AMM Land Sales (815) 384-6153

Ohio · OH

Sell your land in Ohio.

Ohio's property disclosure form was written for houses, so a vacant parcel arrives with nothing filled out — and the three things that actually move its price sit elsewhere: a recoupment charge waiting in the auditor's file, a mineral interest severed generations ago, and a new disclosure law for anyone who contracts to assign.

Tax sale type
Tax lien
Redemption period
1 year
Rate on redemption
18% annual interest
Closings handled by
Title company

Figures describe Ohio generally. Counties administer their own sales and their own calendars — your county treasurer is the only source for a payoff figure or a sale date you can act on.

Local detail

What actually matters about land in Ohio

The disclosure form stops at the dwelling

R.C. 5302.30 requires a property disclosure form on transfers of residential real property, and the section defines that term as real property improved by a building or other structure having one to four dwelling units. A bare parcel has no structure, so the form is not what the statute asks of you. The duty that survives is the ordinary one: you cannot conceal or misrepresent a condition you know about. In practice the questions a buyer asks about Ohio land are not on that form anyway — whether the parcel is in CAUV, whether the minerals were severed, whether a lease is recorded, and whether the county health district will permit a septic system on it.

Ohio now regulates assigning a purchase contract

Senate Bill 155 of the 136th General Assembly added R.C. 5301.95, effective March 2, 2026. It is aimed at the practice of contracting to buy residential property and then assigning that contract for a fee, and it requires a written disclosure to reach the owner, as its own separate document, before the owner signs. An owner who never received it has a route out of the contract, and noncompliance carries exposure under Ohio's consumer sales practices law. The statute is built around residential property rather than raw acreage, so how it lands on a vacant parcel depends on the deal. We put our position in writing either way.

CAUV savings come back on conversion

Land in the Current Agricultural Use Value program is taxed on what it yields in farming rather than what it would sell for, under R.C. 5713.30 and following, on an application filed with the county auditor. The discount is not free. R.C. 5713.34 levies a recoupment charge when land is converted out of agricultural use, in an amount equal to the tax savings on the converted land for the three tax years immediately preceding the year of conversion, and the auditor determines annually whether a conversion has occurred. Selling the parcel does not by itself trigger the charge; changing what the ground is used for does. A buyer who plans to build prices it in.

The minerals may have left long ago

Eastern Ohio sits over the Utica and Point Pleasant formations, and drilling there is permitted and regulated by the Division of Oil and Gas Resources Management at the Ohio Department of Natural Resources. Leasing since roughly 2010 has concentrated in Belmont, Carroll, Harrison, Guernsey, Monroe and neighboring counties, so a recorded lease or a long-severed mineral interest is ordinary in that part of the state. R.C. 5301.56, the Dormant Mineral Act, gives a surface owner a route to reunite a severed interest that has seen no savings event in the preceding twenty years. It is not automatic: the Ohio Supreme Court held in Corban v. Chesapeake Exploration in 2016 that the surface owner has to run the statutory procedure.

Questions

Selling land in Ohio

Do I have to fill out a disclosure form to sell vacant land in Ohio?

No. R.C. 5302.30 requires the residential property disclosure form on transfers of residential real property, which the statute defines as real property improved by a building or other structure with one to four dwelling units, and unimproved ground is not that. You still cannot misrepresent what you know — a failed perc test, a boundary dispute, a dumped load of tires. And the facts the form would never have covered, like CAUV status and who owns the minerals, surface in title work anyway.

My land is in CAUV. What happens when I sell it?

Nothing, as long as the land keeps being farmed — recoupment under R.C. 5713.34 is triggered by conversion out of agricultural use, not by a change of owner. The new owner files with the county auditor to continue the valuation. If the ground is instead built on or otherwise converted, the auditor levies a charge equal to the tax savings for the three tax years before the conversion year. That is a knowable number, and a buyer who plans to develop works it into the offer.

Do I own the oil and gas under my Ohio land?

Only if it was never severed, and in eastern Ohio it often was. A deed from decades ago may have reserved the minerals to a seller whose heirs are now scattered, and the record is what settles it. R.C. 5301.56, the Dormant Mineral Act, gives a surface owner a route to reunite an interest with no savings event in the preceding twenty years, but it runs on notice to the holder and a recorded affidavit rather than on its own. We contract for parcels with the mineral question unresolved, priced for what the record shows.

Sources for the figures above

These are secondary references, accurate enough to orient you and not a substitute for the statute or your county. Tax procedure changes; nothing here is legal advice.

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