Frequently Asked Questions

UPDATED 12-04-2020

Property taxes on a real estate parcel must be delinquent for the prior year's first installment, or older before that parcel is declared eligible for tax sale. Grant County last held a tax sale on September 2020, and plans to hold the next tax sale with an exact date yet to be determined for 2021. A list of those parcels that will be eligible for the 2021 tax sale will be published three times in local newspapers after parcels have been certified as eligible in July 2021. At the point that a parcel is declared eligible for tax sale, all delinquent taxes, as well as a Tax Sale Fee, must be paid in order to remove the parcel from the tax sale. When a parcel goes to tax sale, however, the minimum bid that is required to purchase the parcel will be all of the delinquent taxes, plus the amount for the current tax year.

A winning bidder at the tax sale is actually buying a certificate of lien on the parcel, which entitles the buyer to request the court to issue a tax deed to the property within 180 days after the one-year redemption period has expired. There are some requirements that must be met in order for the court to grant this request. Please consult with an attorney to determine what these requirements are. After the requirements are met, all liens, including mortgage liens, but not including state or Federal tax liens, are removed from the parcel and the property will be transferred according to the directions of the tax sale lien holder. The Treasurer can only sell lien certificates at the annual tax sale, and not at any other time. Once bought from the Treasurer they may, however, be transferred between individual holders at any time.

During the redemption period, the lien buyer has no right to enter the property or make any changes to the property. Those rights are granted at the time that the court transfers the deed, as described above. The owner of the property during the redemption period continues to have the right to demolish buildings or take any other legally permissible action that he or she wishes to take.

Additional information can be found by visiting the SRI website at sriservices.com.

UPDATED 12-04-2020

TO GET PROPERTY TAX INFORMATION:

1. Click "Property Tax & Payment Info" at the top of the left column on the homepage.
2. At the "Tax List" screen, you are at the beginning of the entire list of all the properties in the county, and the search function will eliminate those parcels that do not meet the search requirements. Therefore, if you enter partial data for a 10-digit tax id number, 18-digit parcel number, name, or address, the information that you are searching for will be included in the results, along with other information that meets the same search conditions. Please be sure to indicate the correct tax year, located to the right of the name field of the search area, before beginning your search. As soon as we have calculated the tax information for the next year, the default year will be updated, so it may be necessary to change the year to make sure that the correct year is showing for the information that you need.
3. SEARCH BY PROPERTY NUMBER - The best way to search is to enter a property number, which, for real estate parcels, is either the 10-digit tax id number or the 18-digit parcel number, if you know either of them. Property numbers for personal property taxes used to only be 10 digits long, prior to the payable 2009 year, but a "27" prefix was added starting in that tax year. If you have one of the property numbers, enter it in the appropriate blank and skip down to #6. Hyphens and periods in the number are optional when searching, but the property number cannot have any extra spaces in it or after it. If you don't have a property number, please continue to option #4.
4. SEARCH BY NAME - If you don't know any of the property numbers, you can search by name, but names may be duplicated, misspelled, or may be entered in our records in a manner that the person does not normally associate with. For example, "Bill" may show as "William" or "Wm", and "McCoy" is also in the system as "Mc Coy", with a space in the name, and it won't find a parcel that was entered as "Mc Coy" unless your search includes a space in it. Of course, a search for "Coy" will find all of the "Mc Coy" and "McCoy" parcels, as well as "Coyle", and you can then look through the results to find what you need. Middle initials never have a period after them, but O'Brien does have the apostrophe, so if you are searching by name, you may have to try several variations in order to find what you are looking for. The search recognizes capital and lower-case (small) letters equally.
5. SEARCH BY ADDRESS - This type of search can be the most troublesome because, when the county changed computer systems several years ago, all of the mailing addresses were transferred over and labeled as "Property Address" on the new system. Since the Treasurer is more concerned with where to send the tax statement than where the property actually resides, often the address that must be searched for is the address where the tax statement goes, not the property address. The county's GIS Web site at www.grantcounty.net has assessor information, which is much more accurate for address information simply because the assessor is much more concerned with where the property is physically located than where the tax statements go. Therefore, it is sometimes necessary to first find the property address in the GIS Web site, then come back to the Treasurer's Web site for tax information. When searching by address, keep in mind that street names may be spelled out, as in Ninth Street instead of 9th. East may be entered as E., E, or East, and may or may not be separated from other data with a space. North, South, and West have the same potential search problems. Often, the best kind of address search to start with is to enter the address number ONLY, without the street name, and then sort through the results for the correct one.
6. Once you have entered the search data, you may either click the "Search" button or just press the "Enter" key on your keyboard to execute the search.
7. The results will be displayed in a list directly below the search fields, with the property numbers shown as a hyperlink (in color and underlined). Click the hyperlink to be taken to the Property Information screen.
8. On the Property Information screen, any parcel that is associated with a bankruptcy or tax sale will show a warning flag directly underneath the "Back" button. We have recently begun to also show a warning flag on those parcels that are under an appeal for assessed value, even though there is nothing about this to be particularly concerned about. It is merely the easiest way to indicate that a parcel has that status without doing a major rewrite of the Web site. To see tax information, scroll down to the "Charges" area. When viewing tax information, please be aware that the designation LY means Last Year, and PY means Prior Years. For the default tax year 2009 payable 2010, LY is the tax year 2008 payable 2009, and PY is the tax year 2007 payable 2008, plus any prior years.

UPDATED 12-04-2020

Tax statements for 2019 payable 2020 were mailed on April 13th, 2020.

UPDATED 12-04-2020

Grant County collects property taxes annually in two equal installments.

If an installment of real property taxes is completely paid on or before the date 30 days after the due date and the taxpayer is not liable for delinquent property taxes first due and payable in a previous installment for the same parcel, the amount of the penalty is equal to 5% of the amount of delinquent taxes. Otherwise, the amount of the penalty is equal to 10% of the amount of delinquent taxes. Also, with respect to property taxes due in two equal installments, on the day immediately following the due dates of the first and second installments in each year following the year of the initial delinquency, an additional penalty equal to 10% of any taxes remaining unpaid will be added. A property may become subject to a tax sale if the taxes remain unpaid (IC 6-1.1-24-1)

This information can also be found by visiting in.gov/dlgf

• Pay in Person at the Treasurer’s Office: The office is located in the County Annex building, 401 S. Adams St., Ste 229, Marion, IN 46953. Office hours are 8:00 am to 4:00 pm, Monday through Friday.
• Payment by Drop Box: Located at the County Annex building, 401 S. Adams Street entrance, to the right just before you enter the side doors. A second location is inside the Grant County Complex in the breezeway between the Sheriff's Department and the Annex Building. It will be marked for Treasurer-Tax Collections. If you want a validated receipt, you must enclose both the Treasurer’s copy (Copy B) and the Taxpayer’s copy (Copy C) with a self-addressed stamped envelope. Deposits must be made before midnight on the due date to avoid a late penalty.
• Payment by Mail: Payment must be mailed to the Grant County Treasurer at 401 S. Adams St., Ste. 229, Marion, IN 46953. To receive a validated tax receipt you must mail both the Treasurer copy (Copy B) and the Taxpayer copy (Copy C) with a self-addressed, stamped envelope. It must have a postmark on or before the due date printed on the statement in order to be received on on-time.
• Pay at Local Banks:
  • Fairmount State Bank; First Farmers Bank and Trust; Grant County State Bank; Northwest; Star; and VIA
• Pay by Phone with Credit Card: To pay by phone using Visa, Master Card, American Express, Discover, or E-check Dial 1-877-690-3729 and enter the Jurisdiction code 2411. You will need your parcel number and the amount of your payment. There will be a convenience fee added by Forte of 2.5% for the processing of your tax payment. There is no additional charge by the Treasurer. Payments must be made by midnight EST on the Spring and Fall due dates.
• Pay Online: Payments can be made online at www.grantcounty.net/grant-county-offices/treasurer using Visa, Master Card, American Express, or Discover. To the left side, you will want to click on the Payment & Services link. This will direct to you pay using a credit card. You will need your parcel(s) number and the amount of your payment. There will be a convenience fee added by Forte of 2.5% for the processing of your tax payment. There is no additional charge by the Treasurer.

UPDATED 12/04/2020

All payments for property taxes have been posted on the Web site as of the "Last Updated" date that is shown on the Tax List page. Any prior years' delinquent taxes automatically roll over into the current year, but are listed on the current year as LY (Last Year), FY (Former Years) or PY (Prior Years) amounts. Any payments made after the "Last Updated" date are promptly posted on our internal computer system even though they may not yet appear on the Web site. Please keep in mind that, although it may take a few days for payment information to appear on the website, once taxes are shown as paid, they will only become unpaid if your payment is returned to us by your bank. In other words, if your balance shows as zero, you may assume that it will continue to be zero, regardless of how old that balance information is, until we roll the default tax year over to the next year.

UPDATED 12/04/2020

Tax exemptions are filed in the Auditor's Office. Please check with the Auditor's Office for more information by calling (765) 668-6552.

UPDATED 12/04/2020

UPDATED 12-04-2020

Tax statements are mailed to the address of the deeded owner, as of March 1 of the tax year, which is on the address list that is maintained by the Grant County Auditor. Failure on the part of the US Postal Service to timely deliver a tax statement constitutes a situation that is outside of our control. There are other options available whenever a tax statement delivery problem might occur.

The options are:

1. You can print out a copy of the information that is available online at www.grantcounty.net/grant-county-offices/treasurer.
2. We will e-mail a tax statement as a PDF file, upon request.
3. A copy of the printed statement can be picked up at our office.

Our e-mail address is: treasurer@grantcounty.net.

We do not re-mail a tax statement when the post office returns it to us because we assume that the postal service would simply return it to us again. Even if the postal service has returned a tax statement to us with an attached sticker that shows a new address on it, state law requires that we mail the statement only to the address that is on file in Auditor's office. State law also forbids us from mailing any tax statement within 15 days of a due date.

UPDATED 12/04/2020

All special assessments are added in the charges area for a particular parcel. The name of a creek or ditch indicates a ditch assessment. The abbreviation "Spa" indicates a special assessment for a sewer, weed, or demolition lien, which will be described below the charges area in the Notes section. Please call April in the Grant County Auditor's Office at (765) 668-6552, extension 3215, for more information regarding special assessments or liens.

UPDATED 12/04/2020

If you have paid more than is due for a particular tax year, we cannot, by law, apply the overpayment to a future year. You will receive a letter at least 60 days before the next tax deadline that will instruct you how to request a refund from the Auditor's office. Although the Treasurer signs all county checks, they do not write checks for the county and therefore cannot issue refunds.

UPDATED 12-04-2020

If the address on the GIS Web site is not the correct address, or if you need to get your address changed for any reason, please contact the Auditor's Office at 765-668-6552 to do an address change. Since changing addresses can have a drastically negative effect on a taxpayer's Homestead Exemption, the Auditor is responsible for maintaining both addresses and exemptions.

UPDATED 12/04/2020

The Grant County Assessor's Office is the only authority that determines what the taxable value of property is. If you feel as though your assessment is too high, you must contact them. Their phone number is (765) 668-4773, and their e-mail is: assessor@grantcounty.net

UPDATED 12/04/2020

A penalty on any outstanding tax amount is added on the day after each due date and, under certain circumstances, 30 days after that (see FAQ #4 for the law regarding the circumstances for additional penalties). The most recent due date was November 10, 2020, so additional penalties may apply on December 10. The next due date is May 10, 2021, so penalties will be applied as of May 11, 2021, and potentially 30 days after that. Parcels that are still delinquent for the first installment of 2019 payable 2020 at the close of business on June 30, 2021, will be declared eligible for the 2021 tax sale, will have a Tax Sale fee added to them, and will be subject to additional fees, interest, and penalties once the parcel is sold at tax sale. Parcels that do not sell in the Tax Sale will be subject to seizure by a municipality that has jurisdiction over the parcel.

• All taxes must be paid, including, after January 15, the amount for the entire remainder of the current year. If the tax amount is not yet known, then the Auditor will provide an estimate, which must be paid even if the transaction occurs before a tax due date.
• When transferring a title, please bring the current title with you. We will need the name and address of the new owner.
• If the home is to be moved, we must have the address of the new location.
• If taxes are to be paid at the time the permit is issued, payment must be made by cash, money order, or cashier's check.

UPDATED 12/04/2020

Renewal or transfer forms must be completed before being brought to the Treasurer's Office. All business real estate and business personal property taxes due must be paid in order for a permit to be stamped by the Treasurer. If the business is a sole proprietorship, the owner's personal real estate and personal property taxes must also be paid before a permit is approved. Any prior taxes that have not been paid by a former owner of the business must also be paid before a permit is approved.

UPDATED 12/04/2020