Amended Substitute Senate Bill 257 Summary

• Creates rebuttable presumption that recorded real property instruments (deeds, mortgages, leases, etc.) are valid, enforceable, and effective, rebuttable only by clear and convincing evidence of fraud, undue influence, duress, forgery, incompetency, or incapacity.

• Reduces cure period for defects in recorded instruments from twenty-one years to four years, allowing instruments with defective witnessing, acknowledgment, or certificate to be cured and effective after four years of recording.

• Provides constructive notice to all third parties when real property instruments are recorded and filed in the chain of title, notwithstanding any defects in making, execution, or acknowledgment.

• Establishes notification and exclusion procedures for property owners in proposed tax increment financing (TIF) incentive districts, allowing owners whose entire parcel falls outside the overlay area to exclude their property from TIF districts by written response within 45 days.

• Applies retroactively to the fullest extent permitted by Ohio Constitution, except where retroactive application would affect accrued or vested rights.