Free tool · Indianapolis
What does a squatter cost you in Indiana?
Change the numbers to match your property. The rent is Indiana's own, from HUD; how long it drags on is your call; everything else is yours to overwrite.
Indiana estimate
$34,162
Your numbers.
These are national starting points, not claims about your property. The one figure that drives the total — how long it drags on — is yours to set. Nobody can source it, so we do not pretend to.
How long before you get it back?
6 months
Your assumption, not ours — courts do not publish how long this takes. A contested removal runs in months, not weeks, almost everywhere; how it goes in Indiana is in the guide.
How many bedrooms?
Sets the rent from HUD’s published Fair Market Rent for Indianapolis — $1,907/mo.
Mortgage / loan payment — per month
$
Only you know this one. The placeholder is roughly a $300k loan at current rates.
Lost rent or delayed sale — per month
$
HUD's Fair Market Rent for this metro, at the bedroom count you picked. It is the 40th percentile of recent-mover rents, so on a renovated or market-rate property it is a floor, not a valuation.
Attorney fees — one-off
$
No public data exists. Our estimate — nothing published backs it. No state bar and no court in any of these markets publishes fee data for an ejectment. Get a written quote and put it here.
Property taxes — per month
$
Your bill, divided by twelve. The placeholder is roughly a $250k property at Philadelphia's 1.3998% — Newark runs 1.845%, Los Angeles 1.187%.
Insurance — per month
$
No public data exists. Our estimate. Vacant cover genuinely does cost more, but the published figures for how much more disagree by a factor of five — anywhere from +25% to 5x. Use your own premium.
Utilities — per month
$
A national placeholder, unless your state overrides it below — Philadelphia's is the Water Department's own published bill. Whoever is inside, you are the ratepayer of record.
Damage and clean-out — one-off
$
No public data exists. Our estimate, and we want to be blunt: NO government body in the United States publishes squatter-damage data. Every figure you have seen quoted traces to one news story or to a lobby survey that counted houses, not dollars. We are not going to launder a number we cannot stand behind — put yours here.
If it happens in Indiana
$34,162
at 6 months— and every extra month adds $4,277.
Against a $0–$120k range, so the bar means something as you drag.
Carrying it, empty ($4,277/mo × 6 mo)
$25,662
One-off costs (attorney, damage)
$8,500
What ruins you is the carry — the months. On top of this you will pay to file, for the sheriff to serve and remove, and for a lawyer. Those are set locally and we do not print a number we cannot cite — but next to the months, they are a sliver.
Can you get any of it back? NO. Indiana's squatter-removal chapter (IC 32-31-12) contains no attorney-fee-shifting provision, and the fast affidavit route has no filing fee because there is no filing — you hand a sworn page to a police agency. Indiana otherwise follows the American Rule, so an owner forced into an ordinary action for possession generally bears their own legal fees absent a separate statute or contract.. A claim about absence, not a quoted provision, so no verbatim quote applies. The Indiana guide read SEA 157 in full and found no dollar figure anywhere in the chapter — including no fee award and no mandatory penalty; the widely-reported $25,000 penalty is NOT in the act (IC 32-31-12-8 creates a civil cause of action against a knowingly-false affiant but names no amount). Fee recovery on the ejectment fallback was not separately sourced and should be confirmed by counsel.
Why Indiana costs what it does
Indiana lets you skip court entirely for a true squatter. You sign a sworn affidavit stating the person never had a lease and never had your permission, hand it to a law enforcement agency, and the agency must dispatch officers to remove them within 48 hours — no judge signs anything. But the officer keeps one power: if he finds credible evidence the occupant does have, or once had, a lease or your permission, he leaves them in place and you are pushed to an ordinary action for possession (ejectment) in court, which takes months.
How you must remove them
summary_plus_affidavit
“Except as provided in subsection (c), not later than forty-eight (48) hours after receipt of the affidavit, the law enforcement agency shall dispatch one (1) or more law enforcement officers to remove the squatter from the owner's property.”
Indiana is an affidavit-bypass state: no judge, no hearing, no counter-affidavit valve. If the officer at the door finds credible evidence the occupant is not a squatter (IC 32-31-12-5), the fast route closes and the owner falls back to an ordinary action for possession/ejectment (IC 32-30-2-1), which carries no statutory clock and runs months.
The statute
IC 32-31-12 — a property owner may execute a sworn affidavit that an occupant is a squatter who never had a rental agreement or permission, and a law enforcement agency that receives it SHALL dispatch officers to remove the squatter within 48 hours, with no court involved.
2026-07-14
“As used in this chapter, "squatter" means an individual who: (1) occupies the property of another person; (2) does not have a rental agreement, permission of the property owner, or any other property interest authorizing the individual to occupy the other person's property; and (3) has never had a rental agreement, permission of the property owner, or any other property interest that authorized the individual to occupy the other person's property.”
Chapter quoted in the Indiana guide from the enrolled act fetched from the General Assembly's own document server and read in full (eight sections). The chapter excludes a holdover tenant, a tenant in breach, and an invitee — they are outside it entirely. Not attorney-reviewed.
Rent, by bedroom
1 bed $1,267 · 2 bed $1,473 · 3 bed $1,907 · 4 bed $2,338
All four figures are the FY2026 FMR for the Indianapolis-Carmel, IN HMFA: 1BR $1,267, 2BR $1,473, 3BR $1,907, 4BR $2,338 (efficiency $1,118). Figure is from a HUD FMR republication; confirm against HUD's FY2026 schedule if it is load-bearing for you.
Do you get your legal fees back?
NO. Indiana's squatter-removal chapter (IC 32-31-12) contains no attorney-fee-shifting provision, and the fast affidavit route has no filing fee because there is no filing — you hand a sworn page to a police agency. Indiana otherwise follows the American Rule, so an owner forced into an ordinary action for possession generally bears their own legal fees absent a separate statute or contract.
A claim about absence, not a quoted provision, so no verbatim quote applies. The Indiana guide read SEA 157 in full and found no dollar figure anywhere in the chapter — including no fee award and no mandatory penalty; the widely-reported $25,000 penalty is NOT in the act (IC 32-31-12-8 creates a civil cause of action against a knowingly-false affiant but names no amount). Fee recovery on the ejectment fallback was not separately sourced and should be confirmed by counsel.
Is there a fast sheriff route?
YES. Since 2025-07-01 an owner may execute a sworn affidavit that the occupant is a squatter who never had a lease or permission, give it to a law enforcement agency, and the agency must dispatch officers to remove the squatter within 48 hours — no court, no judge, no filing fee.
“Except as provided in subsection (c), not later than forty-eight (48) hours after receipt of the affidavit, the law enforcement agency shall dispatch one (1) or more law enforcement officers to remove the squatter from the owner's property.”
The statute does not require the affidavit to be notarized; it requires the perjury warning in IC 32-31-12-3(b). It names no statewide form (an agency 'may' create one). Every evidentiary test in the chapter points at the OCCUPANT (credible evidence they are not a squatter); nothing in it tells anyone how to establish that the affiant actually owns the building.
This is the bill for finding out too late.
Nothing on this page will get an occupant out, and be wary of anyone who says otherwise. What DeedProof does is earlier and duller: it verifies you own the property, structures the statement you swear before a notary, and files it — so that if someone does break in, the officer at the door has something to work from instead of a lease they cannot check.
The decision still belongs to the officer. Our job is to make it an easy one.
This page is the money. The law behind it is on Indiana’s guide — whether police can arrest, whether a sheriff can act on your affidavit alone, and how long occupation takes to become a claim. Every answer quoted from the statute.