Certification of Trust Requirements in Ohio

At a glance

Requirements one by one

Ohio requires six content groups, not the longer uniform list

Under Ohio Rev. Code § 5810.13(A), a trustee may give a nonbeneficiary a certification instead of the trust instrument. It must state the trust's existence and execution date; the settlor; the acting trustee and address; trustee powers; revocability and the holder of any revocation power; and cotrustee authority.

The current list does not require a taxpayer identification number or a statement of how title should be taken. Subsection (C) separately requires the statement that no revocation, modification, or amendment makes the certification's representations incorrect.

Any trustee may authenticate without a certification-specific acknowledgment

Section 5810.13(B) says any trustee may sign or otherwise authenticate the certification. It does not require all trustees to sign.

The certification still must describe how cotrustees exercise trustee powers under subsection (A)(6), but that content rule does not change the signer rule. Section 5810.13 itself states no oath, penalty-of-perjury declaration, acknowledgment, notarization, or witness requirement.

Trustee identity and succession may be established

Section 5810.13(E) permits the certification to establish the trustee's identity and any succession of trustees under the personal-property transfer rules in § 5810.14(B) or (C). That is an authorized use, not an additional mandatory content group in subsection (A).

Dispositive terms stay private, subject to focused excerpts

Section 5810.13(D) says the certification need not contain dispositive terms. Subsection (F) lets the recipient require excerpts from the original trust instrument and later amendments that designate the trustee and confer power for the pending transaction.

The excerpt right does not say the recipient may routinely require every trust term. Subsection (J) separately preserves access to the full instrument in a judicial proceeding concerning the trust.

Reliance is protected, but Ohio supplies no demand-damages remedy

Section 5810.13(G) protects a person who relies without knowledge that the certification is incorrect and permits that person to assume the stated facts without inquiry. Holding some or all of the trust instrument does not alone impute knowledge of its terms.

Under subsection (H), a person who enters a transaction in good faith may enforce it against trust property as if the certification were correct. Ohio's section then moves to the separate memorandum-of-trust rule in subsection (I) and judicial access in subsection (J). It contains no bad-faith full-instrument-demand damages or attorney- fee provision.

What trips people up

• Do not import the tax-number and title-manner fields from another state. Ohio's current subsection (A) stops after six content groups.
• Certification authentication and cotrustee transaction authority are different. Any trustee may authenticate, while the document must state how cotrustees exercise the underlying powers.
• The memorandum of trust is separate. Subsection (I) preserves that instrument's use and validity; it does not turn the certification itself into a recorded memorandum.

Common questions

Must the Ohio certification include an SSN or EIN?

Not under § 5810.13(A). The current six-item list does not include a taxpayer identification number. A separate lawful transaction request is a different question.

Must the certification be notarized?

Not under § 5810.13. Subsection (B) permits any trustee to sign or otherwise authenticate, and the section states no acknowledgment or notary requirement.

Can the certification identify successor trustees?

Yes. Section 5810.13(E) says it may establish the trustee's identity and any succession of trustees under § 5810.14(B) or (C).

Can a bad-faith demand for the full trust create damages under this section?

No. Unlike some states' versions of the uniform rule, current § 5810.13 contains no such damages or fee provision. The full instrument remains obtainable in a judicial proceeding under subsection (J).

Statutes and sources

• Ohio Rev. Code § 5810.13(A)–(F) — required contents, any-trustee authentication, no-change statement, omitted dispositive terms, trustee succession, and permitted excerpts. Official enacted S.B. 117 (accessed 2026-07-31).
• Ohio Rev. Code § 5810.13(G)–(J) — knowledge-based reliance, good-faith enforcement, the separate memorandum-of-trust rule, and judicial-proceeding access. Official enacted S.B. 117 (accessed 2026-07-31).