Tippecanoe County Commercial Property Tax Appeals

The Form 130 filing deadline is June 15 of the assessment year, or 45 days from the date of your Form 11 notice of assessment, whichever is later. Many Tippecanoe County owners assume the deadline is always June 15 and miss the longer 45-day window when notices are issued late — and others miss June 15 because the Form 11 arrived months earlier. There are no informal extensions, and the county will not accept a Form 130 outside the statutory window. We recommend forwarding the Form 11 to EPTA the moment it arrives so we can calendar the deadline and start a free assessment review immediately. See our property tax appeal deadlines guide for the rest of the Indiana calendar.

No — the 3% circuit breaker is a ceiling on the tax bill as a percent of gross assessed value for commercial and industrial property, but it does not correct an inflated underlying assessed value. If your property is over-assessed, you are still paying 3% of an inflated base, which on a Lafayette-area commercial property can mean tens of thousands in excess annual tax. In fact, hitting the cap is itself a useful diagnostic: it tells you the assessed value is high relative to what the property earns. The only way to fix the root issue is to challenge the assessed value through the PTABOA process. Our contingency fee structure means there's no out-of-pocket downside to finding out.

The PTABOA is the county-level board that hears the first formal stage of an Indiana appeal after Form 130 is filed — it's composed of appointed members and reviews evidence from both the owner and the assessor. The Indiana Board of Tax Review (IBTR) is a state-level body that conducts a more formal, independent hearing if the PTABOA result is unfavorable, and it issues written orders that can themselves be appealed to the Indiana Tax Court. PTABOA hearings tend to focus on negotiation and county-level evidence; IBTR hearings are more rigorous and resemble a tribunal proceeding with sworn testimony and full evidentiary records. EPTA prepares cases that are credible at both levels from day one, which is the most efficient way to handle a Tippecanoe County appeal — read our full Indiana PTABOA & IBTR guide for the full mechanics.

We represent owners of every commercial property type in Tippecanoe County, including office buildings in the Purdue Research Foundation Discovery Park District, retail centers along State Street, Sagamore Parkway, and Creasy Lane, industrial and manufacturing facilities including auto and engine plants and supplier sites, multifamily and student housing near Purdue's campus, and hotels and hospitality properties along I-65 and in West Lafayette. Each class requires a tailored valuation approach — income capitalization for retail and office, depreciation and functional-obsolescence analysis for manufacturing, and lease-level analysis for student housing and multifamily.

Yes — and a recent arm's-length purchase often strengthens the appeal because Indiana law treats sale price as compelling evidence of market value, particularly when the assessed value materially exceeds what you paid. You don't need to have owned the property during the prior assessment period; you just need to be the current owner of record when the appeal is filed. The Form 130 deadline runs from the Form 11 notice date, not from your closing date, so always review any outstanding notices the moment a purchase closes. Filing promptly preserves your right to challenge an inflated post-acquisition assessment for the full tax year. Read our deeper guide on appealing property taxes after a purchase for the mechanics.

Indiana law allows commercial property owners to file Form 130 and appear before the PTABOA on their own, but the PTABOA and especially the IBTR expect well-organized, credible valuation evidence — comparable sales, income-and-expense analysis, and property-specific condition documentation — presented in the formats and terms that boards are used to seeing. A misstep on evidence can undermine an otherwise valid case. On contingency, professional representation has no out-of-pocket cost, which removes the usual reason for going DIY. Many owners who file on their own ultimately leave savings on the table or get a token reduction that's far below what a full-record case would have produced. Our DIY vs professional appeal guide walks through the trade-offs so you can decide what makes sense for your property.