries no statement for a notice recorded by a mortgage holder or original contractor on the owner's behalf under Section 1311.04(N). A home construction contract on an owner's personal residence sits outside the section under Section 1311.04(O) unless the construction lender requires the notice.

Built for the Ohio recorder

The notice is recorded in each county where the land lies. The form is laid out to Section 317.114, Ohio's standard format statute: a three-inch blank top margin on the first page for the recorder's endorsement, one-and-one-half-inch top margins on later pages, one-inch side and bottom margins, and twelve-point body type against the ten-point minimum. Recording fees follow Section 317.32, 34 dollars for the first two pages and 8 dollars for each page after, plus any county preservation surcharge.

The package includes the fillable notice of commencement form, a completed example filled in for a two-owner commercial improvement in Franklin County, and the guide that walks through each numbered section and the consequences of recording, posting, and serving the notice. This description and the guide describe the form and the governing Ohio statutes in general terms; they are not legal advice.