The Marion County, Indiana tax sale is an annual online auction where the county sells tax lien certificates on Indianapolis-area properties whose owners are behind on property taxes. You are not buying the house at the auction. You are buying the right to collect the delinquent taxes plus a statutory premium, and, if the owner never pays, the right to pursue a deed through a separate legal process.
Properties become eligible when unpaid taxes, assessments, penalties, fees, and interest from the prior year’s spring installment or earlier exceed $25.1Indiana General Assembly. Indiana Code 6-1.1-24-1 – Certification of Real Property for Tax Sale The Marion County Treasurer certifies that list to the county auditor each year. An owner can pull a property off the list at any point before the sale by paying everything owed, including the county’s costs of preparing the sale.2Indiana General Assembly. Indiana Code 6-1.1-24-5 – Sale of Property Last-minute payoffs are common, so the list you see a week out will be shorter on sale day.
How to Register and What the Deposit Is
You register through the Marion County Treasurer’s office before the sale. Registration requires your name, address, phone number, Social Security number or Federal ID number, a completed IRS Form W-9, and a valid government-issued photo ID. Corporate bidders must list authorized signers and provide documentation of legal standing.3Indy.gov. Prepare for a Tax Sale
A $2,500 deposit is required for the regular portion of the sale. The treasurer must receive it before you are approved to bid. If you win nothing, the deposit is mailed back. If you win, it applies against your purchases.3Indy.gov. Prepare for a Tax Sale The auction is conducted electronically through a third-party platform, so finish registration and get the deposit in well before sale day.
The W-9 exists because any interest you eventually collect on a certificate is reportable income; the county issues a Form 1099-INT once interest reaches $10 for the year.
How the Auction Works
Each property has a minimum bid you cannot go below. That floor covers all delinquent taxes and special assessments, current-year taxes and assessments due, penalties on the delinquencies, the county’s costs of conducting the sale, any unpaid costs from a prior sale, and reasonable collection expenses such as title search fees and attorney costs.2Indiana General Assembly. Indiana Code 6-1.1-24-5 – Sale of Property Bidding goes to the highest bidder above that floor.
The winner receives a tax sale certificate. The county auditor serves as clerk of the sale and records each transaction. Full payment is due to the treasurer under the terms set for that year’s sale; personal checks are generally not accepted, so plan on a certified check or wire.
Vacant and abandoned properties are sold in a separate phase of the auction under different rules, covered below.2Indiana General Assembly. Indiana Code 6-1.1-24-5 – Sale of Property
The Redemption Period and Your Return
Buying a certificate does not make you the owner. For regular tax sale properties, the owner has one year from the date of sale to redeem by paying off the debt.4Indiana General Assembly. Indiana Code 6-1.1-25-4 – Period for Redemption, Issuance of Tax Deed If a qualifying municipal redevelopment agency bought the certificate, that period drops to 120 days. For properties on the vacant and abandoned list, there is no redemption right at all.
The redemption payoff is the source of your return if the owner pays. It includes:
- 110% of the minimum bid if the owner redeems within six months of the sale, or 115% of the minimum bid if they redeem after six months but within one year.5Indiana General Assembly. Indiana Code 6-1.1-25-2 – Amount Required for Redemption
- 5% annual interest on any amount you bid above the minimum.
- Every tax and special assessment you paid on the property after the sale, plus 5% annual interest on those payments.
- Your attorney’s fees for the required notices and the cost of a title search, if you properly certified those costs to the county auditor at least 30 days after the sale.5Indiana General Assembly. Indiana Code 6-1.1-25-2 – Amount Required for Redemption
Current redemption amounts for a specific parcel can be looked up through the treasurer’s website.6Indy.gov. Find Property Redemption Amount Anything bid above the minimum sits in a surplus fund if it isn’t needed to cover other delinquent taxes on the parcel; the former owner, not the certificate buyer, has the right to claim it.7Indiana General Assembly. Indiana Code 6-1.1-24-6.4 – Distribution of Proceeds of Sale So the money you bid over the minimum earns 5% and nothing more, which is worth remembering when the auction heats up.
Vacant and Abandoned Properties
Marion County keeps a separate list of tax-delinquent properties that have been declared vacant or abandoned through a court order or hearing authority under Indiana’s unsafe building statutes. To qualify, the property must have delinquent taxes from the prior year’s fall installment or earlier.8Indiana General Assembly. Indiana Code 6-1.1-24-1.5 – Vacant or Abandoned Property
The rules are different in three ways that matter to a bidder. The winning bidder gets a deed conveying full ownership at the time of sale, with no redemption period. The sale notice must tell the owner they cannot reclaim the property. And the minimum bid is much lower, covering only the county’s proportionate share of actual costs of conducting the sale rather than the full delinquent tax amount.8Indiana General Assembly. Indiana Code 6-1.1-24-1.5 – Vacant or Abandoned Property These properties often carry serious physical deterioration, code violations, and title complications, which is why the price is what it is.
Getting to a Tax Deed
If the redemption year passes without payment, a deed does not arrive automatically. You have to earn it, and the most common way to lose a tax sale investment is to miss the notice deadline.
Within six months of the original sale date, you must send notice to the owner of record and to anyone else with a substantial property interest, such as mortgage lenders and lien holders, by certified mail.9Indiana General Assembly. Indiana Code 6-1.1-25-4.5 – Entitlement to Tax Deed Under Various Circumstances Miss that six-month window and you forfeit your entitlement to the deed. Notice goes to the owner’s last address on file with the county auditor and to interested parties at the addresses shown in public records. When a mailing address is unknown, notice must be published in a newspaper.
After the redemption period expires and the notice requirements are satisfied, you can apply through the Marion County Auditor’s office for a tax deed, then record it with the Marion County Recorder to establish public notice of the ownership transfer.
Risks to Price Into Your Bid
A tax deed does not deliver clean title. Prior liens and mortgages are wiped out by the sale, but no release is filed by the former lien holder, so the record still shows those interests. Most title insurers will not issue a standard policy without additional work, which usually means a quiet title lawsuit asking a court to declare your ownership valid against all competing claims. Some title companies will accept verification that all statutory notice requirements were followed instead of a full quiet title judgment. Either route costs money and time, and a property that looks cheap at auction can look different once several thousand dollars in title work is added.
Federal tax liens are a distinct risk. Local property tax liens outrank federal tax liens, and the IRS itself classifies real property tax liens as a superpriority, so the sale can proceed even when a Notice of Federal Tax Lien is recorded against the property.10Internal Revenue Service. Federal Tax Liens But under 28 U.S.C. 2410, when property is sold to satisfy a lien with priority over a federal tax lien, the United States has 120 days from the sale or the state redemption period, whichever is longer, to redeem by paying the purchase price plus interest.11Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 28 USC 2410 – Actions Affecting Property on Which United States Has Lien With Indiana’s one-year period, that gives the IRS a full year to step in. You get your money back if it does, but you lose the property. A title search that turns up a federal tax lien should shape what you are willing to bid.
Bankruptcy is the third risk. A bankruptcy filing by the owner before the sale triggers the automatic stay and typically halts the sale until the case concludes or the court lifts the stay. A Chapter 13 plan can spread delinquent taxes over up to 60 months. If the owner files within 90 days after the sale, a court may examine the sale as a potential preferential transfer, and federal courts have distinguished tax sales from mortgage foreclosures on the ground that tax sales do not use competitive bidding to establish market value. That distinction can cut against the certificate holder. Nothing predicts this reliably in advance, but properties tied to owners in visible financial distress carry a higher chance of a bankruptcy-driven unwind.
Unsold Properties and the Commissioners’ Certificate Sale
Parcels that get no bids at the regular sale are transferred to the Marion County Board of Commissioners, which receives a tax sale certificate for each one without paying for it.12Indiana General Assembly. Indiana Code 6-1.1-24-6.1 – Sale of Certificate to Another Person The commissioners then hold a separate public sale at reduced minimum bids set by resolution. The approved list is published in a local newspaper for three consecutive weeks at least 30 days before the sale.
Two things change at the commissioners’ sale. The minimum bids are lower, and the redemption period on a commissioners’ certificate is 120 days rather than one year. Everything else — the notice requirements, the tax deed process, the title cleanup afterward — works the same way as at the regular sale. For bidders willing to work the notice timeline closely, the commissioners’ sale can be a cheaper entry point into the same system.