Knox County Release and Satisfaction of Mortgage (Trustee) Form

This Ohio Release and Satisfaction of Mortgage is built for one signature: the trustee of the trust that holds the mortgage. Where a family trust carried a seller-financed loan or took a mortgage by assignment, the lien of record belongs to the trust, and the instrument that clears it is signed by the trustee in that capacity. The form fixes that capacity on its face, carries the certification Ohio Revised Code Section 5301.34 describes, and closes with the representative acknowledgment short form Ohio prints for a trustee.

A certificate the recorder acts on

Section 5301.34 provides that a mortgage shall be discharged upon its record when the county recorder is presented with a certificate, executed by the mortgagee or the mortgagee's assigns and acknowledged under Section 5301.01, certifying that the mortgage has been fully paid and satisfied. Section 6 of this form carries that certification and adds the instrument's own release words, so one sentence both certifies the payoff and releases, satisfies, and discharges the mortgage and its lien.

Why the signature line names the trust

A trust acts only through its trustee. Section 5301.03 provides that the word trustee after a mortgagee's name, standing alone, gives no notice of any limit on the holder's power to release the mortgage, and that a release by such a holder passes the lien free of undisclosed beneficiaries' claims as to later purchasers for value. Section 5301.291 adds that a satisfaction of record is not defective because a trustee signed it individually rather than in a representative capacity. This form does not lean on the cure. Section 1 recites that the person named executes the instrument solely as trustee of the named trust, which holds the mortgage as mortgagee of record or as assignee; the signature block is headed MORTGAGEE (Trustee); and the acknowledgment by-line carries the trustee's name and title of position in the pattern Section 147.55(F) prescribes.

Section 3 identifies an assignment of record where the trust took the mortgage from an earlier lender, and Section 4 carries the recording reference of a memorandum of trust filed under Section 5301.255, which, as amended effective June 16, 2026, requires such a memorandum to be of record when a trustee of a disclosed trust conveys an interest in real property. Where neither exists, the entry reads None.

Ninety days on a statutory clock

Section 5301.36 gives the payoff a deadline. Within ninety days from the date of satisfaction the mortgagee, a term the section defines to include any successor or assignee, records a release evidencing the satisfaction and pays the recording fee. A mortgagee who does not faces a civil action for two hundred fifty dollars and, after a statutory written notice, attorney's fees plus one hundred dollars for each further day, capped at five thousand dollars. The section defines satisfaction as payment in full with no opportunity for future advances.

What the configuration recites

The form recites exactly one trustee acting for exactly one trust, with one signature block and one acknowledgment certificate. A seller's revocable living trust releasing a purchase-money mortgage after the buyer's final payment, and a successor trustee clearing a mortgage the settlor took as original trustee, present the single-trustee pattern this instrument recites. A trust whose terms require two cotrustees to act together, a mortgagee holding in an individual's own right, a bank or limited liability company lender signing through an officer, and an attorney-in-fact signing under a power of attorney each present a different signing pattern, and a release of part of the mortgaged land is the partial release Section 5301.32 treats as a separate instrument. The operative sentence is fixed; the blanks hold names, dates, recording references, and the property description, including the parcel number and municipality Section 5301.46 names for a release by separate instrument. The page is laid out to the Section 317.114 margins, and the release goes straight to the recorder without an auditor transfer.

The package includes the fillable form, a completed example filled in for a Franklin County trust releasing a purchase-money mortgage, and the guide that walks through every numbered section, the trustee's acknowledgment, and the recording process. This description and the guide describe the form and the governing Ohio statutes in general terms; they are not legal advice.