Case:

In Sawlani V Lake County Assessor, the petitioner claimed that Indiana law wasn't specific about how much land could be claimed as "homestead" under the 1% rule.  They owned nearly four acres and requested the extra three acres to be homestead, which incurs a 1% tax rate. Property Tax Laws use the term "curtilage" which is non-specific, but had always been interpreted as being one acre at most.  After being denied at the local, PTABOA and IBTR levels, the petitioner won at the Indiana Tax Court under the premise that the Assessor has to judge how each person uses their land.  This new interpretation would create inconsistency and be next to impossible to implement. The Impact of this ruling can hardly be understated, essentially, all land in the state that had previously been assessed above the one-acre rule would need to be reassessed from 3% to 1 % resulting in millions of lost tax revenue to local governments. 

 

Outcome:

The Lake County Assessor Latonya Spearman pressed the matter

onward to the Indiana Supreme Court. The case was well presented

by our own Kate Engle as part of the Lake County legal team.

Indiana Assessors can stick with the one-acre rule.

While this is the outcome that Lake County Assessor Spearman and

Nexus LTD were pursuing, we hope Indiana legislators will clarify

the wording from curtilage to one acre at most.  

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