Morrow County, OH Probate Information

Morrow County adds a step that most Ohio counties do not: before the court issues letters of authority, Local Rule 6.1 requires every executor and administrator to personally sign and file the court's own Executor/Administrator Fiduciary's Acceptance, which the rule numbers as Form 4.0A. The form is an undertaking under R.C. 2109.02 in which the fiduciary accepts fourteen specific duties, so it is worth reading before you apply rather than at the window.

Under that acceptance the fiduciary agrees to inventory any safe deposit box of the decedent; to prepare and file the inventory of real and personal assets within three months after appointment or as extended by the court; to deposit estate funds in a lawful depository located in Ohio; to keep estate funds in separate estate accounts at all times; to invest funds lawfully; to pay and disclose all valid debts in the estate account unless the law provides otherwise; to pay any appraiser fee and bond premium on time; to keep a positive balance in the deposit account for court costs; to send the Notice of Probate of Will, where there is one, within two weeks of appointment; to prepare and file the final account within six months of appointment or as extended; to file all tax documents required by law; to let the fiduciary's name, address and telephone number appear on the court's docket and be accessible through the court's website; to notify the probate court immediately of any change of name, address or telephone number; and to obey all orders of the court. The form also carries the court's note that the attorney is not to be paid before the point set by Local Rule 15.3, which is when the final account or closing documents are prepared for filing.

Two of those undertakings have teeth in the local rules. Local Rule 9.1 provides that no expenditure, sale, distribution or fee will be approved while the fiduciary is delinquent in filing an account, and Local Rule 8(E) bars the court from approving any distribution, sale or expenditure of an estate asset before the inventory is filed, so a late inventory freezes the estate. Local Rule 9.4 requires all remaining assets to be exhibited or accounted for when a partial account is filed, with fair market values as of the last day covered. Local Rule 9.6(A) warns that a fiduciary who does not file on the schedule is subject to citation. One statutory duty in the form is worth reading in current terms: filing all tax documents required by law does not include an Ohio death-tax filing, because Ohio's estate tax was repealed for deaths on or after January 1, 2013.

Morrow County uses two form sets, and you need both. Ohio has one set of Standard Probate Forms prescribed by the Supreme Court of Ohio and used in all 88 counties, and Morrow County Probate Court publishes nine probate items of its own on the Court Forms page of the county site. The court's forms page carries an explicit warning that the Supreme Court forms may not all comply with the local rules and practices of the Morrow County Court of Common Pleas, and advises a self-represented filer to consult an Ohio-licensed attorney before filing, so read the local rules alongside the statewide forms.

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 2.4 (Certificate of Service of Notice of Probate of 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), Form 6.0 (Inventory and Appraisal), 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), Form 13.0 (Fiduciary's Account) and Form 13.9 (Certificate of Service of Account to Heirs or Beneficiaries). Confirm the current version on the Supreme Court of Ohio forms page before you file, because numbering and titles are revised from time to time.

The Morrow County items are the ones filers most often miss. The Executor/Administrator Fiduciary's Acceptance is required by Local Rule 6.1 to be personally signed and filed before letters of authority issue, and the rule calls it Form 4.0A even though there is no statewide form by that number; its fourteen numbered undertakings are set out in the executor duties section below. Probate Form 131-CE is the Certificate of Title Examination that Local Rule 23.1 requires on every certificate of transfer of real estate, reciting a title search covering the forty-two years before the date of death. Probate Form 78-A is the Application to Pay Attorney Fees. The 9C form applies to transfer a motor vehicle, watercraft, trailer, mobile home or recreational vehicle out of the estate. The court also publishes its own 4.5 Letter of Authority, an application and entry for extraordinary fees, and the counsel-fee and fiduciary-fee guideline appendices described in the fees section. Local Rule 2.1 says most approved forms are available at the office of the probate clerk and on the court's website; the address that rule names, morrowcommonpleas.com, serves only a domain-parking placeholder page, so use the county site's Court Forms page.

Ohio fixes most probate fee items by statute but leaves the number you actually pay at the counter to each county's local rule, and Morrow County publishes its own schedule. Everything below comes from the Probate Division local rules of the Morrow County Court of Common Pleas as compiled April 27, 2026, or from the Revised Code, and was verified July 2026. Amounts change, so confirm the total with the probate clerk at (419) 947-5575 before you file.

One practical rule first: the court is on a cash basis. Local Rule 4.1 says the court will accept only cash, money orders, cashier's checks, attorney checks, title company checks or trust company checks, and Local Rule 3.6(H)(2) adds that no personal checks will be accepted. Card payments can be made at the courthouse public terminals, which also hold a scanner for documents that are not already digitized.

Attorney and fiduciary compensation is separate from court costs, and Morrow County publishes guideline appendices for both as local forms. Appendix B (Counsel Fees, last updated February 6, 2025) is a graduated guideline on total probate assets per inventory: $300.00 up to $5,000, then $300.00 plus 5 per cent of the excess to $20,000, $1,050.00 plus 3.5 per cent of the excess to $50,000, $2,100.00 plus 3 per cent of the excess to $100,000, $3,600.00 plus 2.5 per cent of the excess to $180,000, and $5,600.00 plus 2 per cent of the excess above that. The appendix says of itself that it is merely a guide for an ordinary estate and is neither a minimum nor a maximum. Appendix I (Administrator and Executor Fees, last updated February 8, 2010) states the statutory fiduciary commission under R.C. 2113.35, which matches the statute as it has read since September 29, 2015: 4 per cent of the first $100,000 of personal property and proceeds of real property sold, 3 per cent of the next $300,000 and 2 per cent above $400,000, plus 1 per cent of the value of real property that is not sold. The appendix notes that the fee may be waived in whole or in part and reduced where the attorney performs part of the fiduciary's duties, and warns that the court may refuse a fee to a fiduciary who fails to file accounts and administer the estate on time, which tracks R.C. 2113.35(D)'s power to deny or reduce compensation after a hearing.

One reading note on those appendices, and one local rule that changes when fees are paid. The appendices measure the 1 per cent on property that is not subject to administration by what would have been includable for Ohio estate tax purposes; that is the statute's own wording, and R.C. 2113.35(B) keeps it usable by asking what the answer would be had the decedent died on December 31, 2012, so it is a valuation test rather than a live tax filing. Ohio's estate tax itself was repealed for deaths on or after January 1, 2013. Separately, Local Rule 15.3 bars attorney fees in a decedent's estate from being paid or advanced from any source until the final account or final closing documents are prepared for filing, unless the court approves early payment on application; Local Rule 15.1 requires every fee charged by an attorney for a fiduciary to be disclosed on the account, and treats an applicant for release from administration as a fiduciary for that purpose.

1. Notice of probate of a will: the court's own Fiduciary's Acceptance asks the fiduciary to send the Notice of Probate of Will within two weeks of appointment, and Local Rule 5.1 requires the Certificate of Service of Notice of Probate of Will (Form 2.4) to be filed not later than two months after the fiduciary's appointment, or two months after the will is admitted where no fiduciary is appointed.
2. Medicaid estate recovery notice: not later than thirty days after letters are granted or an application for release or summary release is filed, where the decedent or the decedent's spouse was subject to the program (R.C. 2117.061(B)), certified to the court on Form 7.0.
3. Bond premium: paid by the fiduciary within sixty days of the date of appointment, with the same window for any additional bond, on pain of personal liability and removal (Local Rule 20.4).
4. Inventory: within three months after appointment unless the court extends it for good cause (R.C. 2115.02), on Form 6.0, filed in duplicate under Local Rule 8. Nothing may be distributed, sold or spent from the estate before it is filed.
5. Creditor claims: presented within six months after the date of death, after which they are forever barred (R.C. 2117.06), subject to the Medicaid estate recovery exception in R.C. 2117.061(D).
6. Final and distributive account: within six months after appointment unless an exception applies (R.C. 2109.301), on Form 13.0. Local Rule 9.6(A) allows an extension by motion to thirteen months for the reasons in R.C. 2109.301(B)(1), and Local Rule 24.7 points to Form 13.8 or Form 13.10 to ask for it. Later accounts run annually.
7. Certificate of service of the account: within three days after each account is filed, on Form 13.9 (Local Rule 10, applying R.C. 2109.32(B)(1)).
8. Hearings: every application is set for hearing unless the applicant waives it for good cause in writing, and the hearing may be non-oral as the court determines (Local Rule 24.8). The court publishes no hearing days and no filing-to-hearing window, so ask when you file at (419) 947-5575.

Page last reviewed: July 2026.