Indiana leaves two clear public trails when an owner is in trouble: a foreclosure case in court and a parcel on the county's annual tax-sale list. Both end in a public sale, and both give the owner time to sell first. This playbook covers how each process runs, where each record is kept, how to tell whether an owner lives in the house, and what Propertiz reads in Indianapolis and South Bend today.
Foreclosure goes through the courts
Indiana is a judicial-foreclosure state. A lender has to sue and win a judgment before the property can be sold. The steps, in order:
- Complaint. The lender files a mortgage-foreclosure complaint in circuit or superior court. In the state court system it is case type MF. This is the earliest record, and the owner has the most time and the most options now.
- Lis pendens. The lender may also record a lis pendens with the county recorder. It tells anyone searching the title that a lawsuit affects the property.
- The case runs. The owner can answer, negotiate with the lender or sell while the case is open. HUD-approved housing counselors help homeowners for free.
- Judgment. If the court rules for the lender, the property is set for a sheriff sale.
- Notice. The sheriff advertises the sale before it is held, usually in a local newspaper. Check the county's sale notice and the sheriff's list for the date.
- Sheriff sale. Many counties list their sheriff sales on an online auction site, and some sheriffs post their own lists. Lake County's sheriff, for example, posts PDF sale listings.
- The sale date is the deadline. Any payoff, refinance or private sale should happen before the sheriff sells. Ask a local real-estate attorney about any rights that remain after it.
A case often takes many months from complaint to sale. An owner with equity who sells during that time keeps what is left after the loan and other liens are paid. The pre-foreclosure list guide compares this with other states.
Unpaid taxes: certificate first, deed later
Once a year, each county offers parcels with delinquent property taxes at its tax sale. In 2026, many counties held theirs in September and October. The county publishes the list of parcels before the sale. Because it names every parcel headed to the sale, it works as the county's delinquent-tax list.
A buyer at the sale gets a tax sale certificate on the parcel, not the property, and has to wait. The owner has a set period to redeem by paying what is owed, and only after it ends without a redemption may the holder seek a tax deed. Parcels that draw no bid can be offered again later at a county commissioners' sale, on different terms. The Indiana tax sale list guide covers redemption, the risks and how to build a list.
Code enforcement and vacant buildings
Code cases are city records in Indiana, and how much is online varies from city to city. Indianapolis published its code-enforcement violations and investigations as open data, but that dataset stops in February 2024. Current cases are in the city's Accela Citizen Access portal, searchable by case type and date. IndyGIS, the city-county map service, also has a layer of abandoned and vacant properties, without dates, and one of registered landlord properties.
When you work an Indianapolis lead, look the address up in Accela and on the vacant-property layer yourself. Each county page lists whether Propertiz includes code cases there.
Owner occupancy: the homestead deduction
Indiana's homestead deduction is meant for a home the owner lives in. Propertiz uses it as the owner-occupancy marker: where the county roll shows the deduction, the owner is treated as living in the house.
Marion County's public GIS roll has no deduction field, so in Indianapolis Propertiz can't tell whether the owner lives there. The owner's mailing address still separates absentee and out-of-state owners from those who get their tax mail at the property.
The deduction also changes the tax bill a buyer inherits. Indiana caps property tax at 1% of assessed value for a homestead and 2% for other homes (IC 6-1.1-20.6), so a rental, or a home that loses its homestead deduction when it sells, pays the higher cap. Test a deal at the higher rate with the DSCR calculator.
Where each Indiana record lives
| Office | Records | How you get them |
|---|---|---|
| Clerk and courts | Foreclosure complaints and judgments, estates, evictions | MyCase, the statewide court portal, one case at a time. Its CAPTCHA blocks automated access. Bulk data needs a paid, approved application under Administrative Rule 9(F), and clerks may hand over compiled non-confidential data directly. |
| Recorder | Lis pendens and other recorded documents | Mostly paid search services, or ones that need an account. A few counties offer a free index. |
| Auditor | The tax-sale list, published before the sale | The county's own site, and often the online auction site the county uses |
| Treasurer | Tax-sale results and each parcel's current status | In Marion County, the Treasurer's tax-sale list on IndyGIS, with statuses posted daily |
| Sheriff | Foreclosure sale lists and dates | The sheriff's page, or the online auction site the county uses |
| Assessor | Parcel roll: owner, mailing address, assessed value | County GIS in the larger counties. The statewide IndianaMap parcel layer has no owner names. Sale prices are in the state's sales-disclosure files. |
Indiana's Access to Public Records Act (IC 5-14-3) lets any person ask for public records without stating a purpose. It also lets a county limit commercial use of the electronic data it hands out, so read each county's license. Court records follow their own access rules.
What Propertiz has in Indiana today
Propertiz is live in Indianapolis and South Bend. Each live county has every parcel and owner on the county's assessor roll, with absentee and out-of-state owners, HUD market rents and DSCR at your purchase price. On top of that come the distress records the county publishes:
- Unpaid property taxes in Indianapolis and South Bend, from the county's recent tax-sale lists. Only parcels that haven't paid or redeemed stay on, including those whose certificate has sold.
Foreclosure filings are hard to collect in Indiana, because the court portal blocks automated access. Each county page lists exactly what is included there and what isn't yet: Indianapolis (Marion County) and South Bend (St. Joseph County). The Indiana page covers the state, and the Marion County tax-sale post walks through the tax-sale statuses.
See this week's unpaid-tax owners in Indianapolis and South Bend, matched to their parcels and ranked.
Contacting Indiana owners
Propertiz applies these rules in Indiana:
Contact owners respectfully. Mail first. Indiana's Do Not Call list (IC 24-4.7) has no exemption for investors, and IC 24-5-14 limits autodialed and recorded calls, so follow those and the federal TCPA before any call or text.
No leaseback or "save your home" offers to owners in foreclosure; Indiana's mortgage rescue fraud law (IC 24-5.5) covers them.
Not legal advice. This is a general overview of Indiana's public records and sale processes. Procedures change and every case has its own facts, so check with a local real-estate attorney before you make an offer.