Clark County, OH Probate Information

Ohio's fiduciary duties are statewide and are covered on the Ohio state page. What follows is what Clark County Probate Court adds on top of them in the court's local rules for the Court of Common Pleas, Probate Division, Clark County, effective January 1, 2025, because these are the requirements that get a filing refused or a fiduciary cited here.

Everything you file must be typewritten. Local Rule 57.1 requires all filings and entries filed in the court to be typewritten and legible, and every one of the court's route information sheets repeats it in capitals. Rule 57(A) adds that all filings except wills must be on eight and one-half by eleven inch paper without backings, on stock that can be microfilmed, and Rule 57(D) and (E) allow the court to refuse or strike filings with illegible signatures or that are not typed or printed in ink and correctly captioned. A handwritten application is not a filing here.

Your name, address and phone go on every filing, and your address has to stay current. Rule 57(B) requires every filing to contain the name, address and telephone number of the fiduciary, or of counsel with an attorney registration number, and provides that a filing without them may be refused. Rule 57(C) makes failure to notify the court of the fiduciary's current address grounds for removal, on not less than ten days written notice of the removal hearing. Local Rule 60.2 also requires the Social Security number and date of birth of every fiduciary except a guardian of the person only, on confidential disclosure Form 45.D, filed before letters of appointment issue or before an entry relieving the estate from administration.

In a will estate, the certificate of service gates the inventory. Rule 59(B) requires a fiduciary appointed in a testate estate to file Form 2.4, the certificate of service of notice of probate of the will, within two months of appointment or be subject to removal proceedings, and Local Rule 59.1 adds that failure to file it on time may also lead to contempt proceedings. Local Rule 8(A) then provides that an inventory will not be accepted by the court until the certificate of service is filed, so the two steps have to happen in that order. Local Rule 78.1(C)(1) sets the follow-up: a notice at sixty days from the admission of the will, then a citation thirty days after that.

Clark County real estate normally needs a disinterested appraiser. Local Rule 61.1 requires a suitable, disinterested appraiser to appraise all Clark County real estate for which the Auditor's valuation is not used, and provides that an out of county appraiser will not be appointed without prior court approval unless the appraisal is of out of county real estate. The rule also caps what the fiduciary may allow the appraiser without applying to the court, on the sliding schedule in the fees section above.

Do not transfer a vehicle before the inventory is filed. Local Rule 6 provides that no automobile, watercraft or outboard motor may be transferred before the filing of an inventory, except those taken by affidavit by the surviving spouse. Rule 63 applies the same logic to personal property generally: except for good cause shown, an order to sell personal property will not be granted before the inventory is filed.

Accounts here need vouchers and a zero-balance bank statement. Rule 64(A) requires verification by vouchers in estates, referenced to the account by number, letter or date, and Local Rule 64.2(A) requires vouchers or proofs of all disbursements and distributions with every account and every report of distribution. Local Rule 64.2(F) also asks for copies of all applicable final bank statements showing a zero balance. Where land was sold in the accounting period, the account must show the gross proceeds and include a copy of the closing statement itemizing the disbursements (Rule 64(B)). A computer-prepared account must be in proper accounting form, attached to Form 13.0, and contain a recapitulation (Local Rule 64.2(E)). Rule 64(E) provides that a final or distributive account will not be approved until all court costs have been paid, and an account returned for corrections carries a $10.00 administrative fee as costs (Local Rule 64.2(G)).

Attorney and fiduciary fees follow published guidelines and cannot be taken early. Local Rule 71.1(B), which applies to estates of persons dying on or after June 1, 2018, provides that all attorney fee requests must be in writing, must be reasonable under Rule 1.5 of the Ohio Rules of Professional Conduct, and may not be taken until the final and distributive account is prepared for filing. The guideline computation on probate assets is 4 per cent of the first $100,000, 3 per cent of the next $100,000 and 2 per cent above $200,000, with a separate half-value computation for jointly held, payable on death, transfer on death, abandoned and foreclosed property that requires the court's Non Probate Asset Affidavit to be attached, and a separate land-sale schedule. A fee within the guidelines needs no application and no hearing but the computation must be furnished with the account, the application to relieve the estate or the certificate of termination; anything above the guidelines is treated as extraordinary and set for hearing unless the fiduciary and all beneficiary heirs sign the court's consent form. A fee is prima facie reasonable in all estate administration if it does not exceed $1,000.00 (Local Rule 71.1(D)(5) of the court's local rules for the Court of Common Pleas, Probate Division, Clark County, effective January 1, 2025).

Late filings trigger an escalating series of notices, each with a fee. Local Rule 77.1 provides that where inventories, accounts, reports, proof of bonds or other necessary proceedings are not timely filed, the court issues a notice to the attorney of record requiring a reply within twenty-one days, then a notice to the fiduciary ordering compliance within ten days, then a contempt citation with a hearing, and each step adds a $10.00 administrative fee as court costs. Rule 78(A) adds that the court may modify or deny fiduciary commissions or attorney fees to enforce the filing deadlines, and Rule 78(C) requires the fiduciary and the attorney to file a written status report in any estate still open at thirteen months from appointment and annually after that.

If you used artificial intelligence to prepare a filing, you have to say so. The court's rules book carries a rule on artificial intelligence requiring an attorney, or a party if there is no attorney, to notify the court when filing any motion, memorandum or other writing that used artificial intelligence in preparing the research or other authority presented to the court. The notice must be given at the time of the filing, and the attorney or party must certify that all of the research has been reviewed by them and that it is correct (Rule 81 of the court's local rules for the Court of Common Pleas, Probate Division, Clark County, effective January 1, 2025). This applies to a self-represented fiduciary as much as to counsel.

Clark County uses two layers of forms, and the court hands them to you already sorted. The first layer is the statewide set: Ohio has one set of Standard Probate Forms prescribed by the Supreme Court of Ohio and used in all 88 counties, published on the Supreme Court's decedent's estate forms page, which says that these forms should be filed in the local county court and that the local court may have additional forms that must be filed. Clark does have additional forms, and it publishes both layers together on its own Estate Forms and Services page.

The load-bearing statewide items for a decedent's estate are Form 1.0 (Surviving Spouse, Children, Next of Kin, Legatees, and Devisees), Form 2.0 (Application to Probate Will), Form 4.0 (Application for Authority to Administer Estate), Form 4.5 (Entry Appointing Fiduciary; Letter of Authority), Form 5.0 (Application to Relieve Estate From Administration) with Form 5.1 (Assets and Liabilities of Estate to be Relieved from Administration), Form 5.10 (Summary Release From Administration) with Form 5.11 (Entry Granting Summary Release From Administration), Form 6.0 (Inventory and Appraisal) with Form 6.1 (Schedule of Assets), Form 7.0 (Certification of Notice to Administrator of Medicaid Estate Recovery Program), Form 12.0 (Application for Certificate of Transfer) with Form 12.1 (Certificate of Transfer) and Form 13.0 (Fiduciary's Account). Note that the summary-release form is Form 5.10 and the application to relieve an estate from administration is Form 5.0. Two small local differences are worth knowing: the court's forms page prints Form 1.0 as Surviving Spouse, Next of Kin, Legatees and Devisees while the Supreme Court's current page prints Surviving Spouse, Children, Next of Kin, Legatees, and Devisees, and the court prints Form 4.5 as Entry Approving Fiduciary, Letters of Authority. They are the same forms. Confirm the current version on the Supreme Court of Ohio forms page before you file, because form numbering and titles are revised from time to time.

What makes Clark's forms page unusually usable is that it is organized by route rather than by form number. Each route opens with the court's own information sheet giving the cost deposit and the documents required, then lists every form in the packet in filing order: Admit Will, Authenticate Will, Foreign Will, Ancillary Administration, Full Administration, Release of Administration, Summary Release of Administration, Medical Records Only, and Real Estate as Sole Asset. The information sheets carry real instructions, not just a list. The Full Administration with Will sheet tells you to file the original Form 1.0 with the application to probate the will and a copy with the application for authority to administer and with the inventory. The Release of Estate with Will sheet tells you to file a receipt showing the funeral bill paid in full, or to have the funeral director sign the waiver on the release application if it is not, and sets the report of distribution at sixty days from the filing of the application unless the estate is only real estate or a vehicle passing to a surviving spouse by affidavit. The Summary Release sheet asks for the receipt, contract or other document confirming the applicant's payment of or obligation to pay the funeral and burial expenses, and notes that Forms 12.0 and 12.1 plus a verification of the value of the real property must be added if there is real estate, because those are not in the packet.

The second layer is Clark's own supplemental forms, which sit inside those packets and do not appear on the Supreme Court's statewide decedent's-estate list. The estate set includes the four route information sheets; a Fiduciary Acceptance; a Non Probate Asset Affidavit, which Local Rule 71.1(B)(2) requires to be attached to an attorney-fee application covering jointly held, payable on death, transfer on death, abandoned or foreclosed property; Appendix A (Computation of Attorney Fees) and Appendix B (Computation of Executor and Administrator Fees); a Consent to Extraordinary Fees, which Local Rule 71.1(D)(3) lets the fiduciary and all beneficiary heirs sign to avoid a hearing on an above-guideline fee application; a Statement of Permanent Address; a Statement in Lieu of Account for a period with no activity (Local Rule 64.2(C)); Form 5.9 (Report of Distribution, Release from Administration); Form 39L (Report of Newly Discovered Assets); Forms 104.50 and 104.51 for reopening an estate and qualifying a fiduciary; Forms 40.W and 40.WS for authority to transfer an automobile title; and Clark County Form 12.3 (Sole Asset: Certificate of Transfer), which is printed with the court's own name on its face and is used only in the Real Estate as Sole Asset route. Two rules govern how all of it is presented: Local Rule 57.1 requires every filing and entry to be typewritten and legible, which the information sheets repeat in capitals, and Rule 57(B) requires each filing to carry the fiduciary's name, address and telephone number, or counsel's with an attorney registration number, on pain of refusal.

Ohio splits probate costs in two. Most fee items are set statewide by statute in R.C. 2101.16(A), but the number a family actually pays when it opens an estate is the advance deposit for costs that each probate court sets by its own local rule, which the statute caps at $125.00 (R.C. 2101.16(E)), plus the optional computerization and dispute-resolution charges a court may add (R.C. 2101.162, R.C. 2101.163). Clark County Probate Court publishes its own totals two ways that agree with each other: a court costs page on its website and Local Rule 58.1 of the court's local rules for the Court of Common Pleas, Probate Division, Clark County, effective January 1, 2025, which requires the deposit on the filing of the first paper in the case. The court's own route information sheets print the same figures again, with one wrinkle: the $50.00 real estate as sole asset deposit appears in Local Rule 58.1(A) and on that route's information sheet but not on the court costs page. The court costs page carries no effective date of its own, so confirm the current figures before you file; each figure below carries its source. The $25,000 line in the release-from-administration cost is a local cost tier and not an eligibility test: the statutory ceilings for a release are $35,000, or $100,000 where a surviving spouse takes everything (R.C. 2113.03), and they are set by statute rather than by the county.

Clark County Probate Court fixes several of its own intervals in the court's local rules for the Court of Common Pleas, Probate Division, Clark County, effective January 1, 2025, which is what makes a Clark County estate schedulable. The court publishes no estate hearing days, no filing-to-hearing wait and no counter wait, so the sequence below uses only the deadlines and notice periods its own rules set, alongside the statutory ones.

1. Notice before the appointment hearing: at least seven days. Where an administrator is being appointed, notice of the application is served by the court on all next of kin at least seven days before the date set for hearing; where there is no known surviving spouse or next of kin resident in the state, notice goes to persons the court designates (Rule 60(A)).
2. Hearing dates on a will or a release: you call for them. Local Rule 7.1 requires the estate's attorney to issue the notices for a hearing on the probate of a will and on an application to relieve an estate from administration, and to call the court for an assignment date.
3. Spousal citation: within seven days of appointment. Unless a waiver is filed, the court serves the spousal citation and summary of rights required by R.C. 2106.02 on the surviving spouse by certified mail within seven days of the initial appointment of the administrator or executor (Local Rule 60.1).
4. Notice of the appointment: within seven days. The administrator gives notice of the appointment within seven days to all persons entitled to inherit, including anyone entitled to an allowance for support, unless they had notice of the appointment hearing or waived notice (Rule 60(B)).
5. Certificate of service on the will: within two months of appointment. A fiduciary appointed in a testate estate files Form 2.4 within two months of appointment or faces removal proceedings, and the court will not accept an inventory until it is filed (Rule 59(B), Local Rule 59.1 and Local Rule 8(A)). The court's Release of Estate with Will information sheet sets the same certificate at no later than sixty days from the date the will was probated.
6. Report of distribution in a release from administration: sixty days. The court's Release of Estate with Will information sheet states that the report of distribution is due sixty days from the date the application for release was filed, unless the whole estate is real estate or a motor vehicle transferred by affidavit to a surviving spouse, or the only asset is real estate in a non-spousal case, in which case no report of distribution is needed. No report of distribution is required in a summary release.
7. Inventory: ninety days from appointment under the local rule, three months under the statute. Local Rule 8(A) sets ninety days from the date of appointment; R.C. 2115.02 sets three months unless the court grants an extension for good cause shown. Local Rule 78.1(C)(2)(a) refers to sixty days for the same filing, so confirm your own date with the court. Notice of the filing is published once, as a group, in a county newspaper (Local Rule 8(B)).
8. Objections to an inventory or an account: pretrial within thirty days. On the filing of exceptions the exceptor must have them set for a pretrial within thirty days, and the attorneys and their clients, or the individuals if unrepresented, must appear; the trial is set as soon as practical after the pretrial (Rule 78(E), with Local Rule 78.1(C)(3) for inventories and Local Rule 78.1(C)(6) for accounts).
9. Creditor claims: six months from the date of death, not from the appointment (R.C. 2117.06), with the Medicaid estate recovery exception at R.C. 2117.061(D).
10. Final and distributive account: six months from appointment (R.C. 2109.301 and Local Rule 64.1(A)(2)), extendable to no later than thirteen months from appointment on Form 13.10 for a will contest, a spousal election against the will, the fiduciary being a party in a civil action or an insolvent estate, or to another date on Form 13.8 with the court's approval (Local Rule 64.1(B)). After an initial account, subsequent accounts are filed no later than six months later (Local Rule 64.1(C)).
11. Hearing on an account: published notice, then at least thirty days. Within one month after an account is filed the court causes notice of the filing and of the time and place of the hearing to be published once in a newspaper of general circulation in the county, and the hearing is set not earlier than thirty days after that publication (Local Rule 64.2(B)).
12. Estates still open at thirteen months: annual status report. The fiduciary and the attorney must prepare, sign and file a written status report in every decedent's estate that remains open more than thirteen months from the date of appointment, and annually after that, and the court may require them to appear for a status review (Rule 78(C)).
13. For scale, the court states on its Estate Forms and Services page that it handles roughly 1,000 estates a year and that most simple estates are closed within nine months (Clark County Probate Court website, probate.clarkcountyohio.gov, verified July 2026).

Page last reviewed: July 2026.