We have already had this happen to PA to some extent.  At least the legislature in Ohio had the good taste to pass a statute first authorizing these rules.  Here, some of the recorders decided to implement these standards on their own and took an "oh yeah, what are you going to do about it" approach when the complaints came in from title companies that they didn't have the authority to do this under state law.

I think these new Ohio standards are based on the PRIA standards which are fairly common nationwide.  Those standards call for the document preparer and "return to" information to be within that top margin on the first page, so I'm not sure why the Ohio law doesn't have that as well.

Our experience started in Philadelphia where the Recorder worked with several title companies and law firms to implement these standards around 2000.  There may have been a city ordinance allowing this, but I'm not sure.  After that initial success in Philly, some recorders in some of the larger counties went ahead and announced standards and fines without any change in state law giving them the authority to do so.  Each of these counties also had there own incarnation of these "standards" which of course meant that they weren't really standards.

The long and short of it is that this became a bit of a painful experience for the first year or two because it was nearly impossible to get many lenders to adjust their forms to the new standards.  Somtimes adding a cover sheet to the mortgage to make the first page conform to the standards helped to get around this problem.  This problem with lender forms hung up several settlements (or resulted in additional recording fees) when it was realized that the package received shortly before settlement did not follow the standards.  Most title companies were otherwise able to adjuster their own forms quickly and did not have too many problems with the new rules.  Despite the protests from the recorders that these standards were essential to allow recording with their new digital systems, they somehow found a way to record forms from the state and federal government (like commissions from elected officials) that did not conform without imposing any fines or getting them to "fix" their forms.

What they need to do is give everyone a six month to a year grace period to get used to the standards and give lenders and others sufficient time to adjust their forms.

I think most of the new rules impact the recorders' ability to scan the document into the system, since images are available online.  Sometimes the scanner will not record information that is outside certain margins ----or the type is illegible if the original letter size is too small.  Also, we have to make it as easy as possible for all of the foreign "title searchers" overseas to see the documents and translate the words.

The format is similar to the recommended PRIA format that is slowiy moving across the country. PRIA formatting makes sense, because all of us deal with lenders who have offices in many states and standardization of documents really makes sense.

Minnesota has gone even further, by creating "Uniform Conveyancing Blanks." Dozens of common documents were designed in conjunction with the State Bar Association, County Recorders and Title Companies. Even most RECORDING FEES are standardized across the state. Truly a godsend when we used to have to keep track of all sorts of fees, county by county!  I say more standardization - bring it on!

North Carolina went through the same process several years a go with most of the expected problems.  Closers would let clients put int. in the forbidden zone, Notary's would put their stamp in margins.  Stray phantom lines from copiers would be on each page.  It's no fun trying to white out lines on a 35 page D/T. 

The most troubling result, but no surprise, was the mortgage companies wanting us to front the "Uniforming Document" fee.  Of course, after it is on record, even with the name of who authorized the additional fee, it is almost impossible to collect the fee from some lenders as their accounting is based on the HUD statement and all funds have been dispersed.

North Carolina said the change was to pay for extra time required to scan documents that did not fit the template.

Good luck!