Indiana HOA Estoppel & Resale

Section 1: Overview — Estoppel and resale disclosure in Indiana

When a home in an Indiana homeowners association changes hands, the seller must deliver a statutory disclosure to the buyer before closing: a disclosure that the property is in an HOA community, a copy of the recorded governing documents, and a statement of assessments, under IC 32-21-5-8.5.¹ Condominiums are governed separately by the Indiana Condominium Act, IC 32-25.⁸ The disclosure duty for HOA-governed property lives not in the Homeowners Associations Act but in the Residential Real Estate Sales Disclosure chapter of the conveyance article, IC 32-21-5-8.5, which draws its definitions from the Homeowners Associations Act at IC 32-25.5-2.²

Terminology matters here. Indiana doesn't use a Florida-style "estoppel certificate" or a UCIOA "resale certificate." It uses a statutory sales disclosure paired with a statement of unpaid assessments, and Indiana has adopted neither the Uniform Common Interest Ownership Act nor the Uniform Condominium Act.¹ Title companies and closing agents in the state informally call the assessment statement a "status letter," "dues letter," or "payoff letter"; such a letter typically includes assessment balances, covenant violations, lien status, and the financial information requested during a sale or refinance.⁹ Two regimes run in parallel: HOA-governed property under IC 32-21-5-8.5 (with the binding-effect and lien protections located in IC 32-28-14-7), and condominiums under IC 32-25 (with the binding statement in IC 32-25-5-2).⁶ At a glance, the seller must deliver the HOA package not later than 10 days before closing, and an HOA may charge not more than $50 for a statement of unpaid assessments.⁵ Nationally, Indiana is a non-uniform statutory-disclosure state, distinct from UCIOA states such as Alaska, from hard-mandate Florida, and from CC&R-only states. The sections ahead set out the statutory requirements, the transaction lifecycle, and recent legislative activity.

Section 2: The statutory requirements

2A. The Indiana disclosure statute and the Condominium Act statement

For HOA-governed property, the operative provision is IC 32-21-5-8.5, the residential real estate sales disclosure for property covered by the governing documents of a homeowners association. It applies to all transfers of title after June 30, 2015, and it borrows the definitions in IC 32-25.5-2, including the definition of "homeowners association" as a corporation or entity organized for the benefit of two or more owners of dwellings in fee simple.² This is a non-uniform provision; it isn't a UCIOA resale certificate and carries no uniform-act section numbering. An owner-to-owner resale of a lot or unit triggers the document. The selling owner must deliver the package to the purchaser not later than 10 days before the sale closes; the statute states "ten (10) days" without specifying business days, so the default reading is calendar days.¹

Condominiums follow a separate track under IC 32-25. Under IC 32-25-7-5, the secretary or other authorized officer of the association of co-owners must provide, within 5 days of a request, a statement of the amount of current and delinquent assessments against a particular unit, and a deed cannot absolve a grantee from liability for unpaid assessments due on the date of conveyance.¹⁰ The conveyance provision at IC 32-25-5-2 requires the association to furnish a statement of unpaid assessments, on written request, within 10 business days.⁴

The association, on request, produces the statement of unpaid assessments; the selling owner is responsible for delivering the full package to the purchaser before conveyance. On fees, the HOA statement is capped at $50 under IC 32-21-5-8.5(f) as amended in 2026; there's no Florida-style indexed fee cap.⁵ Initial sales by a declarant are a separate regime: the Condominium Act imposes declarant disclosure duties on first-time sales (for example, the written disclosure of a reserved option not to expand an expandable condominium under IC 32-25-8-15), which are distinct from the owner resale disclosure and aren't a UCIOA public offering statement.¹¹

2B. Required contents and the seller's resale disclosure

IC 32-21-5-8.5 enumerates exactly four items the seller must provide to the purchaser: (1) a disclosure that the property is in a community governed by a homeowners association; (2) a copy of the recorded governing documents; (3) a statement indicating whether there are assessments and the amount of any assessments; and (4) the name and the business or home address of a board member, an HOA agent, or another person who has a contract to provide management services for the association.¹ This list is the Indiana text; it doesn't track the uniform-act content enumeration.

The broader package a selling owner furnishes therefore combines the recorded declaration, bylaws, and rules (the recorded governing documents) with the association's statement of assessments. The disclosed assessment balance is the financial heart of the document: it's how a buyer and the closing agent learn the exact payoff figure and whether assessments are outstanding before closing. For condominiums, the parallel content is the statement of current and delinquent assessments under IC 32-25-7-5 and the statement of unpaid assessments under IC 32-25-5-2.¹⁰

2C. Binding effect, remedies, and scope

The binding effect differs sharply between the two regimes. For condominiums, IC 32-25-5-2 gives the classic estoppel result: a grantee is entitled to a statement of unpaid assessments against the grantor and isn't liable for, nor is the unit subject to a lien for, any unpaid assessments against the grantor in excess of the amount set forth in the statement; if the association fails to furnish the statement within 10 business days, the purchaser isn't liable for the prior unpaid amounts.³ For HOA-governed property, the protection is recording-based rather than a stated-figure estoppel: under IC 32-28-14-7, a grantee is entitled to a statement of unpaid assessments and isn't liable for, and the real estate isn't subject to an HOA lien for, the grantor's unpaid assessments unless the lien was recorded before the deed by which the grantee takes title.⁶

On remedies for nondelivery, Indiana doesn't give the HOA buyer a contract-cancellation right for a missing HOA package. To the contrary, IC 32-21-5-8.5(g) states that failure to provide any of the listed documents doesn't limit or prevent enforcement of the governing documents by the association.⁷ The condominium buyer's protection is the loss-of-collection consequence in IC 32-25-5-2, not a rescission right. As for scope, the residential real estate sales disclosure chapter applies only to sales of residential real estate of not more than four dwelling units and exempts court-ordered transfers, including administration of an estate, foreclosure sale, transfer by a bankruptcy trustee, eminent domain, a decree of specific performance, a divorce decree, and a property settlement agreement.¹²

Section 3: The resale transaction in practice

A. Requesting the certificate

For HOA-governed property, IC 32-21-5-8.5 frames the duty as running from the seller to the purchaser and doesn't enumerate who may request the underlying statement; in practice the selling owner, the purchaser, or an authorized agent such as a title company or closing attorney requests the statement of unpaid assessments from the association.¹ For condominiums, the grantee obtains the statement by written request to the association, manager, or board of directors under IC 32-25-5-2, and any grantor or grantee may request the officer statement under IC 32-25-7-5.³

B. The statutory clock and delivery

The HOA seller must deliver the package not later than 10 days (calendar days) before closing under IC 32-21-5-8.5.¹ The Condominium Act sets the association-response clock: 10 business days after a written request under IC 32-25-5-2, and 5 days for the officer statement under IC 32-25-7-5.⁴ If a condominium association is late past 10 business days, it can't collect the prior unpaid amounts from the purchaser; for HOA property there's no association-response deadline in the statute.⁷

C. Fees and refunds

For HOA-governed property, IC 32-21-5-8.5(f) caps the charge for a statement of unpaid assessments or other charges at $50 (as amended by HEA 1115-2026, effective July 1, 2026), replacing the prior $250 ceiling, which read that the association "may charge not more than two hundred fifty dollars ($250) for the statement"; there's no indexed cap as in Florida.⁵ The Condominium Act doesn't set a dollar cap for its statement. Neither statute addresses an expedited or rush fee or a refund if the sale doesn't close; those points aren't addressed by statute.⁵

D. Consequences and the binding effect

For condominiums, once the statement issues, the association can't later collect from the purchaser amounts above those disclosed, and the unit isn't subject to a lien for the excess (IC 32-25-5-2).³ For HOA property, the purchaser's protection is that the lot isn't subject to an HOA lien for the grantor's unpaid assessments unless that lien was recorded before the deed (IC 32-28-14-7).⁶ Neither statute sets an express liability standard for an erroneous or late HOA certificate, and IC 32-21-5-8.5(g) preserves the HOA's enforcement of its governing documents notwithstanding a nondelivery, so there's no contract-cancellation remedy for the HOA buyer.⁷ The exemptions in IC 32-21-5-1 (estate, foreclosure, bankruptcy, eminent domain, specific performance, divorce, property settlement) remove those transfers from the disclosure requirement entirely.¹²

Section 4: Recent legislative and judicial activity

A. Recent bills

B. Recent Indiana appellate rulings

No published Indiana appellate decision in the past 36 months interprets the IC 32-21-5-8.5 homeowners association resale disclosure, its binding effect, or the statement of unpaid assessments as applied to a common interest community resale. The nearest recent published authority concerns the residential real estate sales disclosure regime and assessment enforceability generally rather than resale disclosure, so this section is intentionally short and no case is presented as on point.¹⁴

C. Active legislative debates

The 2026 session featured an active debate over resale-letter fees: Senator Aaron Freeman's Amendment #1 to HB1152 "proposed to completely prohibit management companies' ability to charge fees for services, effectively prohibiting homeowners associations, their agents, and management companies from charging any homeowner fee unless that fee is expressly listed in the association's recorded governing documents," an approach that passed in HEA 1152 but was moderated to a $50 cap by the later-enacted HEA 1115.¹⁵

Section 5: National positioning and related coverage

Indiana sits between the main resale-disclosure camps. Hard-mandate states such as Florida use statutory estoppel certificates with short business-day clocks and indexed fee caps (Fla. Stat. § 718.116(8) for condominiums and § 720.30851 for HOAs); detailed-disclosure states such as California require a statutory resale package with enumerated documents (Davis-Stirling, Civ. Code § 4525 et seq.); UCIOA resale-certificate states such as Alaska, Colorado, and Washington provide a resale certificate with a short turnaround, a reasonable fee, and a binding effect; and CC&R-only states have no statutory resale-disclosure mechanism. Indiana is a non-uniform statutory-disclosure state: it mandates a seller disclosure and a statement of assessments and, for condominiums, gives the stated figure a binding, estoppel-like effect (IC 32-25-5-2), but its HOA statute (IC 32-21-5-8.5) sets content, a delivery deadline, and a fee cap without a UCIOA-style stated-figure estoppel or validity period.⁶ For a multi-state operator expanding into Indiana, the practical implication is to treat condominium and HOA closings differently and not to assume a Florida or UCIOA estoppel model applies. Indiana did amend its resale-disclosure provision in 2026, twice, changing the statement fee from $250 to $50, so operators should refresh fee schedules for closings on or after July 1, 2026.⁵

HOA Weekly's Indiana Estoppel and Resale coverage updates quarterly as the Indiana General Assembly and the Indiana Court of Appeals and Indiana Supreme Court act. Federal frameworks also apply to Indiana associations regardless of the state framework, notably the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act where a disclosed balance is being collected, plus the Fair Housing Act, the Americans with Disabilities Act, the Servicemembers Civil Relief Act, and the FCC's OTARD rule.

Footnotes

1. Ind. Code § 32-21-5-8.5, Disclosures relating to property covered by governing documents of a homeowners association (full section text, cross-verified against official Indiana Code) ↩
2. Ind. Code § 32-25.5-2-4, "Homeowners association" (definitions incorporated by IC 32-21-5-8.5(b)) ↩
3. Ind. Code § 32-25-5-2, Unpaid assessments; grantee entitled to a statement and not liable for amounts in excess of the amount set forth (Indiana Condominium Act text) ↩
4. Ind. Code § 32-25-5-2 (2014 amendment requiring the association to respond within ten business days; failure bars collection from the buyer) — Kahn, Dees, Donovan & Kahn, LLP ↩
5. House Enrolled Act 1115 (2026), Public Law 155, amending IC 32-21-5-8.5(f): on a resale or refinance, an HOA or its agent "may not charge more than fifty dollars ($50) for the statement" (iga.in.gov enrolled act) ↩
6. Ind. Code § 32-28-14-7, Liability for unpaid assessment (Homeowners Association Liens): grantee not liable for, and real estate not subject to an HOA lien for, the grantor's unpaid assessments unless recorded before the deed ↩
7. Ind. Code § 32-21-5-8.5(g): failure to provide any listed document does not limit or prevent enforcement of the governing documents by the homeowners association ↩
8. Ind. Code Art. 32-25, Indiana Condominium Act (official Indiana General Assembly, iga.in.gov) ↩
9. KSN Law Firm, "2026 Legislative Updates for Indiana Community Associations" (a payoff letter typically includes assessment balances, covenant violations, lien status, and financial information requested during a sale or refinance) ↩
10. Ind. Code § 32-25-7-5, Designation; conveyance (authorized officer must provide a statement of current and delinquent assessments within five days) ↩
11. Ind. Code § 32-25-8-15, declarant's written disclosure of a reserved option not to expand an expandable condominium to prospective buyers (Indiana Condominium Act text) ↩
12. Ind. Code § 32-21-5-1, Applicability of chapter; exemptions for court-ordered transfers (estate, foreclosure, bankruptcy, eminent domain, specific performance, divorce, property settlement) and four-dwelling-unit limit ↩
13. Engrossed House Bill 1152 (2026), enacted as Public Law 53, amending IC 32-21-5-8.5(f) to strike the $250 ceiling and provide the HOA "may not charge a fee for the statement" (iga.in.gov) ↩
14. Court of Appeals of Indiana, Opinion 22A-PL-2867 (Oct. 31, 2023), interpreting Indiana's residential real estate sales disclosure regime (courts.in.gov) ↩
15. CAI Advocacy, "2026 Indiana End of Legislative Session Report" (Sen. Aaron Freeman's Amendment #1 to HB1152 to prohibit fees not listed in governing documents) ↩