Background
Indiana law provides two paths for property owners who believe their taxes are too high. The familiar route is a parcel-by-parcel assessment appeal. The less-used route, at issue here, is a statutory petition to the Indiana Department of Local Government Finance (DLGF) to review the county’s “land order”—the document that sets per-unit base rates (per square foot, per front foot, etc.) for different categories of land throughout the county, which flow into every individual assessment. Under Indiana Code § 6-1.1-4-13.6, a petition requires signatures from at least 100 property owners or 5% of the county’s property owners, whichever is fewer. If the petition is valid, the DLGF must review the land values, hold a public hearing, and then approve, modify, or disapprove the land order.
Andy Young, a Lake County property owner, gathered 170 signatures and petitioned the DLGF to reject the Lake County Assessor’s 2023 land order, which was built on 2021 and 2022 sales data and replaced an earlier 2022 land order. At a public hearing in October 2023, numerous property owners—particularly from the Miller Beach area of Calumet Township—testified about sharp increases in base rates. On February 28, 2025, the DLGF issued a final determination approving the 2023 land order, finding that it was properly prepared and based on correct methodology and sufficient data. Young appealed to the Indiana Tax Court, and Deborah Foster, a Miller Beach property owner, intervened.
Young raised eight categories of objections challenging the land order’s timing, the sufficiency of available sales data, the valuation methodology, specific pricing methods, and the adequacy of the DLGF’s hearing notice. Foster separately challenged the uniformity of her base rate compared to neighboring properties, argued that due process required actual notice to affected property owners, and contested whether a second land order within the same four-year reassessment cycle was permissible.
The Court’s Holding
The Indiana Tax Court (Judge McAdam) affirmed the DLGF’s final determination in its entirety across all claims from both Young and Foster.
On Young’s timing challenge, the court reaffirmed that the January 1 annual assessment date establishes when property is valued, not when land orders must be completed. Under Indiana Code § 6-1.1-4-13.6(a), the deadline for land orders is set by the county’s reassessment plan. Because assessors cannot feasibly analyze sales data, finalize values, and complete reassessments before January 2, the assessment process must be “fluid and flexible,” as the court held in Camelot Co., LLC v. Bartholomew Cnty. Assessor, 224 N.E.3d 1007 (Ind. Tax Ct. 2023). The court also rejected Young’s reading of Young v. Dep’t of Local Gov’t Fin. (Young I), clarifying that the prior decision merely explained that each four-year reassessment cycle must include at least one land order—it does not prohibit additional land orders within the same cycle, because Indiana Code § 6-1.1-4-4.2 requires that each parcel be reassessed “once during each four (4) year cycle,” not “only once.”
On the sufficiency of sales data, the court held that the DLGF’s regulations expressly permit alternative valuation methods when fewer than five sales exist in a given stratum, including extracting land value from sales of improved properties. 50 Ind. Admin. Code 27-5-7(b). The DLGF’s field representatives found 1,337 valid improved property sales in Calumet Township, and ratio study statistics met IAAO standards for every township, including Miller Beach. Young’s criticisms—that the available data was insufficient and that tax sales should have weighed more heavily—were conclusory without supporting evidence, expert testimony, or legal authority. The court declined to overturn a well-supported agency determination on that basis. Regarding Foster’s uniformity claim (an effective rate of $11.48 per square foot for her property compared to $2.98 per square foot for neighboring front-foot lots), the court concluded that this was a parcel-level application question falling outside the DLGF’s statutory authority to review county-wide land values, and properly directed to the individual assessment appeal process instead. Foster’s constitutional due process argument was waived for failure to identify a protected property interest or to analyze whether the assessment appeals process already provided adequate process.
Key Takeaways
- The January 1 assessment date is not a deadline for land orders. Under Indiana Code § 6-1.1-4-13.6(a), land orders must be submitted by the dates in the county’s reassessment plan; assessors may finalize and submit land values after January 1.
- Indiana Code § 6-1.1-4-4.2 requires that each parcel be reassessed at least once in a four-year cycle but does not prohibit more frequent updates. Assessors may issue multiple land orders within a single reassessment cycle.
- When challenging a DLGF land order determination, a petitioner must provide legal authority, expert evidence, or comparative analysis—conclusory assertions are not sufficient to overcome the substantial-evidence standard of review.
- The DLGF’s review authority under § 6-1.1-4-13.6 is limited to county-wide land values. Questions about how those values are applied to individual parcels must be pursued through the property tax assessment appeal process under Indiana Code § 6-1.1-15-1.1.
- The Indiana General Assembly responded to notice concerns by enacting specific notice requirements for DLGF land order hearings in Pub. L. No. 230-2025, § 20 (2025). Those requirements govern future proceedings but did not apply here.
Why It Matters
Young v. DLGF is the Indiana Tax Court’s most comprehensive published treatment of the land order petition process under Indiana Code § 6-1.1-4-13.6. The opinion establishes that the DLGF’s review is strictly limited to county-wide base rates, not individual parcel applications, drawing a clear line between the land order petition track and the individual assessment appeal track. For property owners who have seen significant base rate increases—as occurred in Lake County’s Miller Beach area—the case makes plain that a land order petition is the right vehicle to challenge valuation methodology applied across a class of land, while complaints about how a specific parcel was valued must go through the PTABOA and Indiana Board of Tax Review.
For tax practitioners, the decision is a reminder of the evidentiary burden at the Indiana Tax Court. Agency determinations survive on appeal unless shown to be arbitrary, capricious, an abuse of discretion, contrary to law, or unsupported by substantial evidence. Meeting that burden requires more than narrative objections—it requires legal authority, quantitative analysis, expert support, and a clear identification of the remedy sought. Practitioners handling future land order proceedings should also incorporate the 2025 amendments to § 6-1.1-4-13.6 (Pub. L. No. 230-2025), which now require the DLGF to provide hearing notice to the assessor and the first ten petition signatories at least five days before the hearing.