AMM Land Sales (815) 384-6153

Indiana · IN

Sell your land in Indiana.

Indiana runs delinquent land through two separate sales with two different clocks, assesses farm ground off a single statewide base rate instead of what it sells for, and taxes classified woods at a dollar an acre — with a bill waiting for whoever eventually takes them out of the program.

Tax sale type
Tax lien
Redemption period
1 year / 120 days
Rate on redemption
10–15% penalty
Closings handled by
Title company

Figures describe Indiana 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 Indiana

The tax sale runs in two stages

Indiana sells the lien, not the land, and it does it twice. The county holds an annual tax sale under IC 6-1.1-24; parcels that draw no bidder do not simply go back on the rolls, because the county executive acquires the lien under IC 6-1.1-24-6. Those certificates can then be offered again at a commissioners certificate sale under IC 6-1.1-24-6.1, at a price the statute allows to fall below the minimum bid required at the first sale. The redemption clock is set by IC 6-1.1-25-4 and runs much shorter on a second-stage certificate than on a first. A great deal of cheap Indiana acreage has come through that second sale.

The disclosure statute is written for dwellings

IC 32-21-5 governs residential real estate sales disclosure, and by its own terms the chapter applies to a sale of residential real estate containing not more than four dwelling units, with the completed form delivered to the buyer before an offer is accepted under IC 32-21-5-10. A parcel with no dwelling on it is not what that chapter addresses. A different form does reach land: the sales disclosure form under IC 6-1.1-5.5, filed with the county assessor when a conveyance document is presented, which records the terms of the sale for assessment purposes and asks nothing about the condition of the ground. Do not confuse the two.

Farmland is assessed on a state formula

IC 6-1.1-4-13 directs that agricultural land be assessed on its value in use rather than what it would bring on the open market, and the Department of Local Government Finance certifies one statewide base rate per acre each year. The department derives it by dividing net income — cash rent and owner-operating income — by a capitalization rate, averaged across a rolling six-year window from which the highest year is dropped. For the assessment date of January 1, 2026 the certified base rate is $2,120 per acre. County assessors then apply soil productivity factors parcel by parcel, so two neighboring forty-acre fields will not necessarily carry the same assessed value.

Classified forest land is cheap to hold

Indiana taxes classified land at one dollar an acre. The program lives in IC 6-1.1-6 and runs through the state forester at the Department of Natural Resources, covering native forest land, forest plantations and wildlands on tracts meeting a ten-acre minimum. Getting out costs money. Under IC 6-1.1-6-20 the owner has the county assessor value the land and the auditor computes the taxes that would have been charged over the period of classification or the ten years before withdrawal, whichever is shorter, with ten percent simple interest. Selling does not trigger that charge — the classification carries over — but the bill waits for whoever withdraws.

Questions

Selling land in Indiana

Do I need a seller disclosure form for vacant land in Indiana?

No. IC 32-21-5 applies to sales of residential real estate containing not more than four dwelling units, and a parcel with no dwelling on it falls outside that chapter. You will still sign a sales disclosure form under IC 6-1.1-5.5 — the one filed with the county assessor when the conveyance document is presented — but that form reports the terms of the sale for assessment purposes and asks nothing about condition. The ordinary rule against misrepresenting what you know still applies to anything you tell a buyer.

My Indiana land went to tax sale. Can I still sell it?

Only until the tax deed issues. A tax sale in Indiana conveys a certificate rather than the ground, and you hold title through the redemption period fixed by IC 6-1.1-25-4, which means the parcel can still be sold with the redemption amount paid out of the closing. Once the purchaser obtains a court order and the auditor executes a deed, your interest is gone. The window differs depending on whether the certificate came from the county sale or a commissioners sale under IC 6-1.1-24-6.1, so confirm which one you are in.

My woods are in the classified forest program. Does that hurt a sale?

No. The classification transfers with the land, and a buyer who keeps the woods keeps the one-dollar-an-acre assessment. What changes the arithmetic is a buyer who wants to clear or build: withdrawal under IC 6-1.1-6-20 means paying the taxes that would have been charged over the classification period or the prior ten years, whichever is shorter, plus ten percent simple interest, and land classified after June 30, 2006 carries a further penalty. That cost lands on whoever withdraws, which is why it shows up in the price.

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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