Indiana’s home-buying process runs on the familiar sequence — offer, inspection, financing, title, closing — and in most respects it looks like a standard title-company closing. Where Indiana genuinely diverges is that it has no transfer tax at all; in its place is a mandatory reporting form that has to clear your county assessor’s desk before your deed can even be recorded. This walks through where Indiana’s process is distinctive, and where RefPages’ own directories go deeper on a specific step.
Indiana closings run through a title company
Indiana doesn’t require an attorney to run a residential closing. A licensed title company handles the file end to end: it researches the title, resolves anything that turns up, prepares the closing documents, holds the buyer’s funds in escrow, pays off the seller’s existing mortgage, and records the new deed with the county. This is the same basic model as Florida, Idaho, and most of the country — an attorney is optional, not required, and worth bringing in specifically for probate sales, a title defect, a divorce, or a transaction without a real estate agent involved.
Title search and recording — County Assessor and County Recorder
Indiana keeps assessment and recording as two genuinely separate elected offices in every county: the County Assessor values property for tax purposes, and the County Recorder handles deeds, mortgages, liens, and other recorded documents. Your title company will run its search against the Recorder’s records to confirm the seller holds clear title before closing. RefPages’ County Records directory links directly to your specific county’s Assessor and Recorder offices if you want to check the record yourself.
Indiana doesn’t have a transfer tax — it has the Sales Disclosure Form
This is Indiana’s most distinctive feature of the whole process: instead of a tax on the transfer itself, state law (IC 6-1.1-5.5) requires a Sales Disclosure Form to be completed and filed whenever a conveyance document is presented for recording. The form reports the sale price and terms and is used by the state and county to keep property tax assessments in line with actual market activity — it functions as a data-reporting requirement, not a tax bill. Critically, the county assessor has to review, complete, and stamp the form, and the county auditor is required to refuse the deed for recording if the form is missing or unstamped. In practice, your title company handles this as a routine part of closing, but it’s worth knowing that a sale genuinely cannot record in Indiana without it — there’s no equivalent step to skip the way you might avoid a discretionary tax election elsewhere.
What sellers have to tell you about the property’s condition
Separately from the Sales Disclosure Form, Indiana law (IC 32-21-5) requires most sellers of one-to-four-unit residential property to complete and deliver a Seller’s Residential Real Estate Sales Disclosure — State Form 46234 — before an offer is accepted, covering the seller’s current actual knowledge of the property’s condition: foundation, roof, structural elements, mechanical systems, water and sewer infrastructure, and known contamination. A seller who knowingly provides false information on the form can be held liable for actual damages, including repair costs. The standard is knowledge-based, not an inspection requirement, so your own inspection still carries real weight.
The homestead deduction and circuit breaker cap — file promptly
Once you close and move in, apply for Indiana’s homestead standard deduction with your county auditor — it reduces your home’s taxable assessed value and, along with a supplemental deduction on the remaining balance, meaningfully lowers your bill. Indiana also caps total property tax on an owner-occupied homestead at 1% of assessed value under a constitutional “circuit breaker,” separate from the deduction itself. Filing deadlines and deduction amounts are set (and periodically adjusted) by the state, so confirm the current figures and cutoff with your county auditor rather than relying on a number that may be out of date by the time you close.
Permits before or after closing
If an inspection turns up something that needs a permit — roof, electrical, a prior unpermitted addition — RefPages’ Building Permit Departments directory links to the relevant city or county permitting office.