How long does an Indiana landlord have to return a security deposit?

Forty-five days after termination of the rental agreement and delivery of possession, but under Indiana Code 32-31-3-12(a) the landlord is not liable under the chapter at all until the tenant supplies the landlord in writing with a mailing address to which to deliver the notice and amount. Without that written address the forty-five day clock never starts.

Indiana · Landlord Forms

Free Indiana Landlord Forms

Every Indiana landlord form we publish, organised by the stage of the tenancy it belongs to, each one paired with the Indiana Code section and the deadline that triggers it — for a code that is unusually favourable to landlords, mostly because of what it leaves out.

Every form linked on this page is free, fillable in your browser, and downloadable as a PDF with no account, no membership and no paywall. Indiana landlord law sits in Indiana Code Title 32, Article 31, and reading it is largely an exercise in noticing absences: no security deposit cap, no grace period, no late-fee cap, no fixed entry notice period, and no day count at all for curing a lease breach. What Indiana does supply, it supplies firmly — including one rule that can stop a tenant’s deposit claim before it begins.

The short version

Nonpayment of rent — ten days, IC 32-31-1-6. A single period: the tenant has ten days to pay or vacate.
Other lease breaches — no day count at all. The statute requires written notice and “a reasonable amount of time to remedy”.
Six situations need no notice whatsoever, including a lease for a specified period and a tenant at sufferance.
Month-to-month termination — one month in writing, either side.
Entry — “reasonable written or oral notice”. There is no hour figure, and oral notice is sufficient.
Security deposit — no cap, forty-five days to account — but the clock never starts until the tenant gives a written mailing address.
Since July 2025 Indiana courts seal qualifying eviction records automatically rather than on the tenant’s motion.

10 daysPay-or-quit

ReasonableEntry notice, oral allowed

45 daysDeposit accounting

1 monthMonth-to-month notice

The Forwarding-Address Rule

Indiana’s deposit section contains a sentence that changes the whole shape of a move-out dispute, and it sits at the end of IC 32-31-3-12(a):

“The landlord is not liable under this chapter until the tenant supplies the landlord in writing with a mailing address to which to deliver the notice and amount.” Read that carefully. It is not merely that the landlord may post to the last known address — it is that the forty-five day clock and the landlord’s liability never start at all until a written address arrives. A tenant who moves out and never puts an address in writing has no claim to bring, however long the landlord holds the money.

Two practical consequences follow. For a landlord, the date to diary is not the move-out date but the date the written address is received. For a tenant, the written address is the single most important thing they can do — and it is the step most often skipped. Our Indiana security deposit laws guide sets out the sequence.

Every Indiana Landlord Form, by Stage of the Tenancy

Alphabetical form lists are the least useful arrangement, because a landlord arrives knowing what has happened, not what the document is called. The index below is ordered by where you are in the tenancy.

STAGE 1

Starting the tenancy

Indiana residential lease agreement — the master document, and it carries more weight in Indiana than almost anywhere. With no statutory grace period, no late-fee cap, no deposit cap and no fixed cure period, the lease is the only source of all four.
Lead-based paint form — required by federal law, not Indiana law, for any dwelling built before 1978.
Move-in / move-out condition checklist — not required by statute, and worth more here than in most states, because IC 32-31-3-14 requires an itemised list of damages, the cost of repair and the estimated repair cost.

STAGE 2

During the tenancy

Notice to enter the property — IC 32-31-5-6 requires only “reasonable written or oral notice”. Written notice is better evidence, but the statute does not demand it.
Rent increase notice — Indiana has no rent control, and local units are barred from creating any. For a month-to-month tenancy the operative constraint is the one-month termination period.
Late rent notice — a courtesy reminder. Indiana sets no grace period, so any late fee comes from the lease alone.
Month-to-Month Rental Agreement
Roommate Agreement
Sublease Agreement

STAGE 3

When the tenant breaches

Ten-day notice to pay rent or quit — IC 32-31-1-6, with the statutory form at IC 32-31-1-7. The tenant may pay in full before the period expires, and the parties may have agreed otherwise.
Notice to cure or quit — IC 32-31-7-7 requires written notice of the noncompliance and a reasonable time to remedy. Choose a period and justify it; the statute supplies none.
Unconditional quit notice — for the IC 32-31-1-8 situations where no notice is required at all, described below.

STAGE 4

Ending the tenancy without fault

Notice of non-renewal — used when a fixed term is ending. Note that a lease for a specified period needs no notice at all under IC 32-31-1-8.
Tenant notice to vacate — the tenant’s side. The statute is party-neutral: one month either way.

STAGE 5

After the tenant moves out

Security deposit itemisation — IC 32-31-3-14, the itemised list of damages, cost of repair and estimated repair cost.
Security deposit return letter — the covering document, sent once the written mailing address has arrived.

Notice Periods: One Number, No Number, and No Notice

Indiana’s notice structure is unusually simple, and the simplicity is the point.

Situation	Notice	Authority
Nonpayment of rent	10 days — a single period; the vacate date and the cure deadline are the same day	IC 32-31-1-6, form at -7
Any other noncompliance	No day count. Written notice plus “a reasonable amount of time to remedy”	IC 32-31-7-7
Month-to-month	1 month, written, either party	IC 32-31-1-1, -2
Short periodic tenancy (3 months or less)	Notice equal to the interval between periods — so one week for week-to-week	IC 32-31-1-4(b)
Year-to-year	3 months before the year expires	IC 32-31-1-3, form at -5

Six situations need no notice at all. Under IC 32-31-1-8 no notice is required where: the lease is for a specified period; the time of determination is fixed in the contract; a tenant at will commits waste; the occupant is a tenant at sufferance; the contract requires rent in advance and the tenant refuses or neglects to pay in advance; or no landlord-tenant relationship exists. The first of those is the one most often missed — a fixed-term lease that has simply run its course does not require a notice to quit in Indiana.

On the cure period, be precise about what the absence means. IC 32-31-7-7 requires the landlord to give written notice of the noncompliance and a reasonable time to remedy before suing, and does not require it where the tenancy has already been terminated. Any page publishing a specific “X-day Indiana cure notice” figure is inventing it. The practical approach is to pick a period proportionate to the breach — longer for something requiring a contractor, shorter for removing an unauthorised pet — and to be able to explain why it was reasonable. Our Indiana eviction notice laws guide works through the sequence.

Entry: Oral Notice Is Enough

Indiana is one of the few states where the entry rule is genuinely permissive. IC 32-31-5-6(g) requires the landlord to give the tenant “reasonable written or oral notice” of the intent to enter, and to enter only at reasonable times. There is no hour figure, no prescribed contents, and no requirement that the notice be in writing at all.

Do not publish or rely on a twenty-four-hour Indiana entry rule. No such figure exists in the Code. What exists is a reasonableness standard, and reasonableness is contextual: a day’s notice for a routine viewing is plainly reasonable, an hour’s notice for a plumber the tenant asked for probably is too, and repeated short-notice visits may not be however brief each one seems. Subsection (f) permits entry without notice in an emergency threatening the safety of occupants or the landlord’s property, by court order, and where the tenant has abandoned or surrendered the unit.

Because the standard is soft, the sensible practice is to write the notice period into the lease and then honour it. See our Indiana landlord entry laws guide.

Security Deposits: No Cap, Forty-Five Days, and a Hard Consequence

Indiana sets no maximum on a residential security deposit and requires no interest, no escrow and no separate account. What it regulates is the accounting.

Under IC 32-31-3-12(a) the landlord has forty-five days after the termination of the rental agreement and delivery of possession to deliver an itemised notice and the amount due — but only once the tenant has supplied a written mailing address, as described above. Under IC 32-31-3-14 the landlord must mail an itemised list of damages, the cost of repair, and the estimated repair cost.

The penalty for skipping the notice is total. IC 32-31-3-15 provides that failure to give the itemised notice “constitutes agreement by the landlord that no damages are due, and the landlord must remit to the tenant immediately the full security deposit.” It is not a multiplier and not a discretionary sanction — it is a deemed admission that nothing was owed. On top of that, IC 32-31-3-16 lets the tenant recover the withheld part plus reasonable attorney’s fees and court costs. So the two halves of Indiana’s deposit law point in opposite directions: no written address means no claim at all, but no itemised notice means the whole deposit goes back.

What Indiana Does Not Regulate

Being clear about the gaps is more useful here than in most states, because Indiana’s gaps are wide and other pages tend to fill them with figures borrowed from elsewhere.

No grace period and no late-fee cap. Both are silent in IC 32-31. A late fee is enforceable only because the lease creates it.
No security deposit cap.
No deposit interest, escrow or separate-account requirement.
No fixed entry notice period.
No statutory cure period for a non-rent breach.
No add-days-for-mailing rule. IC 32-31-1-9 sets out three service methods and adds no postal days.

One widely published Indiana figure is wrong. A number of landlord sites state a twenty-five dollar cap on returned-cheque fees for Indiana landlords, sometimes citing a consumer-credit section. That provision sits in the rent-to-own of personal property chapter and expressly does not govern real-estate leases. There is no statutory NSF cap for Indiana residential landlords. A returned-payment charge, like a late fee, comes from the lease.

Serving an Indiana Notice

Section IC 32-31-1-9 sets out three methods, in order of preference:

On the tenant personally.
If the tenant cannot be found, on a resident of the premises — and note the unusual additional duty: the person serving the notice must explain the contents of the notice to the person being served. That is a substantive step, not a formality.
If no resident is present, by affixing a copy to a conspicuous part of the premises.

There is no add-days-for-mailing rule, and no mailing method is prescribed at all. Because the statute contemplates personal service first and posting only as a fallback, a landlord who begins with posting has skipped two steps.

Court, Costs and Local Preemption

An Indiana eviction is heard on the small claims docket of the circuit or superior court, or in Marion County’s township small claims courts. The jurisdictional limit is ten thousand dollars under IC 33-29-2-4 and IC 33-28-3-4, and it covers landlord-tenant possessory actions where the rent due at filing does not exceed that figure.

Marion County is ten thousand dollars too. You will find sources stating an eight-thousand-dollar limit for Marion County citing IC 33-34-3-2. The section reads ten thousand. The lower figure is superseded.

The statutory filing cost is a thirty-five dollar small claims costs fee plus a ten dollar service fee per named non-garnishee defendant, the latter not charged when filed through the e-filing system, under IC 33-37-4-6. What a county actually collects is higher once local components are added, and we have deliberately not published a county total we could not verify.

Indiana also has no statewide numbered eviction form. Counties publish their own — a Notice of Claim, a Notice of Claim for Immediate Possession, a Landlord Affidavit for Immediate Possession — so ask the clerk for the local set rather than searching for a state form code.

Local preemption

One structural point worth knowing if you operate across Indiana cities: under IC 32-31-1-20, local units may not regulate rental rates by zoning ordinance or otherwise, nor regulate specified aspects of the landlord-tenant relationship including tenant screening, unless authorised by an act of the General Assembly. There is an exception for property receiving government funds for reduced rents to low and moderate income tenants. In practice this means the rules on this page are the rules statewide.

What Changed in 2025

Senate Enrolled Act 142, in force since 1 July 2025, overhauled eviction-record expungement at IC 32-31-11-3. The change is procedural but consequential:

The court shall order sealing automatically in qualifying cases — a dismissal, a judgment for the tenant, or a reversal on appeal — rather than waiting for the tenant to move for it.
Expungement is also available where a money judgment against the tenant has been satisfied, or where a non-money judgment is at least seven years old.

For a landlord, the practical effect is on screening rather than on evicting: an Indiana applicant’s record may legitimately show nothing where a case was dismissed or decided in their favour. That is a reason to rely on a proper screening report rather than on a courthouse search. Nothing else in IC 32-31 changed in 2025, and no 2026 amendment was enacted — two bills touching landlord-tenant matters were introduced in the 2026 session and both went inactive.

Which Indiana Form Do I Need?

The tenant has not paid rent. Ten-day notice under IC 32-31-1-6, using the statutory form at -7.
The tenant has breached in some other way. Written notice plus a reasonable time to remedy. Choose the period deliberately and be able to justify it.
The fixed term has simply expired. No notice is required under IC 32-31-1-8.
The occupant is a tenant at sufferance, or there is no landlord-tenant relationship. Again, no notice required.
Nobody is at fault and the tenancy should end. One month for month-to-month; the rent interval for a tenancy of three months or less; three months for year-to-year.
You need to get into the property. Reasonable notice, written or oral, at a reasonable time.
The tenant has moved out. Wait for the written mailing address, then forty-five days to send the itemised notice and any balance.
The tenant never gave an address. Your liability has not started — but keep the money and the itemisation ready.

How to Fill Out an Indiana Ten-Day Notice

Check the lease first. IC 32-31-1-6 applies “unless the parties otherwise agreed”, so a longer contractual period binds you.
Use the statutory form at IC 32-31-1-7 as your model — it is the safest wording available.
Name every tenant and identify the premises exactly as the lease does.
State the rent owed as a figure and the period it covers.
Give ten days and state the end date. Remember the tenant defeats the notice by paying in full before it expires.
Serve it in the statutory order — the tenant first, then a resident of the premises with an explanation of the contents, then posting.
Do not add days for mailing. There is no such rule, and no mailing method is prescribed.
Date it, sign it and record how and when it was served.

What Happens If the Form Is Wrong

The distinctively Indiana error is not a short period — it is serving a notice that was never required, or serving in the wrong order. Neither is fatal, but both waste time: a landlord who serves a month’s notice on an expired fixed term has given away a month for nothing.

The costly error is on the deposit. Failing to send the itemised notice within forty-five days of receiving the written address is treated as an agreement that no damages are due, and the full deposit must be remitted immediately, with the tenant’s attorney’s fees on top. Because Indiana caps neither the deposit nor the fee exposure, that is the single largest downside risk on this page.

What This Page Does Not Have

We would rather scope this honestly than promise documents we do not host. Indiana landlords also commonly want a rental application, a sublease or assignment agreement, a rent receipt, and an abandoned-property notice. Those are not yet published as Indiana-specific forms.

A sourcing note we think you are entitled to. Indiana’s official legislature site serves a JavaScript application rather than statutory text to automated retrieval, and its statute PDFs behave the same way, so the figures on this page rest on two independent commercial publishers rather than on the state’s own text. They agree with each other on every load-bearing number. We have flagged it because we have seen a major publisher serve repealed text for another state in the same week, and we would rather tell you where our verification stops. Confirm anything decisive against the printed Indiana Code or with counsel.

Common Indiana Landlord Form Mistakes

Publishing or relying on a twenty-four-hour entry rule. Indiana requires only reasonable notice, and allows it orally.
Using a fixed “X-day” cure notice. There is no statutory figure; the test is reasonableness.
Serving a notice to quit on an expired fixed term. None is required.
Starting with posting. The statute puts personal service first and posting third.
Skipping the explanation when serving a resident of the premises rather than the tenant.
Starting the forty-five day deposit clock at move-out. It starts when the written mailing address arrives.
Missing the itemised notice. That is deemed an agreement that no damages are due.
Charging a twenty-five dollar returned-cheque fee as a statutory entitlement. No such cap governs Indiana landlords.
Assuming Marion County small claims is capped at eight thousand dollars. It is ten.

Free Fillable Forms Versus the Paid Indiana Form Sites

The Indiana results are led by a subscription forms hub with packages, an FAQ and a glossary, followed by the usual membership-walled association directory listing about a dozen Indiana form titles with no Indiana law on the page. The best-organised free index groups forms by stage but carries no explanatory law at all.

On Indiana specifically, the law half matters more than usual, because so many of the numbers a landlord expects to find simply do not exist. A page that supplies them anyway is not being helpful; it is guessing.

Every form linked from this page is free, fills in the browser, and downloads as a finished PDF. There is no account, no trial, and no upsell attached to the documents themselves. What we ask in return is straightforward: if you are about to hand keys to someone, run the screening first, because nearly every dispute described on this page is cheaper to prevent than to litigate.

Indiana Landlord Forms: FAQ

How many days is an Indiana notice to pay rent or quit?

Ten days under IC 32-31-1-6, with the statutory form at IC 32-31-1-7. It is a single period — the vacate date and the cure deadline are the same day. The tenant defeats it by paying in full before it expires, and the rule applies unless the parties agreed otherwise.

What is the Indiana cure period for a lease violation?

There is no day count. IC 32-31-7-7 requires written notice of the noncompliance and “a reasonable amount of time to remedy” before suing. Any published fixed-day Indiana cure figure is invented; choose a period proportionate to the breach and be able to justify it.

When does an Indiana landlord need no notice at all?

Under IC 32-31-1-8, in six situations: a lease for a specified period; a time of determination fixed in the contract; a tenant at will who commits waste; a tenant at sufferance; a contract requiring rent in advance where the tenant refuses or neglects to pay in advance; and where no landlord-tenant relationship exists.

How much notice must an Indiana landlord give before entering?

Only “reasonable written or oral notice” of the intent to enter, with entry at reasonable times, under IC 32-31-5-6(g). There is no hour figure in Indiana law and oral notice is sufficient. Entry without notice is permitted in an emergency threatening safety or the landlord’s property, by court order, or where the tenant has abandoned or surrendered the unit.

Is there a security deposit cap in Indiana?

No. IC 32-31-3 contains no cap, and no interest, escrow or separate-account requirement either.

How long does an Indiana landlord have to return a deposit?

Forty-five days after termination of the rental agreement and delivery of possession — but under IC 32-31-3-12(a) the landlord is not liable at all until the tenant supplies, in writing, a mailing address for the notice and amount. Without that written address the clock never starts.

What happens if an Indiana landlord skips the itemised notice?

Under IC 32-31-3-15 the failure “constitutes agreement by the landlord that no damages are due” and the full deposit must be remitted immediately. IC 32-31-3-16 additionally lets the tenant recover the amount withheld plus reasonable attorney’s fees and court costs.

How much notice ends a month-to-month tenancy in Indiana?

One month in writing, and the statute is party-neutral so the same applies to the tenant. A tenancy of three months or less takes notice equal to the interval between rental periods, and a year-to-year tenancy takes three months before the year expires.

Does Indiana cap late fees or require a grace period?

No to both. IC 32-31 is silent, so a late fee is enforceable only because the lease creates it. There is also no statutory returned-cheque cap for Indiana residential landlords — the twenty-five dollar figure often quoted comes from the rent-to-own of personal property chapter, which does not govern real-estate leases.

How are Indiana notices served?

IC 32-31-1-9 gives three methods in order: on the tenant; if the tenant cannot be found, on a resident of the premises — and the person serving must explain the contents of the notice to the person served; and if no resident is present, by affixing a copy to a conspicuous part of the premises. There is no add-days-for-mailing rule.

What is the Indiana small claims limit for an eviction?

Ten thousand dollars, covering landlord-tenant possessory actions where the rent due at filing does not exceed that amount, under IC 33-29-2-4 and IC 33-28-3-4. Marion County is also ten thousand under IC 33-34-3-2, not the eight thousand some sources still publish.

What did Indiana change for evictions in 2025?

Senate Enrolled Act 142, effective 1 July 2025, overhauled eviction-record expungement at IC 32-31-11-3. Courts now order sealing automatically in qualifying cases — dismissal, judgment for the tenant, or reversal on appeal — rather than on the tenant’s motion, and expungement is also available where a money judgment has been satisfied or a non-money judgment is at least seven years old.

Related Indiana Guides

Indiana landlord-tenant laws — the full statutory overview.
Indiana eviction notice laws — the ten-day notice and the no-notice grounds.
Indiana security deposit laws — the forwarding-address rule and the forty-five days.
Indiana lease termination laws — ending a tenancy without fault.
Indiana breaking lease laws — early termination and mitigation.
Indiana rent increase laws — no rent control, and local preemption.
Indiana late fee laws — why the lease is the only source.
Indiana landlord entry laws — reasonable notice, written or oral.
Indiana habitability laws — the landlord’s repairing duties.
Indiana pet and ESA laws — pet policies and assistance animals.
Indiana tenant screening laws — background checks and adverse action.

About the Author

Published by Tenant Screening Background Check · Editorial Team

Established 2004. Our editorial team has spent two decades helping landlords and property managers run lawful tenant screening and follow state landlord-tenant codes across all fifty states. For this page we cross-checked two independent publishers of the Indiana Code section by section, because Indiana’s own legislature site does not serve statutory text to automated retrieval — and we have said so on the page rather than implying a primary source we did not reach.

Updated 2026

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Last reviewed 2026. This page is general information about Indiana landlord-tenant law, not legal advice. Indiana’s official legislature site does not serve statutory text to automated retrieval, so the figures here were verified against two independent commercial publishers rather than the state’s own text, and we have omitted county filing totals and form numbers we could not confirm. Confirm the current requirements with the clerk of the court in your county or with an Indiana attorney before you serve a notice or file a case.