Indiana Quitclaim Deed Instructions

Step 1: Find the Right County, and Plan on Two Offices

An Indiana deed is recorded in the county where the land is located, which is not necessarily the county you live in. Two county offices handle it. The county auditor goes first: Indiana's recording statute says a conveyance may not be recorded until the auditor has endorsed it, and the auditor enters the transfer on the tax rolls and collects a fee. Then the county recorder records it. The two offices are separate stops, whether or not they share a building.

Indiana has 92 counties and no single state directory of their recorders or auditors, so start from the county's own website. Several county recorders publish their requirements online, and they are worth reading, because the requirements below are enforced at the counter.

Step 2: Set Up the Deed the Way the Recording Statute Demands

Indiana's recorder is allowed to receive a document only if it meets a list of statutory requirements. The layout rules: paper no larger than eight and one-half by fourteen inches, white and at least 20-pound weight, type of at least 10 points, not permanently bound, with a margin of at least two inches at the top and bottom of the first and last pages and half an inch everywhere else. The two-inch margins are where the auditor's and recorder's stamps go, and a first page without them can be rejected.

Two statements have to appear on the deed, and Indiana recorders will not record without them. The first is the preparer's: "This instrument was prepared by (name)." The second is the Social Security affirmation, in these words: "I affirm, under the penalties for perjury, that I have taken reasonable care to redact each Social Security number in this document, unless required by law." followed by a printed name. Both go near the end of the deed. The recorder may only accept a document with every Social Security number removed unless a law requires one, and a deed never does.

Step 3: Fill In the Grantor's Information

The grantor is the person giving up whatever interest they hold. Use the full legal name exactly as it appears on the deed the grantor received. Indiana's statute requires the name of each person who signs to appear identically in the body of the deed, in the notary's certificate, in the signature and printed beneath it. If the grantor took title under a different name, before a marriage for instance, put both names on the deed.

Every signer's name has to be typed or printed immediately beneath the signature, and so does the notary's. That is a statutory recording requirement, not a preference.

Step 4: Fill In the Grantee's Information, With Two Addresses

The grantee is the person, company or trust receiving the interest. Indiana asks for the grantee's name and two addresses, in a statement the statute spells out: the mailing address to which property tax statements should be sent, and the mailing address of the grantee. The grantee's address has to be a street address or a rural route address, not a post office box. The statute says the deed complies if the addresses appear at the end, next to the preparer and affirmation statements.

The tax statement address is what the auditor uses when the property is entered for taxation, so give the address where the new owner will actually open mail.

Step 5: Add the Legal Description and the Parcel Number

Copy the complete legal description from the current recorded deed, in full rather than summarized: the lot and subdivision from a recorded plat, or the section, township and range with the metes and bounds. A street address is not a legal description. Add the state parcel number, the eighteen-digit number printed on the property tax bill, because the auditor's endorsement and any sales disclosure are keyed to it.

Step 6: Use the Statutory Wording

Indiana's Conveyances Act gives the form. A deed worded in substance "A.B. quitclaims to C.D.", followed by the description of the property and "for the sum of" with the consideration, and signed and acknowledged by the grantor, is a good and sufficient conveyance in quitclaim to the grantee and the grantee's heirs and assigns. For a gift, the consideration can be stated as nominal; what matters for the sales disclosure in Step 10 is what is actually paid.

Do not use "conveys and warrants". That is the wording of Indiana's statutory warranty deed, and it carries promises about the title that a quitclaim deed is meant not to make.

One Indiana rule is easy to miss. If a transfer on death deed has already been recorded for the property, a later conveyance is void unless it too is recorded before the owner dies. If the grantor has ever signed one, record the quitclaim deed promptly.

Step 7: Choose the Ownership Wording Carefully

Name two or more grantees and Indiana treats them as tenants in common, each with a separate share that passes under that person's will, unless the deed says they hold "in joint tenancy and to the survivor of them" or the intent to create a joint tenancy is plain from the deed. Survivorship has to be written in.

A married couple is the exception written into the same statute, which does not apply to conveyances made to husband and wife. Indiana treats property conveyed to spouses as a tenancy by the entirety, in which neither spouse's interest can be split off during the marriage and the survivor takes the whole. If a married couple want to hold as tenants in common instead, the deed has to say so.

Step 8: Decide Whether Your Spouse Has to Sign

Indiana abolished dower and curtesy in 1953, it is not a community property state, and its Conveyances Act has no rule requiring a spouse to join in a deed of the family home. So a spouse whose name is not on the title does not sign to release a marital right. Instructions that describe a homestead waiver for Indiana are not describing Indiana law.

The one time a spouse who is not the named grantor has to sign is when the two of you hold the property together, as tenants by the entirety or otherwise, because then the spouse is an owner. A married owner conveying property titled in their name alone signs alone.

Step 9: Sign in Front of a Notary

A deed cannot be recorded unless it carries an acknowledgment, or a proof, by a notarial officer. The notary's certificate has to show the notary's printed name, county of residence, seal and commission expiration date, and the notary's name goes beneath the notary's signature. No witnesses are required. A deed acknowledged before a notary in another state can be recorded in Indiana.

Signing online. Indiana allows remote notarization by a notary who has registered as a remote notary with the Secretary of State and is physically in Indiana at the time. The signer can be in Indiana, elsewhere in the United States, or abroad when the document concerns property in the United States. The notary uses a technology vendor the Secretary of State has approved, checks your identity by credential analysis and identity proofing or by personal knowledge, and records the session. The statute treats the act as performed in Indiana wherever you are. Our Remote Online Notarization by State page covers how the rules differ elsewhere.

Step 10: Work Out Whether the Sales Disclosure Form Applies

Indiana's sales disclosure form, State Form 46021, has to accompany a "conveyance document" through the assessor and the auditor, and the auditor may not accept a conveyance without it. But the statute defines a conveyance as a transfer of a real property interest for valuable consideration. The Department of Local Government Finance's own instructions say that a transfer for no consideration is not a conveyance for this purpose, that a quitclaim deed not serving as a source of title needs no form, and that re-recording to correct an error needs none either.

So a gift to a child, a transfer between spouses for nothing, or a deed into your own trust goes to the auditor for endorsement without a sales disclosure form. If the relative is taking over the mortgage, ask the county assessor first, because a promise to pay can count as valuable consideration. A quitclaim deed for which money changes hands needs one, reviewed and stamped by the county assessor before the auditor will take the deed, with a $10 filing fee unless the transfer is compulsory, a partition among co-owners, or to a charity or government. Our Indiana sales disclosure form page goes through the form, the exclusions, and the homestead deduction it doubles as an application for.

Step 11: Get the Auditor's Endorsement, Then Record

Take the signed, acknowledged deed to the county auditor first, with the sales disclosure form if one is needed. The auditor enters the transfer for taxation, stamps the deed "duly entered for taxation", and collects an endorsement fee for each parcel. Without that stamp the recorder is not permitted to record a conveyance.

Then take it to the county recorder with the recording fee. Recording sets the deed's priority: under Indiana's statute a conveyance takes priority according to the time of its filing, and it is void against a later buyer or lender who paid value in good faith and recorded first. A recorded deed that misses one of the technical requirements is still validly recorded and still gives notice. A deed the recorder refuses is not recorded at all, which is why the requirements above matter.

Where do I record an Indiana quitclaim deed?

With the county recorder in the county where the property is located, after the county auditor has endorsed it. Indiana's statute bars the recorder from recording a conveyance that the auditor has not stamped "duly entered for taxation", so the auditor's office is the first stop and the recorder's the second. Both are county offices; the county's website will say where each sits. There is no state-level recording and no state directory of the 92 offices.

Does my spouse have to sign an Indiana quitclaim deed?

Only if your spouse is an owner. Indiana abolished dower and curtesy in 1953, is not a community property state, and has no rule requiring a spouse to join in a deed of the family home, so a spouse whose name is not on the title does not sign. Where the two of you hold the property together, which for a married couple in Indiana usually means as tenants by the entirety, both sign, because both own it.

Do I need a sales disclosure form for a gift to a family member?

No. The form goes with a "conveyance", and Indiana defines that as a transfer for valuable consideration. The Department of Local Government Finance's instructions say a transfer for no consideration is not a conveyance for this purpose, so a gift goes to the auditor for endorsement without the form. If money is paid, even between relatives, the form is required, the assessor reviews it first, and there is a $10 filing fee.

What does it cost to record a quitclaim deed in Indiana?

Two fees, both flat. The auditor collects $10 for each parcel it endorses, and the recorder charges $25 for a deed of any length on standard-size pages. A sales disclosure form, where one is required, adds a $10 filing fee, and a county may add a $10 affordable housing fee by ordinance. Indiana has no transfer tax.

Can I get an Indiana deed notarized online?

Yes. A notary who has registered with the Secretary of State as a remote notary, using an approved technology vendor, can take your acknowledgment over audio-video while physically in Indiana. You can be anywhere in the United States, or abroad if the document concerns property here and the act is not barred where you are. The session is recorded and the law treats the notarization as performed in Indiana. The deed is then recorded like any other.

Where do I get an Indiana quitclaim deed form?

Indiana publishes the operative wording in its statutes, so the conveyance sentence is settled. What a form written for no particular state will not have is the wrapping Indiana's recorders enforce: two-inch margins at the top and bottom of the first and last pages, the preparer statement, the Social Security affirmation in the statute's words, a line for the grantee's street address and another for the tax statement address, and names printed beneath every signature. A deed missing any of those is handed back. If you would rather start from something built for this state, our Quitclaim Deed Help page lists prepared forms and deed preparation services.