The Ohio Conveyance Fee: Who Pays It, and When There Is None

We should be straight about why this post exists. Our own article on the hidden costs of listing answers "what is the Cuyahoga County conveyance fee?" by telling you the rate is set by the county, that it can change, and to confirm it with the fiscal officer rather than trusting a number from a blog "— including this one". That was honest and it was right about the rate. It also left readers with nothing about how the charge is actually built. This is the version with the statutes in it.

Two charges wearing one name

The first is a fee, charged by the county auditor and set by the state. It appears in the middle of a long list of auditor’s fees, described by what it is for:

Ten cents per hundred dollars is one dollar per thousand. The "whichever is greater" and the "or fraction of one hundred dollars" both round in the county’s favour, but the order of magnitude is small.

The second is a tax, and it is optional. Any county may levy a real property transfer tax on each deed conveying property within it, "at a rate not to exceed thirty cents per hundred dollars". It has to be adopted by resolution of the county commissioners after two public hearings, it cannot take effect sooner than thirty days after adoption, and it is subject to referendum unless passed as an emergency measure. That is why the number differs across Ohio and why it can change: it is a local political decision, not a state rate.

The statute names the payer, for one of them

Ask who pays the conveyance fee in Ohio and you will be told, everywhere, that it is "customarily" the seller. For the county transfer tax it is not a custom at all:

The grantor is the party conveying the property — the seller. For the auditor’s fee under 319.54(G)(3), the sections we read do not name a payer, and we are not going to tell you it must work the same way because it sits in the same line on a settlement statement. If it matters to you, ask the title company how they are allocating each of the two.

Twenty-five transfers where nothing is charged

After setting the fee, the statute says "except no fee shall be charged when the transfer is made" and then lists twenty-five circumstances, lettered (a) through (y). Several of them land squarely on the situations this site writes about most.

• To or from the United States, this state, or any instrumentality, agency or political subdivision of either.
• Solely in order to provide or release security for a debt or obligation — which is why putting a mortgage on or taking one off is not a conveyance for this purpose.
• To confirm or correct a deed previously executed and recorded.
• To evidence a gift, in trust or otherwise and whether revocable or irrevocable, between husband and wife, or parent and child or the spouse of either.
• Of an easement or right-of-way where the value of the interest conveyed does not exceed one thousand dollars.
• Of property sold to a surviving spouse under the section that lets them purchase the home from the estate at appraised value.
• To or from a 501(c)(3) organization, provided the transfer is without consideration and in furtherance of its charitable or public purposes.
• Among the heirs at law or devisees, including a surviving spouse, of a common decedent, when no consideration in money is paid — the one that matters when a family divides an estate rather than selling it.
• To a trustee of a trust where the grantor reserved an unlimited power to revoke it, back to the grantor on exercising that power, and to the beneficiaries where the fee was already paid on the way in or the trust became irrevocable at the grantor’s death.
• Between persons under the survivorship tenancy section of the Revised Code.
• From a county land reutilization corporation, or its wholly owned subsidiary, to a third party.

The form, and the question you will be asked

Before the auditor indorses a conveyance, somebody has to declare what it was worth — and it is the grantee, the buyer, not you. The grantee or their representative submits a statement in the form the tax commissioner prescribes, declaring the value of the property conveyed. Where the transfer is exempt, only a statement of the reason for the exemption is required instead.

That statement carries two more requirements that explain something sellers often find odd. It must advise the buyer of the eligibility rules for the owner-occupancy reduction in property taxes, and of their duty to tell the auditor if they stop qualifying. And it must contain an affirmation by the buyer that they asked you whether, to the best of your knowledge, the relevant year’s taxes will be reduced under those provisions — or be accompanied by a sworn instrument where the answer is yes. When a buyer’s agent asks you that question at closing, they are completing a statutory form, not prying.

Rates are the statutory figures. What your county actually charges under 322.02 is in its own resolution and not in the Revised Code, so confirm it with the county auditor or fiscal officer rather than with any blog, this one included.

Keeping it in proportion

One honest note about scale. Put the two statutory ceilings together and you are looking at forty cents per hundred dollars at the very most — well under half a per cent of the value transferred. That is not nothing, and it is worth knowing who is paying it, but it is not in the same league as a commission, a repair list or three months of carrying costs. Anyone presenting the conveyance fee as a major reason to choose one route over another is stretching.

The genuinely useful part of this page is the exemption list. If you are a family dividing an estate among heirs with no money changing hands, a surviving spouse buying the house from the estate, or somebody moving a property into or out of a revocable trust, the charge may be zero — and no company, ours included, can claim credit for saving you a fee that was never chargeable.

Your options, honestly

None of this decides what to do with the house. It decides one line on the statement, and it applies to most of the routes the same way.

• Keep it. No transfer, no fee, no tax.
• Transfer it within the family instead of selling. Several of the exemptions exist precisely for this — a gift between spouses or between parent and child, or a division among heirs with no money paid.
• Repair and list. The highest gross on most houses, and the fee and tax apply as they would to any sale. Ohio commissions generally run 5.5% to 6%.
• Rent it. No conveyance, so neither charge arises until you eventually sell.
• Sell it yourself. No commission on your side; the auditor’s fee and any county tax work exactly as they would with an agent.
• Sell direct. No commissions, no repairs, closing as fast as 7 days where title is clean and typically around 21, at a price below retail. The conveyance charges are the same here as anywhere else — they are not a saving we can offer you.

Where this leaves you

Three things to take away. There are two charges, and only one of them — the county transfer tax — has a statutory payer, who is the grantor. Your county’s rate is capped at thirty cents per hundred dollars but is set by its own resolution, so get the figure from the auditor or fiscal officer rather than from any article. And read the exemption list before you assume the charge applies at all, because a transfer among heirs, a gift within the family, a revocable trust movement or a purchase by a surviving spouse may take it to nothing.

If you want the rest of the closing-day mechanics, our article on when a seller actually gets paid covers the rule that governs when any money may move at all. Our article on Ohio deed types covers what you are signing when the deed itself is prepared.