How to Complete and Record the Ohio Transfer on Death Designation Affidavit

An Ohio Transfer on Death Designation Affidavit is a document you complete, notarize, and record with the county recorder to name who will receive your real estate when you die, keeping the property out of probate. You keep full ownership and control while you’re alive, and you can change or cancel the designation any time before death. Two things have to happen for it to work: the affidavit must contain every element required by Ohio Revised Code Section 5302.22, and it must be recorded in the county where the property sits before you die.¹

What the Affidavit Must Contain

Section 5302.22 is specific about what goes on the page, and a missing element is a common reason the recorder’s office rejects a document or a title problem shows up later.¹ Before you start, pull together:

The full legal description of the property, taken from your most recent recorded deed. A street address will not do. You also need the reference to the recorded deed itself: the volume and page number, or the instrument number, from the county recorder.
A statement that you are the person shown on the property records as the owner, and your marital status.
The full legal name of every beneficiary you want to receive the property, and the names of any contingent beneficiaries. Vague descriptions like “my children” do not satisfy the statute.
If you are designating less than your entire interest, a description of exactly what portion you are transferring.

Most Ohio counties publish a free template that already contains the statutory language and the correct formatting. Starting from a county-provided form is the simplest way to avoid leaving something out.

Naming Beneficiaries

A beneficiary can be any natural person or legal entity, including a trust (identified by the trustee’s name and the trust name), a charity, or a business.² Every one has to be named on the affidavit.

If you name more than one beneficiary, decide how they will hold title: as survivorship tenants, so a surviving beneficiary automatically absorbs a deceased beneficiary’s share, or as co-owners without survivorship. One rule to know: a survivorship designation only works if every beneficiary is a natural person. You cannot mix people and entities in a survivorship arrangement.²

Name contingent beneficiaries too. Ohio has no anti-lapse rule for TOD designations, so a beneficiary must survive you to inherit. If your only named beneficiary dies before you and you have not designated a contingent beneficiary, the property lands in your probate estate, which is the outcome you set the affidavit up to prevent.² Contingent beneficiaries must be named the same way as primary ones.

If You Own With Someone Else

When property is held in a survivorship tenancy or as tenants by the entireties, a TOD designation signed by only one co-owner is nullified as soon as that co-owner dies before the others.² For the designation to survive, all co-owners need to sign the same affidavit.

The Spouse’s Signature

Ohio still recognizes dower, which gives a surviving spouse a life-estate interest in one-third of the real property the other spouse owned during the marriage.³ That interest exists even if your spouse’s name is nowhere on the deed, and it can cloud the title your beneficiaries receive.

Section 5302.22 addresses this by having the owner’s spouse sign the affidavit with a statement that dower is subordinate to the TOD designation.¹ If you are married and skip the spouse’s signature, the recorder may still take the document, but the dower interest stays attached and your beneficiaries inherit a defect. Get the signature at the outset.

Notarization and Formatting

The completed affidavit has to be verified before a notary public, who confirms your identity, watches you sign, and applies the seal.¹ If a spouse is signing to waive dower, that signature also needs to be notarized.

County recorders enforce the document standards in Section 317.114, and non-compliant documents get turned away at the counter.⁴ The rules that matter here:

Minimum 10-point, legible font.
At least one-inch side and bottom margins on every page.
A three-inch top margin on the first page. The right half is reserved for the recorder’s endorsement.
A one-and-one-half-inch top margin on every page after the first.

County templates usually have the margins set correctly. A form pulled from anywhere else should be measured before you leave for the recorder’s office.

Recording the Affidavit

Take the signed, notarized original to the recorder in the county where the property is located. An unrecorded affidavit has no legal effect, no matter how carefully it was drafted.¹

The standard Ohio recording fee is $34 for the first two pages and $8 for each additional page, paid at submission.⁵ Staff will check the margins, font, and notarization. If everything passes, the office assigns an instrument number and date-and-time stamp, and the original comes back to you at the counter or by mail.

Recording does not transfer the property or trigger a conveyance fee. The designation sits in the record, dormant, until you die.

Changing or Revoking the Designation

You can change or revoke a TOD designation at any time without asking the beneficiaries.² Execute a new affidavit and record it. The new document automatically supersedes every prior recorded affidavit on the same property, so a separate revocation is unnecessary.

Timing is what matters. If you sign a replacement but never record it, the version on file at your death is the one that controls. A will does not override it either. Ohio law states that a recorded TOD designation is not testamentary and supersedes any conflicting instruction in a will or under intestacy.² If your will leaves the house to your sister and your recorded TOD names your brother, your brother receives the house.

Divorce is another moment to update. Ohio’s beneficiary-revocation-on-divorce statute in Section 5815.33 treats a former spouse as having predeceased you for certain beneficiary designations, but it is written primarily around life insurance, annuities, payable-on-death accounts, and retirement plans, and its application to a TOD real property designation is not clearly settled.⁶ If your ex-spouse is on a recorded affidavit, record a new one that removes them rather than relying on the statute.

What Beneficiaries Do After You Die

Recording during your lifetime is only the first half. After you die, each beneficiary has to complete the transfer by filing an affidavit of confirmation with the county auditor and recorder in the county where the property sits.⁷ That filing is what actually puts the property in the beneficiaries’ names.

The affidavit of confirmation must be notarized and include:

The name and address of each beneficiary who survived the owner.
The name of any beneficiary who did not survive, with a certified copy of that beneficiary’s death certificate.
The owner’s date of death.
A description of the property.
A certified copy of the owner’s death certificate.

If the original affidavit named a trustee and that trustee has been replaced, the affidavit of confirmation also needs the successor trustee’s name and address and a copy of the recorded successor trustee affidavit.⁷ It is a recording step, not a probate case.

What the TOD Does Not Do

A TOD affidavit avoids probate. It does not clean up what is attached to the property. Beneficiaries take the real estate subject to every mortgage, property tax lien, judgment lien, and other encumbrance on it at the owner’s death. If there is a $150,000 mortgage balance, the beneficiary now owns a house with a $150,000 mortgage. Federal law does at least stop the lender from calling the loan due: the Garn-St. Germain Act blocks enforcement of a due-on-sale clause when property transfers by operation of law at the borrower’s death, including to a relative.⁸ The beneficiary can keep making payments on the existing loan.

On taxes, property received through a TOD gets a stepped-up basis under federal law, meaning the beneficiary’s cost basis is the fair market value at the owner’s death rather than what the owner originally paid.⁹ The transfer itself is not a taxable sale. The property remains part of the owner’s gross estate for estate tax purposes, though the federal estate tax exemption for 2026 is $15,000,000 per person and Ohio imposes no estate tax of its own.¹⁰

1
Ohio Legislative Service Commission. Ohio Code 5302.22 – Transfer on Death Deed Form
2
Ohio Legislative Service Commission. Ohio Code 5302.23 – Designating Transfer on Death Beneficiary
3
Ohio Legislative Service Commission. Ohio Revised Code Chapter 2103 – Descent and Distribution
4
Ohio Legislative Service Commission. Ohio Code 317.114 – Recording Standards
5
State of Ohio County Recorder. State of Ohio County Recorder Table of Fees
6
Ohio Legislative Service Commission. Ohio Code 5815.33 – Effect of Divorce or Dissolution on Beneficiary Designation
7
Ohio Legislative Service Commission. Ohio Code 5302.222 – Transfer of Deceased’s Real Property
8
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 12 USC 1701j-3 – Preemption of Due-on-Sale Prohibitions
9
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 26 USC 1014 – Basis of Property Acquired From a Decedent
10
Internal Revenue Service. Estate Tax