Free Indiana Residential Lease Agreement

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A configurable Indiana residential lease agreement that generates a signable multi-page PDF. Built to Indiana’s landlord-tenant chapters at IC 32-31 — no deposit cap but a closed list of permitted uses, the 45-day itemized return, and reasonable rather than fixed entry notice.

Indiana IC 32-31 No Deposit Cap Free PDF 2026 Edition

An Indiana residential lease agreement is the written contract governed by the landlord-tenant chapters at IC 32-31. Indiana has no uniform residential landlord and tenant act, which is the first thing that trips up anyone reading a template written for a uniform-act state. What Indiana has instead is a set of separately scoped chapters — security deposits, moving and storage of tenant property, rental agreements and right of access, tenant obligations, landlord obligations, retaliation, crime victims and eviction actions — each with its own start date and its own section voiding a waiver. Three consequences drive this form. There is no deposit cap, but IC 32-31-3-9 defines a deposit widely enough to sweep in prepaid rent and IC 32-31-3-13 limits what the money may be spent on. The deposit deadline is forty-five days, running from termination and delivery of possession, and it does not start at all until the tenant gives a written mailing address. And Indiana’s entry rule is reasonable notice, written or oral — not the twenty-four hours that secondary summaries keep reporting.

Complete the fields below to generate an Indiana residential lease agreement as a signable multi-page PDF. Every field you fill is written into the document, including the utility allocations, the water and sewer billing method, and each disclosure you check, and the generated lease cites the controlling Indiana section at each point. Before handing over keys, run proper tenant screening — the lease governs the relationship, screening decides whether you want it. Pair the signed lease with an Indiana move-in / move-out checklist, because the itemized list IC 32-31-3-14 requires has to rest on documented condition.

Not one act, but nine chapters. IC 32-31-2.9-2 names the “residential landlord-tenant statutes” as IC 32-31-3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 8.5, 9, 10 and 11, and IC 32-31-2.9-3 applies them to rental agreements for dwelling units located in Indiana. There is no Indiana equivalent of the uniform act, and there is no single section listing forbidden lease clauses.

That structure matters in practice because the chapters do not all start on the same day. The security deposit chapter reaches agreements from 1 July 1989 (IC 32-31-3-1.1 preserves earlier ones). The access and essential-services chapter at IC 32-31-5 applies to agreements entered into or renewed after 30 June 1999. The tenant-obligations and landlord-obligations chapters at IC 32-31-7 and IC 32-31-8 apply only to dwelling units let for rent under an agreement entered into after 30 June 2002, and neither applies to a rent-to-own arrangement entered into before 1 July 2008. A lease drafted for Indiana therefore cites the chapter, not an act.

The other structural feature worth knowing before you draft anything: each chapter voids its own waiver. IC 32-31-3-17, IC 32-31-5-1(c), IC 32-31-7-4, IC 32-31-8-4 and IC 32-31-8.5-0.5 all say, in almost identical words, that a waiver by a landlord or tenant, by contract or otherwise, is void. Two of them reach a former tenant. That collection is the closest thing Indiana has to a prohibited-provisions statute, and it is far more effective than a list, because it does not depend on anyone having anticipated the clause.

Indiana recognises the standard range. A fixed-term lease runs for a stated period and, under IC 32-31-1-8(1) and (2), expires on its own terms with no notice required from either side. A tenancy at will is the periodic arrangement, and IC 32-31-1-2 provides that a general tenancy occupied by the express or constructive consent of the landlord is considered a tenancy from month to month. A room or roommate agreement covers a tenant renting one room; IC 32-31-5-3 expressly counts a rooming house unit and a boarding house unit as dwelling units. A sublease passes the tenant’s interest to a subtenant while leaving the original tenant liable, and IC 32-31-1-12 preserves the sublessee’s remedy against the head landlord. A rent-to-own arrangement adds a purchase option, and IC 32-31-3-9(c)(1) keeps an option payment outside the deposit rules unless the intent was to evade them.

Two categories fall outside this form. A commercial lease is not covered by the residential chapters at all, although IC 32-31-1-21 and IC 32-31-1-21.1 — the flood plain and military installation disclosures — do reach commercial property. And a manufactured home community space rental has its own overlay, though IC 32-31-5-3(b)(4) does bring a manufactured home or mobile structure and the space it occupies inside the definition of a dwelling unit for the access and essential-services chapter.

One recording point that most Indiana templates skip: under IC 32-31-2, a lease for a term longer than three years is void against a subsequent purchaser, mortgagee or lessee for valuable consideration unless it is recorded in the county recorder’s office. A five-year residential lease that is never recorded is still good between the parties, and useless against the person who buys the building.

As much as the parties agree — Indiana caps nothing. There is no statutory maximum, no required trust or escrow account, no separate-account rule and no interest obligation. The security deposit chapter, IC 32-31-3, runs from section 1 to section 19, and none of those sections regulates the amount.

That is where nearly every competing page stops, and it is exactly half the picture. Indiana regulates the deposit through its definition instead. IC 32-31-3-9(a) defines a security deposit as money paid to be held for all or part of the term to secure performance of any obligation under the rental agreement, and subsection (b) then expressly includes three things people do not think of as deposits: a required prepayment of rent other than the first full rental payment period; a sum required to be paid as rent in any rental period in excess of the average rent for the term; and any other money or property returnable to the tenant on condition that the unit is returned in the required condition.

The practical effect is large. A landlord who collects first month, last month and a deposit has collected two deposits in the statute’s terms, and both are subject to the itemization and return rules. A lease that front-loads rent — a higher figure for the first three months, tapering afterwards — has created a deposit out of the excess. And a “move-in fee” that the tenant gets back if the unit is returned in good condition is a deposit, whatever the line item calls it. Subsection (c) excludes only two things: an option-to-purchase payment, unless the intent was to evade the chapter, and a payment for a membership in an Indiana cooperative housing association. The deeper treatment lives in our Indiana security deposit laws guide.

One further limit that no ranking page mentions: IC 32-31-3-13.5 provides that a landlord may not require, though may accept, a lien on a motor vehicle owned by the tenant as a security deposit or to secure rent — and to enforce such a lien the landlord must record it under IC 32-33 and comply with the deposit chapter anyway.

Four things, and only four. IC 32-31-3-13 is a closed list. A security deposit may be used only:

• To reimburse the landlord for actual damages to the rental unit or any ancillary facility that are not the result of ordinary wear and tear.
• To pay the landlord all rent in arrearage under the rental agreement, and rent due for premature termination of the agreement by the tenant.
• To pay for the last payment period of a residential rental agreement, but only where a written agreement between the parties stipulates that the deposit will serve as the last payment of rent.
• To reimburse the landlord for utility or sewer charges the landlord paid that were the tenant’s obligation under the agreement and went unpaid.

What is missing from that list is the point. Routine cleaning is not there. Nor is carpet shampooing at a fixed rate, re-letting or advertising cost, an administrative or turnover fee, or a lock-change charge. A landlord who deducts them is deducting outside the statute, and IC 32-31-3-17 means a lease clause purporting to authorise the deduction does not help, because the waiver is void.

Ordinary wear and tear is carved out twice over, which is a useful signal about how Indiana reads these disputes. IC 32-31-3-13(1) excludes it from actual damages, and IC 32-31-7-6 separately requires the tenant only to deliver the premises in a clean and proper condition excepting ordinary wear and tear expected in the normal course of habitation of a dwelling unit. Carpet at the end of its useful life, faded paint and minor nail holes sit on the tenant’s side of that line in most Indiana small claims courts.

Not more than forty-five days — but read the trigger carefully. IC 32-31-3-12(a) requires the landlord to return the deposit less itemized deductions in a written notice delivered not more than forty-five days after termination of the rental agreement and delivery of possession. Both events are needed. A tenant who stops paying and disappears without surrendering possession has not started the clock; a tenant who hands back keys before the term ends has not either.

Two further conditions sit inside the same subsection and get lost in summaries. The landlord is not liable under the chapter at all until the tenant supplies the landlord in writing with a mailing address to which the notice and any amount due may be delivered. And unless otherwise agreed, a tenant is not entitled to apply a security deposit to rent — the common practice of skipping the last month and telling the landlord to use the deposit is a default, not a settlement, unless the lease stipulates it.

IC 32-31-3-14 then adds a second, separately worded duty running not more than forty-five days after the termination of occupancy: the landlord must mail an itemized list of damages claimed setting out the estimated cost of repair for each damaged item and the amounts and lease on which the landlord intends to assess the tenant, and must enclose a cheque or money order for the difference between the damages claimed and the deposit held. A bare number is not an itemization; the statute asks for a per-item estimate. Build it with our Indiana security deposit itemization form, and send the balance with our Indiana security deposit return letter.

The landlord loses the deductions entirely, and pays the tenant’s lawyer. IC 32-31-3-15 is one of the bluntest sentences in Indiana’s landlord-tenant law: failure to provide the notice of damages under IC 32-31-3-14 constitutes agreement by the landlord that no damages are due, and the landlord must remit to the tenant immediately the full security deposit.

IC 32-31-3-16 supplies the money consequence: a landlord who fails to comply with sections 14 and 15 is liable to the tenant for the part of the deposit withheld plus reasonable attorney’s fees and court costs. IC 32-31-3-12(b) says the same thing from the other end — if the landlord fails to comply with the forty-five-day notice, the tenant may recover all of the security deposit due plus reasonable attorney’s fees. Neither remedy depends on proving bad faith, and IC 32-31-3-11 puts the claim on the small claims docket of a circuit, superior, municipal or small claims court, where a tenant can bring it without counsel and still recover the cost of counsel.

One boundary is worth stating: IC 32-31-3-12(c) preserves both parties’ right to recover other damages. A landlord who misses the deadline forfeits the deposit but is not thereby barred from suing separately for damage that exceeds it — a much harder case, and one that starts from a position of having already lost.

Reasonable notice — Indiana fixes no number of hours. IC 32-31-5-6(g) sets three duties and no deadline: the landlord shall not abuse the right of entry or use it to harass a tenant; shall give the tenant reasonable written or oral notice of the intent to enter; and may enter only at reasonable times.

This is the single most misreported figure in Indiana landlord-tenant coverage. Summaries that quote twenty-four hours are importing another state’s rule. Two consequences follow. The notice may be oral, so a phone call is compliant where a letter would be overkill; and because “reasonable” is a standard rather than a number, what satisfies it varies with the reason for entry, the time of day and the pattern of previous entries. The lease this form builds therefore states a contractual promise of at least twenty-four hours for a non-emergency entry, clearly labelled as a promise rather than as a restatement of the statute — which is the honest way to give a tenant certainty the legislature did not.

IC 32-31-5-6(e) puts the matching duty on the tenant, who may not unreasonably withhold consent to entry for inspection, necessary or agreed repairs, decorations, alterations or improvements, necessary or agreed services, or showings to prospective purchasers, mortgagees, tenants, workers or contractors. IC 32-31-5-6(f) permits entry without notice in an emergency threatening the safety of the occupants or the landlord’s property, and without consent under a court order or where the unit has been abandoned or surrendered. Document each visit with an Indiana notice to enter, and see Indiana landlord entry laws for the full standard.

IC 32-31-5-6(c) is unusually specific. Except as authorised by judicial order, a landlord may not deny or interfere with a tenant’s access to or possession of the dwelling unit by commission of any act, and the statute names four: changing the locks or adding a device to exclude the tenant; removing the doors, windows, fixtures or appliances; interrupting, reducing, shutting off or causing the termination of electricity, gas, water or other essential services; and, by the breadth of the opening words, anything else with the same effect. Service may be interrupted only for an emergency, good faith repairs or necessary construction, and the subsection does not force a landlord to pay for a service the lease never made the landlord’s responsibility.

Two companions round it out. IC 32-31-5-5 forbids the landlord from taking possession of, removing, denying access to, or disposing of the tenant’s personal property in order to enforce an obligation — there is no common-law landlord’s lien to fall back on — while permitting the parties to agree, in a writing separate from the rental agreement, that the landlord holds property voluntarily tendered as security in exchange for forbearance from eviction. And IC 32-31-5-6(d) runs the other way: a tenant may not shut off electricity, gas, water or other essential services where doing so will cause serious damage to the unit.

The route that is available is an ejectment action under IC 32-30-2-1, brought by a person with a valid subsisting interest in the property and a right to possession against the tenant in possession. IC 32-31-10 layers residential eviction procedure on top, including a duty on the plaintiff to move to dismiss where the case settles before final adjudication unless damages, including retention of the deposit, are still in issue. Our Indiana eviction notice laws guide covers the sequence.

Ten days for unpaid rent, and a reasonable time for anything else. IC 32-31-1-6 provides that if a tenant refuses or neglects to pay rent when due, the landlord may terminate the lease with not less than ten days notice to the tenant — unless the parties otherwise agreed, or the tenant pays the rent in full before the notice period expires.

The escape clause is the part every ranking page leaves out. “Unless the parties otherwise agreed” means the written lease can set a different period, longer or shorter, and the statutory ten days is the default rather than a floor. It also means a landlord who wants the statutory period should not accidentally contract out of it with a boilerplate default clause imported from elsewhere. IC 32-31-1-7 supplies the statutory form of the notice, and our Indiana ten-day notice to pay rent or quit follows it.

For a breach that is not nonpayment, Indiana sets no fixed cure period at all. IC 32-31-7-7(b) instead makes notice and a reasonable amount of time to remedy a precondition to the landlord’s action; where the noncompliance caused physical damage the landlord has already repaired, subsection (c) requires the notice to specify the repairs made and document the cost. Subsection (d) removes the notice requirement once the tenant’s occupancy has terminated. Use our Indiana notice to cure or quit and, where the breach is not curable, the Indiana unconditional quit notice.

Service is governed by IC 32-31-1-9 and has a defined fallback ladder: serve the tenant; if the tenant cannot be found, serve a person residing at the premises and explain the contents of the notice to them; and if no such person is found on the premises, affix a copy to a conspicuous part of the premises. The explanation step is a real requirement, not a courtesy.

Indiana measures periodic notice in months, not days. IC 32-31-1-1(a) provides that a tenancy at will may be determined by a one month notice in writing delivered to the tenant, and subsection (b) adds that a tenancy at will cannot arise without an express contract. IC 32-31-1-2 makes a general tenancy occupied by the landlord’s express or constructive consent a tenancy from month to month. A tenancy from year to year may be determined by notice given not less than three months before the expiration of the year (IC 32-31-1-3), and IC 32-31-1-5 supplies the form of that notice. For a tenancy of not more than three months that extends from one period to another by agreement, notice equal to the interval between the periods is sufficient (IC 32-31-1-4).

“One month” and “thirty days” are not interchangeable, and the ranking pages that print thirty days while citing IC 32-31-1-1 are quoting a section that says something else. In a thirty-one day month the difference is a day of rent and, in a contested case, the validity of the notice. Serve the notice with our Indiana notice of non-renewal on the landlord’s side or the Indiana tenant notice to vacate on the tenant’s, and see Indiana lease termination laws.

IC 32-31-1-8 then lists six situations in which no notice is required at all: where the landlord agreed to rent for a specified period of time; where the time for determination of the tenancy is specified in the contract; where a tenant at will commits waste; where the tenant is a tenant at sufferance; where the express terms of the contract require rent in advance and the tenant refuses or neglects to pay in advance; and where the landlord-tenant relationship does not exist. The first two are why a fixed-term Indiana lease simply expires. Our Indiana breaking-lease laws guide covers the tenant’s side.

A tenant who is a protected individual under IC 32-31-9 has a separate route out. IC 32-31-9-12 allows termination on at least thirty days written notice enclosing a qualifying protective or no-contact order and, for domestic violence or sexual assault, a relocation safety plan dated within thirty days and provided by an accredited programme. Rent is prorated to the effective date and no other early-termination charge is owed, and IC 32-31-9-8 forbids refusing to rent to, or retaliating against, anyone for being a protected individual or for having used that right.

Only if the lease says so, and then only with notice. Indiana has no rent control, no rent stabilisation and no rent-increase notice statute. What it has is IC 32-31-5-4: unless otherwise provided by a written rental agreement, a landlord shall give the tenant at least thirty days written notice before modifying the rental agreement. That is a general modification rule, and a rent change is a modification.

The deepest ranking page states that an Indiana landlord must wait until the end of the term to raise rent and give between thirty and ninety days notice depending on lease type. No Indiana statute says either thing. In fact IC 32-31-8.5-5(b)(2) points the other way: it expressly permits a landlord to increase rent to comparable market rates, and says so whether the increase takes effect at the conclusion of the term or during the term where the rental agreement provides for it. Serve any increase with our Indiana rent increase notice, and see Indiana rent increase laws for the interaction with retaliation.

Late fees follow the same pattern: no cap, no statutory grace period, and a strong preemption rule behind it. IC 32-31-1-20 bars a unit of local government from regulating rental rates, tenant screening, security deposits, lease applications, leasing terms and conditions, disclosures, the rights of the parties, or any fees charged by a landlord, and declares any ordinance that does void and unenforceable. That is why an Indianapolis or Fort Wayne ordinance cannot supply the ceiling the state legislature declined to write. Our Indiana late fee laws guide covers what “reasonable” has meant in practice.

IC 32-31-8-5 sets four landlord duties. The landlord must deliver the premises in compliance with the rental agreement and in a safe, clean and habitable condition; comply with all health and housing codes applicable to the premises; make all reasonable efforts to keep common areas clean and proper; and provide and maintain in good and safe working condition — if provided on the premises at the time the rental agreement is entered into — the electrical systems, plumbing systems sufficient to accommodate a reasonable supply of hot and cold running water at all times, sanitary systems, heating, ventilating and air conditioning systems with a heating system sufficient to adequately supply heat at all times, elevators where provided, and appliances supplied as an inducement to the agreement.

That qualifying clause is the one to read twice. Indiana attaches the duty to what the landlord supplied, not to an abstract list. There is no free-standing obligation to install air conditioning in a unit that never had it; where a cooling system is supplied, it must be kept in good and safe working condition like anything else. Listing supplied systems and appliances in the lease is therefore not paperwork — it is the boundary of the duty. See Indiana habitability laws.

IC 32-31-7-5 sets six tenant duties: comply with code obligations imposed primarily on tenants; keep the occupied areas reasonably clean; use the electrical, plumbing, sanitary, heating, ventilating and air conditioning systems, elevators, facilities and appliances in a reasonable manner; refrain from defacing, damaging, destroying, impairing or removing any part of the premises; comply with reasonable rules in existence when the agreement was entered into and with amended rules as the agreement provides; and keep every smoke detector functional and not disabled, replacing batteries as necessary and notifying the landlord about a hard-wired unit under IC 22-11-18-3.5(e)(2).

Sue — but not withhold. Indiana has no rent-withholding statute and no repair-and-deduct remedy. IC 32-31-8-6 supplies the route, and it is conditional. A tenant may bring an action only after (1) giving the landlord notice of the noncompliance, (2) giving the landlord a reasonable amount of time to repair or remedy while not preventing access to do so, and (3) the landlord failing or refusing.

Where those conditions are met the remedy is substantial. A prevailing tenant may recover actual and consequential damages, attorney’s fees and court costs, injunctive relief, and any other remedy appropriate in the circumstances. Subsection (e) fixes when the meter starts: the landlord’s liability for damages begins when the landlord has notice or actual knowledge of the noncompliance and has either refused to remedy it or failed to remedy it within a reasonable time, whichever occurs first.

The landlord’s mirror image sits at IC 32-31-7-7. Notice and a reasonable time to remedy are equally a precondition to the landlord’s action, no notice is needed once occupancy has ended, and a prevailing landlord recovers actual damages, attorney’s fees and court costs, injunctive relief and any other appropriate remedy. Indiana therefore does by statute what other states argue about in lease clauses — and because IC 32-31-7-4 and IC 32-31-8-4 void a waiver of either chapter, no lease can undo it.

Not really — Indiana already awards fees by statute, on both sides. There is no Indiana prohibition on a lease fee clause, which distinguishes Indiana from states that ban one outright, and no single non-waivable prevailing-party section either. Instead the entitlement is spread across the chapters:

• Prevailing tenant, habitability: actual and consequential damages plus attorney’s fees and court costs — IC 32-31-8-6(d)(1)(B).
• Prevailing landlord, tenant obligations: actual damages plus attorney’s fees and court costs — IC 32-31-7-7(f)(1)(B).
• Tenant, security deposit: the deposit due plus reasonable attorney’s fees — IC 32-31-3-12(b), and the withheld amount plus reasonable attorney’s fees and court costs — IC 32-31-3-16.

Because a waiver of IC 32-31-3, IC 32-31-7 and IC 32-31-8 is void, a lease clause cannot subtract from any of those. It can, however, extend fee-shifting to disputes the statutes do not cover — and the defensible version is reciprocal, running to whichever party prevails, which is also what the statutes themselves produce. That is the only version the optional clause in the form above generates.

Five under state law, plus one federal. Two are procedural, two are hazard-and-location notices with narrow triggers, and one only bites if the landlord resells a utility.

Manager and owner’s agent identification — IC 32-31-3-18(a). At or before the commencement of the rental agreement, in writing, the landlord must furnish the names and addresses of a person residing in Indiana authorized to manage the dwelling unit, and of a person residing in Indiana reasonably accessible to the tenant and authorized to act as agent for the owner for service of process and for receiving and receipting for notices and demands. One person may fill both roles. The consequences of omission are real: under subsection (c) the person who failed to comply becomes the agent of every landlord for service of process and for performing the landlord’s obligations, and under subsection (d) the tenant is allowed any expenses reasonably incurred in discovering the required names and addresses. Subsection (b) makes it enforceable against any successor landlord, owner or manager.

Written smoke detector acknowledgement — IC 32-31-5-7(a). At the time the landlord delivers the unit, the landlord must require the tenant to acknowledge in writing that the unit is equipped with a functional smoke detector. Subsection (b) forbids either party from waiving the requirements of IC 22-11-18-3.5, which puts installation on the owner, manager or rental agent, requires replacement or repair within seven working days of written notification, and requires the occupant to test the detector at least once every six months. This is a positive duty on the landlord to obtain a signature, not merely a duty to install.

Flood plain notice — IC 32-31-1-21. For rental agreements entered into or renewed after 30 June 2009, if the lowest floor of the structure — including a basement — is at or below the one hundred year frequency flood elevation as determined by the Department of Natural Resources, FEMA’s Flood Insurance Rate Maps or FEMA-approved local maps, the landlord must clearly disclose in the rental agreement that the structure is located in a flood plain.

Military installation proximity notice — IC 32-31-1-21.1. The newest of the set and the one no ranking page carries. For leases entered into or renewed after 30 June 2023, of property assessed as residential or commercial land or used for educational, literary, scientific, religious or charitable purposes by an exempt nonprofit, the lessor must disclose in the lease that the property is located near a military installation within a state area of interest and may be affected by the installation’s operations, and that local laws may restrict use and development to promote compatibility with those operations.

Water and sewer sub-billing notice — IC 8-1-2-1.2. Triggered where the landlord buys water or sewage disposal service from a utility and bills tenants separately for it. The disclosure may sit in the lease, in the tenant’s first bill, or in a separate signed writing, and its content is prescribed: a description of the services, an itemized statement of the permitted fees, and a statutory sentence telling the tenant of the right to file a complaint with the Indiana Utility Regulatory Commission, with the Commission’s telephone number. It must be printed in a font no smaller than the largest font used anywhere else in that document. The permitted charges are a reasonable initial set-up fee, a reasonable administrative fee of no more than four dollars a month, and a reasonable returned-instrument fee, and the total billed may not exceed what the landlord paid the utility less the landlord’s own use.

Lead-based paint — federal, 42 U.S.C. 4852d. Any dwelling built before 1978 requires the federal disclosure, the EPA pamphlet, and any known records or reports. Our Indiana lead-based paint disclosure form handles it.

Indiana does not require a radon, carbon monoxide, bed bug, mold, asbestos, methamphetamine, ordnance-proximity, demolition or sex-offender registry disclosure in a residential lease, and it requires neither a deposit receipt nor interest on the deposit. Each comes from another state’s statute book. A ranking template page that groups Indiana’s smoke detector rule into a “carbon monoxide and smoke detector” addendum has quietly added a requirement Indiana does not impose.

Yes, since IC 32-31-8.5 — but the exceptions are as important as the rule. IC 32-31-8.5-2 lists five protected activities: complaining to a governmental entity responsible for enforcing a building or housing code about a violation materially affecting health or safety; complaining to the landlord in writing about a violation of IC 32-31-5-6 or IC 32-31-8-5; bringing an action against the landlord under IC 32-31-6 or IC 32-31-8; organizing or becoming a member of a tenant’s organization; and testifying in a court proceeding or administrative hearing against the landlord.

IC 32-31-8.5-4 lists four retaliatory acts: increasing rent; decreasing, terminating or interfering with services; bringing or threatening an action for possession; and bringing or threatening an action to evict or otherwise terminate the agreement before the end of the term. IC 32-31-8.5-5(a) prohibits them where they respond to a protected activity.

Then come the carve-outs. Subsection (b) says a landlord may still decline to renew at the conclusion of the term, increase rent to comparable market rates, and decrease or terminate services where that is done to all tenants on an equal basis. Subsection (c) adds seven circumstances in which a possession action is permitted anyway: where the code violation was caused primarily by the tenant, an authorized occupant or a guest; where the tenant is in rent default and has not cured within IC 32-31-1-6 or the lease period; where code compliance requires alteration, remodelling or demolition that would deprive the tenant of use; where the tenant’s noncompliance materially affects health or safety; where a fixed-term tenant holds over; where the action was brought in good faith before the protected activity; and where the landlord seeks in good faith to occupy the property personally, to remodel or demolish in a way requiring complete displacement, or to take the property off the rental market for at least six months.

Two things Indiana does not do are worth naming, because coverage often assumes otherwise. There is no presumption of retaliation from timing — nothing shifts the burden because the notice arrived shortly after the complaint. And chapter 8.5 carries no damages section of its own; the remedy runs through the underlying chapter, most often IC 32-31-8-6. A waiver of the chapter, including by a former tenant, is void (IC 32-31-8.5-0.5), and IC 32-31-8.5-6 bars local units from legislating on the subject.

Indiana’s abandonment rules are notable for what the lease is not allowed to do. IC 32-31-5-6(b) defines an abandoned dwelling unit — the tenants have failed to pay or offer to pay rent, and the circumstances are such that a reasonable person would conclude they have surrendered possession — and then says in terms that an oral or written rental agreement may not define abandonment differently. IC 32-31-4-2(b) and (c) do the same for personal property. A clause deeming a unit abandoned after seven days of non-occupancy, common in imported templates, is void in Indiana.

The process is court-driven rather than self-help. Under IC 32-31-4-2(d) a landlord awarded possession under IC 32-30-2 may seek an order allowing removal of the tenant’s property; if the tenant does not remove it by the date in the order, the landlord may deliver it to a warehouseman or a court-approved storage facility, but only after personally serving the tenant, at the tenant’s last known address, with both the removal order and the identity and location of the facility (IC 32-31-4-3(a)).

Exempt property is carved out entirely. IC 32-31-4-1 defines it as property that is medically necessary, used by the tenant in a trade or business, or consists of a week’s supply of seasonably necessary clothing, blankets, or items necessary for the care and schooling of a minor child. IC 32-31-4-3(b) requires the warehouseman or storage facility to release exempt property to its owner on demand and without payment, and subsection (c) makes a waiver of that right void. Non-exempt property is subject to the facility’s lien for storage, transport, insurance, labour and preservation, and may be sold if unclaimed for forty-five days after notice.

A separate and easily missed rule covers a tenant who dies or becomes incapacitated: IC 32-31-1-23 requires the landlord to notify the tenant’s representative, give access to remove property, and pay over the deposit and unearned rent, with a defined priority list of who may serve as that representative.

• Treating last month’s rent as rent. IC 32-31-3-9(b) makes a required prepayment beyond the first full rental period a security deposit, with every deposit rule attached.
• Deducting cleaning from the deposit. IC 32-31-3-13 is a closed list of four uses and cleaning is not one of them, however the lease describes it.
• Counting the forty-five days from move-out. IC 32-31-3-12 needs termination and delivery of possession, and IC 32-31-3-14 runs from termination of occupancy.
• Sending a total instead of an itemization. IC 32-31-3-14 requires an estimated cost of repair for each damaged item, plus a cheque for the balance.
• Missing the notice of damages. IC 32-31-3-15 turns that into an agreement that no damages are due, and IC 32-31-3-16 adds the tenant’s fees and costs.
• Naming an out-of-state manager or agent. IC 32-31-3-18(a) requires both to reside in Indiana, and omission makes the non-discloser the agent for service and for the landlord’s obligations.
• Skipping the smoke detector signature. IC 32-31-5-7(a) obliges the landlord to obtain a written acknowledgement, and neither party may waive it.
• Writing a twenty-four hour entry rule as if it were the statute. IC 32-31-5-6(g) requires reasonable written or oral notice; a fixed period is a contractual promise, not Indiana law.
• Defining abandonment in the lease. IC 32-31-5-6(b) and IC 32-31-4-2(c) forbid it in terms, so the clause is void.
• Serving thirty days to end a month-to-month tenancy. IC 32-31-1-1 says one month in writing, and a month is not thirty days in a thirty-one day month.
• Ending a year-to-year tenancy on short notice. IC 32-31-1-3 requires not less than three months before the year expires.
• Assuming ten days is fixed for unpaid rent. IC 32-31-1-6 says not less than ten days unless the parties otherwise agreed, so check what the lease already says.
• Omitting the military installation disclosure. IC 32-31-1-21.1 has applied to leases entered into or renewed since 30 June 2023 and appears on almost no template.
• Reselling water without the prescribed notice. IC 8-1-2-1.2 sets the font size, the itemized fee statement, the administrative fee ceiling and the Indiana Utility Regulatory Commission sentence.
• Charging an administrative fee above the ceiling. IC 8-1-2-1.2(l)(4)(B) caps it at four dollars a month for sub-billed water and sewer.
• Relying on a local ordinance. IC 32-31-1-20 voids local regulation of rent, screening, deposits, lease terms, disclosures and landlord fees.

A well-drafted lease decides who wins a dispute; screening decides whether there is one. Indiana’s deposit rules put the landlord’s own compliance under scrutiny before the tenant’s conduct is ever reached, and its two fee-shifting sections mean an ordinary deposit argument can end with the landlord paying the tenant’s lawyer. Verifiable income, a clean payment history, and no prior eviction filings remain the strongest predictors of a quiet tenancy — and IC 32-31-1-20 confirms that no Indiana city may restrict how you screen. Our tenant screening report covers credit, eviction filings, criminal background, and employment verification, and Indiana tenant screening laws covers the rules. Screen first, then paper the tenancy with this lease.

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