What Indiana Sellers Must Disclose

Indiana requires sellers to put it in writing. The form is the Seller's Residential Real Estate Sales Disclosure (State Form 46234). The seller must complete the state form based on their current actual knowledge and give it to a prospective buyer before an offer is accepted; the form is not a warranty and does not substitute for an inspection.

What the disclosure covers — and what it is

Indiana sellers complete State Form 46234 before your offer is accepted, disclosing known defects, meaning conditions with a significant adverse effect on value, health or safety, or expected useful life. The form specifically asks whether any part of the property lies in a FEMA flood plain and whether the seller carries flood insurance. It reflects only the seller's actual knowledge, so pair it with your own inspection and flood-map check.

Flooding: the answer that matters most

Indiana law specifically requires flood disclosure: the seller has to tell you about flood risk or history. Read that answer carefully, then verify it against the official map — FEMA's National Flood Hazard Layer is the map your lender will use, and a seller's 'never flooded' is not the same as 'not in a flood zone.'

The Indiana traps inside the paperwork

Two similar-sounding disclosure forms, only one describes the house. Indiana's Seller's Residential Real Estate Sales Disclosure (Form 46234) describes the property's condition, while the separate Sales Disclosure Form (Form 46021) is a tax and assessment filing made at closing; do not mistake the assessment form for condition information.

The homestead benefit is shrinking on a set schedule. SEA 1 (2025) phases the homestead standard deduction down each year ($40,000 for 2026 assessments, $0 by 2030) while raising the supplemental deduction, so model your future bills on the new schedule rather than on the seller's current bill.

What no disclosure will ever tell you

A disclosure is the seller's knowledge, on the seller's timeline. It says nothing about the street's crime trend, the registry, the tax bill you will pay after the sale, permits pulled (or never pulled) for the renovation in the photos, or the rezoning working its way through the planning office. In Indiana, property tax reassessment works like this: Buying does not reset the home's assessed value to your purchase price; Indiana trends values toward market value-in-use every year. Expect your bill to move with annual trending and with the homestead deductions you file for yourself, which are on a legislated phase-down schedule — which is why the seller's current bill is a poor guide to yours. Pull those records yourself; they are all public.

Your checks, in order

• Read the disclosure line by line, and get 'unknown' answers in writing anyway — an unknown is a flag, not a pass.
• Run the exact parcel on FEMA's flood map.
• Estimate your post-sale tax bill with the Indiana records guide — never budget from the seller's bill.
• Check the address against the official Indiana registry.
• Ask the county for open and expired permits on the address before you waive anything.

Frequently asked questions

Is a seller disclosure form required in Indiana?

Yes — the Seller's Residential Real Estate Sales Disclosure (State Form 46234). The seller must complete the state form based on their current actual knowledge and give it to a prospective buyer before an offer is accepted; the form is not a warranty and does not substitute for an inspection.

Does a Indiana seller have to disclose flooding?

Yes — Indiana requires flood disclosure. Verify it on the FEMA map anyway; the disclosure is the seller's statement, the map is the lender's rulebook.

The seller answered 'unknown' to half the form. Now what?

'Unknown' is legal in most regimes and useful to nobody. Treat every unknown as a job: inspection, permit search, and the county record file. If the seller genuinely doesn't know, the records usually do.

Sources: forms.in.gov · public.courts.in.gov · waynecounty.in.gov · in.gov