Geauga County Release and Satisfaction of Mortgage Form

A paid-off Ohio mortgage leaves the public record the same way it entered: by an instrument recorded with the county recorder. This Ohio Release and Satisfaction of Mortgage is that instrument for a mortgage held by one or two individuals, the certificate Ohio Revised Code Section 5301.34 describes, executed and acknowledged by the mortgagee and certifying that the mortgage has been fully paid and satisfied, on which the recorder discharges the mortgage upon its record.

Ninety days to clear the record

Ohio puts the burden of releasing a satisfied mortgage on the lender, with a clock attached. Section 5301.36(B) requires the mortgagee to record a release evidencing the satisfaction, and to pay the recording fees, within ninety days from the date the mortgage is satisfied, meaning paid in full with no further advances available. When the ninety days pass with nothing of record, the mortgagor and the current owner may recover two hundred fifty dollars in a civil action; after the owner serves the capitalized statutory notice, a mortgagee that does not record within fifteen days is liable for attorney's fees plus one hundred dollars a day, up to five thousand dollars. The statute defines mortgagee to include any successor or assignee, so the duty follows the mortgage to whoever holds it.

What the release certifies and discharges

The instrument identifies the mortgage by the mortgagor names, the date, the original principal amount, and the recording reference from the recorder's stamp or index; identifies any recorded assignment through which the signer holds the mortgage, since Section 5301.34 reaches the mortgagee or the mortgagee's assigns; and describes the property by county, legal description, parcel number, and street address. The operative paragraph then does the legal work in one sentence: the mortgagee certifies that the mortgage has been fully paid and satisfied, and releases, satisfies, and discharges the mortgage, its lien, and all interest in the land held by virtue of the mortgage, authorizing the recorder to discharge the mortgage upon its record.

Ohio also recognizes the older satisfaction entered on the margin of the mortgage record under Section 5301.28, but that section allows a recorder using the microfilm process to require a separate instrument, and the Ohio Title Standards note that recorders frequently do.

One or two individual mortgagees

The form recites a mortgagee who is one natural person or two natural persons holding the mortgage in their own names and signing in their own right. The mortgagee block is free-form entry space for one or two names and addresses, with nothing preprinted about marital status, co-ownership, or capacity, and the form carries two signature blocks and two acknowledgment certificates; on a single-mortgagee fill the second block and its certificate stay blank. Spouses who financed the sale of their own home and took back a mortgage in both names, and relatives who secured a family loan with a mortgage to both of them, present the two-signer pattern this release recites. Each certificate is the Ohio statutory short form under Section 147.55(A), and separate certificates let two signers appear before different officers on different dates.

The form is not set up as a release by a bank, credit union, or other entity signing through an officer, by a trustee or estate fiduciary, or by an attorney in fact; each of those carries a representative acknowledgment and a capacity recital this instrument does not print. It releases the whole mortgage, not part of the land, which Section 5301.32 treats as a separate instrument of partial release.

Built for the Ohio recorder

The document follows the standard format of Section 317.114: letter size, type well above the ten point minimum, a three inch blank top margin on the first page for the recorder's endorsement, and one inch margins elsewhere. It carries the preparer statement Section 317.111 requires and a printed name under each signature for Section 317.11. The recording fee under Section 317.32 is thirty-four dollars for the first two pages and eight dollars for each page after, plus the marginal reference charge and any county surcharge. No conveyance fee statement or auditor stamp stands between the signed release and the recorder's counter.

The package includes the fillable form, a completed example filled in for a realistic Franklin County payoff by two mortgagees, and the guide that walks through every numbered section 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.