Marion County Property Tax Appeal: Form 130, Hearings, and Deadlines

If the Marion County assessor’s value on your home looks too high or the property record has the facts wrong, you can file a Marion County property tax appeal using Form 130 with the local assessing official. For most 2026 assessments, the deadline is June 15, 2026.¹ The process starts locally with an informal conference and a county board hearing, and if you still disagree with the outcome, it can move up to the Indiana Board of Tax Review and the Indiana Tax Court.

When Your 2026 Appeal Is Due

The deadline depends on when the county mails your Notice of Assessment (Form 11). If Form 11 goes out before May 1, 2026, you have until June 15, 2026 to file. If it goes out on or after May 1, your deadline moves to June 15 of the year the county treasurer mails your tax bill.² Marion County typically mails Form 11 by April 30, so plan on June 15 unless your notice tells you otherwise.

Factual-error appeals get more time. If you’re challenging something objective on the property record card, such as wrong square footage or an incorrect description, you can go back up to three years.³ Miss the deadline on a valuation dispute, though, and the assessed value stands for that year no matter how good your evidence is.

Grounds You Can Raise

Indiana law recognizes several reasons for an appeal.² The ones homeowners use most often:

The assessed value is higher than what the property is actually worth for its current use.
The property record card contains factual errors, like wrong square footage, the wrong number of bathrooms, an inaccurate lot size, or a building material you don’t have. Bad inputs produce an inflated value.
Your property is valued significantly higher than comparable homes nearby. This works when you can point to nearly identical houses carrying lower assessments.
The assessment was issued against someone who doesn’t own the property.
A homestead deduction, mortgage deduction, or other credit was denied or omitted incorrectly.

One quirk of Indiana law catches people off guard. The standard isn’t ordinary fair market value but “market value-in-use,” meaning the price that reflects what the owner gets out of the property for its current use.⁴ If a developer might pay a premium for your lot, that doesn’t matter. What matters is what the home is worth as a home.

Who Has to Prove What

By default, the assessor’s valuation is presumed correct and you have to prove it wrong. If neither side puts on enough evidence to establish the true value, the current assessment stays.⁵

That changes when your assessment went up more than five percent over the prior year. In that case, the burden shifts to the assessor to justify the increase, and if the assessor can’t, the prior year’s value is presumed correct.⁵ If your value jumped, check the math on your Form 11 right away. A spike above five percent is a strong starting position.

Three situations pull the burden back onto you even when the increase tops five percent: substantial renovations, a zoning change, or a new use of the property that wasn’t reflected in last year’s number.⁵ If you added a garage or converted the use, the assessor doesn’t have to defend the higher value.

Filing Form 130

Every appeal starts with Form 130, the Taxpayer’s Notice to Initiate an Appeal. Page one is for subjective appeals disputing the value itself. Page two is for objective appeals about factual errors on the property record.³ You’ll need your parcel number and the current assessed value from your Form 11.

Marion County also offers online filing through the City of Indianapolis site, with separate digital forms for objective and subjective appeals.⁶ However you file, keep proof of submission. If you mail it, use certified mail so you have a tracked delivery confirmation.

Building Your Evidence

The form is simple. The evidence attached to it decides the case.

For a valuation dispute, the strongest piece of evidence is an independent appraisal from a certified appraiser. A standard residential appraisal in the Indianapolis area usually runs roughly $300 to $500, with complex or high-value properties costing more. Comparable sales help too. Pull recent sale prices for similar homes nearby, ideally sales within the past year on properties close to yours in size, age, and condition. Write out why the assessed value is wrong. Don’t just assert that it’s too high.

For factual-error appeals the evidence is more concrete. If the record says 2,400 square feet and the home is actually 1,900, building plans, a survey, or a professional measurement settles it. Photos of structural problems, dated interiors, or deferred maintenance support an argument that the condition grade should be lower than what the assessor assigned.

The Informal Conference

After you file, the assessor’s office schedules an informal conference where a staff appraiser reviews your evidence and recommends approval or denial.³ This is the first real chance to make your case, and many appeals end here without ever reaching a formal hearing.

Treat it like the final hearing. Bring organized copies of everything: the appraisal, comparable sales printouts, photographs, and a short written summary of why the value should drop. The staff appraiser has authority to recommend a settlement, and clean, well-organized evidence makes that outcome far more likely. Reach an agreement and the assessment is corrected.

The PTABOA Hearing

If the informal conference doesn’t resolve the appeal, the case moves to Marion County’s Property Tax Assessment Board of Appeals, known as the PTABOA.⁶ The board meets monthly at the City-County Building.⁷

At the hearing, you present your evidence and explain your position. Someone from the assessor’s office presents the county’s side. Board members may ask about your comparable sales, the condition of the property, or anything else in the file. It’s not a courtroom, but it’s formal enough that the presentation matters.

The board doesn’t decide at the hearing. You’ll receive a written determination on Form 115, the Notice of Final Assessment Determination.⁸ Read it as soon as it arrives, because the clock on your next step starts the moment you receive it.

If You Lose: The IBTR and the Tax Court

A loss at the PTABOA isn’t the end. You can file a Form 131 petition with the Indiana Board of Tax Review within 45 days of receiving the Form 115 determination.⁸ You also have to serve a copy on the Marion County Assessor. Attach your original Form 130 and the Form 115 to the petition.

The IBTR is a state-level body that acts as a fresh fact-finder. It weighs the evidence from both sides and can set the value higher or lower than either party proposed.⁵ If you disagree with the IBTR’s decision, the final step is a petition to the Indiana Tax Court within 45 days. At that point, hiring an attorney is close to a necessity.

Keep Paying Your Tax Bill

Filing an appeal does not pause your tax bill. Pay what’s due on time to avoid penalties and interest. If you win, you get the overpayment back through a refund.

Claiming Your Refund

A successful appeal means you overpaid, but no refund check shows up automatically. You have to file a separate Claim for Refund, Form 17T.³ It’s an easy step to miss.

Once the county auditor, assessor, and treasurer approve the claim, the county has 45 days to issue the refund. You’re also entitled to interest on the overpayment, calculated from the date you paid the taxes (or when they were due, whichever was later) through the date the refund is approved.⁹ If the county doesn’t process the refund within 120 days, you can sue in the county where the property is located to compel payment.

Do You Need a Representative?

You can represent yourself at every stage, and plenty of straightforward factual-error appeals succeed without outside help. For complex valuation disputes or high-dollar commercial property, a certified tax representative or attorney can take over the process for you.

Indiana requires anyone representing another person before the PTABOA or the IBTR to be a certified tax representative, with limited exceptions. Licensed Indiana attorneys and CPAs handling personal property matters are exempt from the certification requirement, as are full-time employees of the property owner. Any representative has to file a notarized power of attorney with the board before a hearing will be scheduled.¹⁰

1
Indiana Department of Local Government Finance. 2026 Assessment Calendar
2
Indiana General Assembly. Indiana Code 6-1.1-15-1.1 – Taxpayers Appeal of an Assessment; Exceptions; Prohibited Claims; Deadlines
3
Department of Local Government Finance. Appeals Property Tax
4
Indiana Department of Local Government Finance. 2021 Real Property Assessment Manual
5
Indiana General Assembly. Indiana Code 6-1.1-15-20 – Assessment by an Assessing Official
6
City of Indianapolis. The Property Assessment Appeals Process
7
Indy.gov. Property Tax Assessment Board of Appeals
8
Indiana Board of Tax Review. Taxpayers Guide to Filing a Petition to the IBTR
9
Indiana General Assembly. Indiana Code 6-1.1-26-2.1 – Approval of Claim for Refund; Payment
10
Department of Local Government Finance. Certified Tax Representatives