When a Marion County tax bill jumps, most owners look at the house. But the building isn't always what moved. On the property record card, land and improvements are valued separately — and a surprising number of assessment increases come almost entirely from the land line, driven by something most owners have never heard of: the neighborhood code.
A neighborhood-code change can lift your land value sharply even when nothing about your lot changed and your improvement value sat still. The total AV might still look defensible at a glance, which is exactly why these increases survive. They are also, when the land jump isn't supported, one of the cleaner appeals you can bring.
Land and improvements are two different numbers
Every Indiana property record card splits assessed value into two components:
- Land value — the assessed value of the lot itself.
- Improvement value — the assessed value of the structures on it.
They are valued by different methods. Improvements are driven by the building's characteristics and condition. Land is driven largely by location — and in the assessor's system, location is encoded as a neighborhood code.
What a neighborhood code does
Assessors group parcels into neighborhoods and assign land values by neighborhood code. Two physically similar lots in different coded neighborhoods can carry very different per-unit land rates. When an assessor revises the land rate for a neighborhood, or moves your parcel from one neighborhood code to another between years, your land value can shift independently of anything you did to the property.
This is legitimate when it reflects a real, supportable change in the local land market. It is challengeable when the new code or rate isn't supported by what's actually selling near you.
Why land values moved across Marion County in 2026
The 2026 cycle was not a quiet one for Marion County land. The 2025 reassessment added approximately $5.5 billion in assessed value to commercial and industrial property and approximately $2 billion to multifamily, with the resulting bills arriving in spring 2026. Pressure of that magnitude does not stay neatly inside commercial parcels — when assessors revisit land rates and neighborhood boundaries to capture rising values, adjacent and overlapping residential neighborhood codes can move too. If your land line jumped this year, it is worth asking whether your neighborhood code was caught up in that broader revaluation, and whether the new rate is genuinely supported by sales near you.
The land-only spike: how to spot it
Pull two years of your record card side by side and compare the components, not just the total. The tell looks like this:
| Component | Prior year | Current year | Change |
|---|---|---|---|
| Land AV | $48,000 | $79,000 | +65% |
| Improvement AV | $172,000 | $176,000 | +2% |
| Total AV | $220,000 | $255,000 | +16% |
A 16% total increase doesn't scream "error." But the land line moved 65% while the improvement barely budged. That asymmetry is the signal. If the land rate or neighborhood code changed and you can't point to land sales that justify it, you have a specific, factual appeal — separate from any argument about your house's market value.
A second worked example: same total, different story
Two increases can produce the same total movement while telling completely different stories about where to focus an appeal. Compare two hypothetical Marion County parcels that each rose approximately 14% in total AV:
| Component | Parcel A prior | Parcel A current | Parcel B prior | Parcel B current |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Land AV | $40,000 | $72,000 | $40,000 | $44,000 |
| Improvement AV | $160,000 | $156,000 | $160,000 | $184,000 |
| Total AV | $200,000 | $228,000 | $200,000 | $228,000 |
Both totals climbed approximately 14%, but Parcel A's increase is almost entirely a land-only spike — the improvement actually slipped while the land jumped roughly 80%. That points straight at the neighborhood code and land rate. Parcel B's increase sits in the improvement line, which is a market-value or record-card question about the structure, not a land argument. Reading only the total would send both owners down the same path. Reading the components tells each owner where the real argument is.
Step by step: confirming a land-only spike
- Pull your current and prior-year record cards. You need both to compare components.
- Write down the three component numbers for each year — land AV, improvement AV, total AV.
- Calculate the percentage change on each line separately, not just the total.
- Check whether the neighborhood code itself changed between the two cards. A code change is the clearest cause of a land-only move.
- Decide where the increase actually lives. If the land line drove it, your appeal is a land-and-neighborhood-code argument. If the improvement drove it, it is a different appeal.
Warning
Do not appeal only the total. If the land component drove the increase, frame the appeal around the land value and the neighborhood code specifically. An assessor can defend a reasonable total while still carrying an unsupported land rate — naming the land line forces the question onto the right evidence.
Township nuance in Marion County
Marion County still has nine township assessors — Center, Decatur, Franklin, Lawrence, Perry, Pike, Warren, Washington, and Wayne — and they apply land values by neighborhood code within their jurisdictions. The practical consequence: land-value methodology and neighborhood boundaries can feel inconsistent across township lines, and your appeal is routed to the township that set the value. Our township differences guide covers how this fragmentation plays out across the county.
Evidence that challenges a land value
A land-only spike is challenged with land-focused evidence, not whole-property comparables alone:
- Comparable land sales or vacant-lot sales in your neighborhood that contradict the new land rate. Our comparable sales evidence guide covers how to select and present them.
- Comparable parcels in the same neighborhood code carrying lower per-unit land values — internal inconsistency is persuasive.
- The neighborhood-code change itself, documented across two record cards, with the question of what market data supports it.
- Lot-specific limitations — odd shape, easements, topography, flood exposure — that the blanket neighborhood rate ignores.
Package this the way a PTABOA panel expects to receive it. Our PTABOA evidence guide covers what a Marion panel weighs and what it disregards, and the appeal is filed on a Form 130 — see what happens after you file.
Where to file
The Form 130 goes to the Marion County Assessor's Office, City-County Building, Suite 1360, 200 E Washington St, Indianapolis, IN 46204, or online via the indy.gov assessor portal. For the 2026 assessment, the appeal deadline was June 15, 2026 — confirm your specific window on your Form 11 notice.
If the township denies the appeal, the matter can escalate to the Indiana Board of Tax Review, and the DLGF publishes the assessment standards that govern how land is valued in the first place.
Mistakes to avoid
- Appealing the total instead of the land line. A defensible total can hide an unsupported land rate. Name the land component explicitly.
- Bringing only whole-property comparables. A land-only spike needs land-focused evidence — vacant-lot sales and comparable per-unit land rates, not just sold houses.
- Ignoring the neighborhood code itself. The code change is often the single most persuasive piece of documentation. Pull both years' cards and show it.
- Forgetting lot-specific limitations. A blanket neighborhood rate ignores odd shape, easements, topography, and flood exposure. If your lot has them, raise them.
- Missing the deadline. For 2026 the window closed June 15, 2026. Confirm your specific date on the Form 11 rather than assuming.
Common questions
My total only went up a little. Is it even worth looking at the land line? Yes. A modest total can mask a sharp, unsupported land jump offset by a flat or declining improvement. The components, not the total, tell you whether there is an appeal.
The assessor says the neighborhood went up. Isn't that the end of it? Not necessarily. A neighborhood-code or land-rate change has to be supported by actual land sales. If you can show comparable lots selling below the new rate, or comparable parcels in the same code carrying lower per-unit land values, the burden is on the assessor's data.
Can I appeal just the land and leave the improvement alone? That is exactly the point of separating the components. Frame the appeal around the land value and neighborhood code specifically when that is what moved.
Find your property
The fastest way to catch a land-only spike is to look at your own record card's component split. Start at your county page, /indiana/marion, then drill into /indiana/marion/residential for residential land or /indiana/marion/commercial for commercial parcels.
Property Lookup surfaces your land and improvement values and your value history so a neighborhood-code-driven jump is easy to see year over year, and Tax Appeal helps you assemble the land-focused evidence package if the spike isn't supported.