Indiana law, for title research

Indiana transfer on death deed: recording, the auditor's endorsement and the beneficiary affidavit

Every rule below is quoted from the Indiana Code 2026 or another official source, linked and checked on the date shown. General information, not legal advice.

How is an Indiana transfer on death deed made?

It must be in writing, signed by the owner, dated and compliant with all requirements for recording deeds, under section 26(b)(1), and IC 32-21-2-3 requires an acknowledgment or a proof on any instrument to be recorded. Section 11(a) has the owner or the owner's legal representative execute it, and it goes to the recorder of deeds in the county where the land sits. Section 11 makes it void if that recording has not happened before the owner's death, and the county auditor's endorsement is necessary to record it. No payment or delivery to the beneficiary is required.

The statute offers sample wording, which it says is not exhaustive: the owner conveys and warrants, or quitclaims, to the owner, TOD to the beneficiary. A trust, revocable or irrevocable, may be named, and section 21(b) treats a trust revoked or terminated before the owner's death as nonexistent unless the designation says otherwise. Section 17 lets an attorney in fact, guardian, conservator or other agent make, revoke or change a designation if the action complies with the law and the document establishing the agent's authority does not forbid it. Section 24 voids a designation or revocation procured by fraud, duress, undue influence or mistake, or made when the owner lacked capacity, and section 26(c) presumes a designation valid. For a deed executed after June 30, 2025, an insurance warning may be included, and leaving it out does not invalidate the deed.

What if the owner holds title with someone else?

Indiana's answer turns on how title is held. A tenant by the entirety's deed is inoperable and void unless the other spouse joins. A joint tenant's deed severs the joint tenancy, and a tenancy in common results. A tenant in common's interest passes to the beneficiary as a transfer on death transfer, and a life estate measured by the owner's own life cannot be conveyed this way: the conveyance is void. Any other interest passes under the chapter and the conveyance that created it, and that conveyance prevails in a conflict, under section 11(e)(6).

Other sections speak to a designation that is in place when one owner dies. Section 15(b) says that on the death of one of two or more joint owners, property under a designation belongs to the surviving joint owners, and survivorship continues between at least two survivors. Section 15(c) says that on the death of a tenant by the entireties it belongs to the surviving tenant. Section 4(c) treats the death of the last surviving owner as the death of the owner, and section 11(e)(3) says a conveyance of a joint owner's interest has no effect on the designation for the nonsevering joint tenant. The text does not spell out how the severance rule and section 15(b) fit together when one joint tenant signs alone; that is for an Indiana attorney.

Can the owner still sell, mortgage or change it?

Yes. Before the owner's death a beneficiary has no rights in the property because of the designation, and no beneficiary signature is required for any transaction. A lifetime transfer of the owner's interest ends the designation for that property, and a lienholder enforcing a lien in court need not join the beneficiary unless that person holds another vested interest.

Revoking takes a later recorded deed that revokes, omits or changes the designation, or a recorded affidavit acknowledged or proved under IC 32-21-2-3. Either is void if not recorded before the owner's death. Marking up or destroying the recorded deed has no effect, and section 16(l) says a will or trust cannot revoke or modify it. Section 16(g) separately allows a change by will or trust if the designation expressly grants that right, so a deed with such wording is a question for an Indiana attorney. Spouses holding by the entirety must both agree while both are alive, and joint owners with survivorship need each living owner.

What must the beneficiary do after the owner dies?

The transfer itself is automatic and needs no request. Section 26(b)(20) then says the beneficiary shall file an affidavit with the recorder of the county where the land is located, endorsed by the county auditor. It must give the legal description, the date of death, the name and address of each designated beneficiary who survives or is in existence at the death, the name of each one who did not survive or is not in existence, and a cross-reference to the recorded deed.

Neither a failure to file nor a recorder's delay affects the validity of the transfer. Until the affidavit is recorded, though, the named beneficiaries and the owner's estate are jointly and severally liable for property taxes for assessment years beginning with the year of death.

Who takes if a beneficiary dies first, or a child arrives later?

An individual beneficiary must survive the owner, and by any further time the designation requires, under section 20. Several who survive share equally unless the designation states other shares, and they hold as tenants in common unless it expressly provides otherwise. If a beneficiary who is the owner's lineal descendant does not survive, section 22(b) gives the share to that person's lineal descendants per stirpes who survive the owner, with no naming needed, unless the designation says No LDPS or uses words negating that intent. A beneficiary who is not a lineal descendant has such substitutes only if the designation says so, by the words and lineal descendants per stirpes or the notation LDPS, under section 22(d).

If a share has no substitute, section 22(f) and section 26(b)(9) send it to the other surviving beneficiaries, and if no primary beneficiary or substitute remains, to surviving contingent beneficiaries. If no beneficiary survives, section 15(f) gives the property to the owner's estate unless the designation directs it to a substitute. A beneficiary may also disclaim; under IC 32-17.5-4-1(6) an individual's disclaimed interest passes as if the disclaimant had died immediately before the owner.

A child born or adopted after the owner names another child is entitled to a fractional share of what the named child would receive, unless the designation or a governing instrument says otherwise. Divorce revokes a designation in favor of the former spouse, subject to listed exceptions, and remarriage to that spouse revives it.

What liens and claims can reach the property or the beneficiary?

The beneficiary takes subject to every conveyance, contract, easement, lien and security interest made by the owner or to which the owner was subject. Claims work differently: they run against the transferee. Except as otherwise provided by statute, IC 32-17-13-2 makes a nonprobate transferee liable to the probate estate for allowed claims and statutory allowances to the extent the estate is insufficient, up to the value of the transfers received or controlled and not including the transferee's net contributions. For a death on or after June 30, 2018, IC 32-17-13-8 requires a proceeding within nine months after the death, with a separate period for a claim timely filed in the estate. Section 25(a) ties in the surviving spouse and family allowances, and section 29(a) leaves other creditor rights under Indiana law in place.

Medicaid recovery has its own chapter, IC 12-15-9. Section 0.5 defines the estate for a claim to include any real or personal property conveyed through a nonprobate transfer, and IC 32-17-13-1 says a transfer on death transfer completed under IC 32-17-14 is a nonprobate transfer. Section 0.6 says the claim against those assets may be enforced as set out in IC 32-17-13, within its time limits, but those limits do not apply to assets not reported to the county office of the division of family resources. The chapter also has limits. Section 2 bars enforcement against real estate while it is necessary for the support, maintenance or comfort of a surviving spouse, a dependent child under 21, or a dependent who is nonsupporting because of blindness or other disability; section 0.8 keeps out certain assets; and section 6 allows hardship waivers. Whether a claim reaches a particular parcel is for an Indiana attorney.

Section 28(e) protects a purchaser for value, or a lender taking a security interest, from a beneficiary if it acts in good faith or without actual knowledge that the transfer was improper or that the affidavit was untrue. It takes free of claims of the estate, its creditors, heirs and other claimed beneficiaries, and has no duty to verify sworn information. Section 28(f) limits that protection to information on the beneficiary's ownership and right to transfer good title, and the purchaser or lender stays on notice of instruments of record.

What a title search checks after an Indiana owner dies

A probate title search reads the chain of title and how title passed: the vesting on the prior deed, any transfer on death deed with its recording date and image, any later recorded deed or affidavit, whether the beneficiary's affidavit is recorded, and the recorded mortgages and liens to pay. Whether a deed took effect, or who took under it, is for an Indiana attorney.

The Indiana transfer on death deed rules on this page, with their sources

Sources: Indiana Code 2026, IC 32-17-14-3; Indiana Code 2026, IC 32-17-14-11; Indiana Code 2026, IC 32-17-14-5; Indiana Code 2026, IC 32-17-14-15; Indiana Code 2026, IC 32-17-14-16; Indiana Code 2026, IC 32-17-14-23; Indiana Code 2026, IC 32-17-14-26; Indiana Code 2026, IC 32-17-14-22; Indiana Code 2026, IC 32-17-14-25; Indiana Code 2026, IC 32-17-14-19; Indiana Code 2026, IC 32-17-13-2; Indiana Code 2026, IC 32-17-14-28; Indiana Code 2026, IC 32-21-2-3; Indiana Code 2026, IC 32-17-14-4; Indiana Code 2026, IC 32-17-13-8; Indiana Code 2026, IC 32-17-14-29; Indiana Code 2026, IC 32-17.5-4-1; Indiana Code 2026, IC 32-17-14-17; Indiana Code 2026, IC 32-17-14-24; Indiana Code 2026, IC 32-17-14-21; Indiana Code 2026, IC 12-15-9; Indiana Code 2026, IC 32-17-13-1. Each row links the section it summarizes.

Questions people ask

More on how Indiana property law shapes a title search: title research in Indiana.