Ohio Surplus Funds After Foreclosure: How the Claim Process Actually Works

Say a house in Dayton sells at a sheriff's sale for $180,000. The mortgage payoff, taxes, and court costs only add up to $140,000. That leftover $40,000 is called surplus funds, and in Ohio, it belongs to the former homeowner. Not the bank. Not the county. Not whoever bought the house at auction.

Most homeowners never find out this money is sitting there. Nobody mails them a giant check with a bow on it. They have to know to look, and then they have to file the right paperwork with the right office. In Ohio, that second part trips people up more than in almost any other state, because Ohio runs two separate systems for this money, and a lot of online guides mix them up.

This page walks through the real process step by step, with the actual statute language and the county-level details that change how long it takes.

Ohio only does judicial foreclosure. Every foreclosure has to go through the Court of Common Pleas, and the property is sold at a sheriff's sale after a judge signs off, not through a private auction process like some states allow (Ohio Legislative Service Commission bill analysis).

That matters here because the sale itself can come from two different tracks, and each one has its own statute:

• Mortgage foreclosure. A lender sues to foreclose, wins, and the sheriff sells the house. Leftover money after paying the mortgage and costs is called "excess" funds, governed by Ohio Revised Code § 2329.44.
• Tax foreclosure. The county forecloses over unpaid property taxes and the house sells at a tax sale. Leftover money here is called "residue," governed by Ohio Revised Code § 5721.20. Both statutes were updated by House Bill 315, effective April 3, 2025, so if you're reading an older guide, some of the numbers below may be stale (Ohio Revised Code § 2329.44).

Here's the part that confuses people first. In a mortgage foreclosure, the sheriff (or a court-appointed private selling officer) has to hand the extra money to the clerk of the court within 45 days of the sale being confirmed. The clerk holds it, not the sheriff and not the bank (R.C. 2329.44).

In a tax foreclosure, the same 45-day delivery rule applies, but once the notice period runs out, the money moves out of the clerk's hands and into the county treasury, where the county treasurer holds it under the previous owner's name (R.C. 5721.20).

So depending on which kind of sale happened, you might be dealing with the clerk of courts or the county treasurer. Calling the wrong office wastes time you don't have.

This is where Ohio actually moves faster than most states, which is good news if you're the one trying to claim, and bad news if you wait too long.

Notice the $500 threshold. It used to be $100. HB 315 raised it, along with giving clerks more ways to send notice when certified mail bounces back, including text messages (Ohio Legislative Service Commission analysis of H.B. 390, which documents the prior-law baseline HB 315 changed). Anything you read that still cites a $100 threshold is describing the old law.

This is the single biggest source of bad information about Ohio surplus funds, so it's worth its own section.

Ohio has a broad, general "unclaimed funds" statute at R.C. 169.13. It covers old bank accounts, forgotten insurance payouts, uncashed checks, and similar property that gets reported to the state. That statute caps finder fees at 10% of the amount recovered, requires a notarized written agreement, and flatly bans using a power of attorney to redirect the payment to anyone other than the owner (R.C. 169.13).

Foreclosure surplus and tax-sale residue are not that. They are held by the county, not the state's unclaimed funds division, and they run under R.C. 2329.44 and R.C. 5721.20, statutes that don't mention a 10% cap, a notarization requirement, or a power of attorney ban anywhere in their text (R.C. 2329.44, R.C. 5721.20). If you see a guide claiming Ohio caps surplus funds finder fees at 10%, check whether it's actually describing R.C. 169.13's unclaimed property program. It usually is, and it usually doesn't apply to the money sitting with a county clerk after a sheriff's sale.

This isn't a technicality. It changes what paperwork is valid and what a fee agreement can look like, depending on which county office is actually holding the money.

This is the part that varies the most, because Ohio doesn't run one statewide claim form. Each county's clerk of courts handles it a little differently.

Most counties run something close to an administrative process. Montgomery County (Dayton), for example, publishes a running PDF list of every open excess-funds case, complete with case number, party names, and dollar amount. As of July 1, 2026, that list totaled $5,835,608.33 across dozens of open cases, with individual amounts ranging from tens of thousands of dollars up to $139,615.24 on a single Dayton-area case (Montgomery County Clerk of Courts, Excess Funds list). Claimants there work through the clerk of courts, with a separate general unclaimed funds claim form available through the county auditor for money that's crossed over into that bucket (Montgomery County Auditor claim form).

Franklin County (Columbus) is the outlier, and it's worth planning around. Instead of a simple claim form, Franklin County requires filing an actual court motion: the Motion for the Distribution of Excess Funds and Request for Hearing. It has to be e-filed, every other party in the case gets served with a copy, and a hearing gets scheduled where anyone else with a claim can show up and contest it. A magistrate rules first, either side gets 14 days to object, a judge rules on any objection, and only then does an order for distribution get signed. Once that happens, the check is usually ready within about seven business days (Franklin County Clerk of Courts, Foreclosure Excess Fund Process).

That's a fundamentally different process than dropping off a form. It's slower, it's public, and because it runs through a real hearing, it's a situation where looping in an attorney is worth strong consideration even though the county page doesn't say one is required.

Whether you're the homeowner or helping the homeowner, the paperwork tends to require the same core pieces:

• Government-issued photo ID
• Proof connecting you to the property or the case (deed, mortgage documents, or the foreclosure complaint itself)
• If claiming for someone else, proof of your authority to do so, such as a power of attorney, guardianship papers, or probate documentation for a deceased owner
• In Franklin County specifically, the completed motion form and appearance at the scheduled hearing

Montgomery County's general unclaimed funds form spells this out in detail, including that claims of $25 or more must be notarized and that joint accounts need both owners' signatures or proof of survivorship (Montgomery County Auditor claim form). That level of documentation is common across Ohio counties even where the exact form differs.

None of this is secret. The lists are public records, the statutes are public law, and any county clerk's office will confirm a case number if you ask. The reason so much of it goes unclaimed isn't that it's hidden. It's that most former homeowners have moved, changed phone numbers, or simply don't know a leftover check exists after losing a house. A certified letter that bounces back doesn't always get followed up on fast, even with the newer text-message and website-posting options HB 315 added.

I've spent more than 13 years finding people this kind of money belongs to, and across more than 2,000 cases nationwide, I've helped recover over $100 million. Ohio is one of the more interesting states to work in precisely because of the Franklin County wrinkle. A lot of people give up when they hit the "you have to file a motion and go to a hearing" step, which means the money sits there longer.

If you're comparing how this plays out elsewhere, Florida surplus funds run on a cleaner 60-day-to-one-year clerk process, Georgia surplus funds route through a different priority system entirely, Texas excess proceeds give claimants a full two years because the money is held in the court registry rather than a county treasury, and California surplus funds split between trustee-held and county-held money depending on whether the sale was judicial or non-judicial. Every state writes this law a little differently, which is exactly why checking the actual statute matters more than trusting a generic list.

If you want to learn how this business actually works, join the free Surplus Funds Masterclass at surplusfunds.ai, or join the free Surplus Funds Collective community on Skool at skool.com/surplusfunds.