Ohio power of attorney

State form

• Ohio Revised Code Section 1337.60 provides a statutory form, and a document substantially in that form creates a statutory form power of attorney.¹
• The Ohio statutory form says the agent is entitled to reasonable compensation unless the Special Instructions state otherwise.¹
• Eight acts on the Ohio statutory form, including creating a trust, making a gift and changing a beneficiary designation, need express authority initialed by the principal in the Special Instructions.¹
• The Ohio statutory form does not cover health-care decisions.¹
• The Ohio statutory form ends with an acknowledgment before a notary for the State of Ohio and has no lines for witnesses.¹

Signing

• Ohio Revised Code Section 1337.25 requires the principal to sign the power of attorney, or another individual to sign the principal’s name in the principal’s conscious presence and at the principal’s direction.¹
• Under Ohio law, the principal’s signature is presumed genuine when the principal acknowledges it before a notary public or another person authorized to take acknowledgments.¹
• Ohio Revised Code Section 1337.01 requires a power of attorney to convey, mortgage or lease real property to be signed, acknowledged and certified as provided in Section 5301.01.¹
• An Ohio power of attorney used for a deed, mortgage, land contract or lease must be properly signed and acknowledged before that real estate instrument is.¹

Deadlines

• A power of attorney made under Ohio’s uniform act stays in force through the principal’s incapacity unless it expressly provides that incapacity ends it.¹
• An Ohio power of attorney is effective once signed, unless it names a future date or a future event or contingency.¹
• In Ohio an action for divorce, dissolution, annulment or legal separation between principal and agent ends the agent’s authority, unless the document provides otherwise.¹
• An Ohio agent’s authority does not lapse just because time has passed since signing, unless the power of attorney says so.¹
• Signing a new Ohio power of attorney does not revoke an earlier one unless the new document says it does.¹

Where it is filed

• An Ohio power of attorney used to sign a real estate instrument is recorded with the county recorder where the land lies, before the instrument itself is recorded.¹
• A recorded Ohio power of attorney over real property is revoked only when the revocation is recorded in the same office.¹
• An Ohio power of attorney to transfer personal property may be recorded with the county recorder where the property is or where the business will be done.¹
• An Ohio power of attorney that nominates a guardian for the principal’s minor or incompetent adult children may be filed with the probate court for safekeeping as a standby guardian nomination.¹

Law

• Ohio Revised Code Sections 1337.21 to 1337.64 may be cited as the uniform power of attorney act.¹
• Ohio’s uniform power of attorney act does not apply to a power to make health-care decisions.¹
• An Ohio durable power of attorney for health care is signed and dated by the principal and then either witnessed by at least two eligible adults or acknowledged before a notary public.¹
• A relative of the principal by blood, marriage or adoption, the named attorney in fact, the attending physician and the principal’s nursing home administrator cannot witness an Ohio health care power of attorney.¹
• Ohio gives a photocopy or electronically transmitted copy of an original power of attorney the same effect as the original, unless another statute provides otherwise.¹

• Full legal names and addresses of principal and agent
• Which powers the agent gets, and any limits
• When it starts and whether it continues if the principal becomes incapacitated
• A successor agent, if you want one

Health care decisions usually take a separate document (a health care power of attorney or advance directive).