Indiana has no probate courts. All 92 counties route decedents' estates through their circuit and superior courts, and which of those courts holds the estate docket is decided by that county's own caseload allocation rule.
Jonathan Khorsandi on Jul 02, 2026
Indiana has no probate courts. All 92 counties route decedents' estates through their circuit and superior courts, and which of those courts holds the estate docket is decided by that county's own caseload allocation rule, not by a statewide pattern. In the three counties covered here, the answer is a different court in each one, and in two of them it is not the court the county's own website makes obvious.
One statewide system does exist, and it is better than most states have. MyCase, the free public search built on the Indiana courts' Odyssey case management system, carries dockets for every circuit and superior court in Marion, Johnson and Hancock counties. Discovery in Indiana is a desk job.
The document layer is where it gets thin. Indiana does not require a personal representative to file the estate inventory with the court, and an unsupervised personal representative can sell the house without a court order. The two filings that would tell you a property exists and that it is moving are the two the public record most often does not contain.
Yes. Estate filings are court records held by the county clerk, open to anyone under the Indiana Rules on Access to Court Records. There is no requirement to be an heir, an attorney, or a party.
What is normally readable: the petition to probate a will or for letters of administration, the order appointing the personal representative, the letters themselves, the notice of administration, claims filed against the estate, and the full chronological case summary showing every docket entry and hearing.
Two limits are worth understanding before you plan around online access. The access rules exclude specific categories of information from public view, so a case can be entirely public while individual documents inside it are not. And public does not mean present: the chronological case summary lists what was filed, but only some documents are attached to it as links, and the inventory listing the real property may never have been filed with the court at all.
In the county where the decedent was domiciled at death. IC 29-1-7-1 places venue "in the county in this state where the decedent had his domicile at the time of his death." Where the real estate sits does not move it. Someone who lived in Johnson County and owned a rental in Indianapolis has one estate, and it is filed in Johnson.
The exception is the non-resident decedent. For someone not domiciled in Indiana, the same section places venue in any county "where he left any property at the time of his decease; or into which county any property belonging to his estate may have come after his decease." An out-of-state owner with an Indianapolis rental is administered in Marion County.
Indiana has no dedicated probate court. Circuit and superior courts share jurisdiction, and each county's caseload allocation local rule assigns the probate case types. Those rules are published by the Indiana Judicial Branch and they are the only reliable answer to the question of which court holds the estate docket.
The probate case type codes, as defined by the Office of Court Services, are the ones to know:
| Code | Case type |
|---|---|
| ES | Estate, supervised |
| EU | Estate, unsupervised |
| EM | Estate, miscellaneous |
| GU | Guardianships |
| TR | Trusts |
ES and EU are the two that carry real property.
The split between them decides how much of the estate you ever get to see.
Supervised administration is the default. The court approves the major actions, which produces more orders, more filings, and a fuller public record.
Unsupervised administration is granted under IC 29-1-7.5-2 where the estate is solvent, the personal representative is qualified to act without supervision, and either every heir and devisee has joined the petition and consented or the will itself authorises it.
Then IC 29-1-7.5-3 gives that personal representative the power to "sell, mortgage, or lease any real or personal property of the estate or any interest therein" without an order of the court. An unsupervised estate can list the property, accept an offer and close without generating a single docket entry that tells you it is happening. Plan your timing around that, not around the creditor calendar.
Through MyCase, which is also served at public.courts.in.gov/mycase. It is free, it needs no account for public searching, and it returns case numbers, filing dates, party names, the chronological case summary and scheduled hearings.
The workable method is the same in every county:
One caveat that matters. MyCase carries case information "only from courts that use the state's Odyssey case management system," and not every Indiana court is on it. The Judicial Branch publishes the list. Every circuit and superior court in Marion, Johnson and Hancock has been on Odyssey since 2013 to 2015, so all three counties are fully covered, but a search returning nothing in some other county is not proof the estate does not exist.
Addresses and phone numbers below come from the Indiana Judicial Branch Directory of Courts and Clerks and each county's published local rules. Court office hours are not published in either source and are not stated here; call before travelling.
Indianapolis and the state's largest court system. Marion Superior Court D08 is the probate court, and the official page for it states that it "handles estate administration, guardianship administration, adoptions, and mental health case types."
| Detail | Information |
|---|---|
| Court | Marion Superior Court D08, Community Justice Campus |
| Bench | Presiding Judge David Certo, Magistrate Sarah Glasser |
| Address | 675 Justice Way, Indianapolis, IN 46203 |
| Phone | The D08 page publishes none. The Superior Court Civil Division general line is 317-327-4747; the Clerk is 317-327-4740 |
| Online search | MyCase |
| Document requests | Clerk record request form |
Two notes on Marion contact details. The court's own page carries no phone number, so anything presented elsewhere as "the probate court's direct line" is unsourced; the two numbers above are what the official directory supports, each labelled for what it actually is. And older directory versions and commercial listings still show the Clerk at the City-County Building on East Washington Street. The current directory lists 675 Justice Way. Confirm the counter before driving downtown.
South of Indianapolis, and the county most often gotten wrong. Probate does not go to Superior Court 1. The Johnson County local rules, amended effective 1 January 2025, state at LR41-AR-058(B): "All Probate cases (AD, ES, EM, EU, GU, MH, and TR) shall be filed in the Johnson Superior Court No. 2."
| Detail | Information |
|---|---|
| Court | Johnson Superior Court No. 2 |
| Bench | Hon. Peter D. Nugent |
| Address | 18 West Jefferson Street, Franklin, IN 46131 |
| Phone | 317-346-4420 |
| Clerk | Trena McLaughlin, Five East Jefferson Street (PO Box 368), Franklin, IN 46131, 317-346-4450 |
| Online search | MyCase |
Superior Court 1 exists, sits at Five East Jefferson Street on 317-346-4413, and takes domestic relations rather than estates. Published guides that name it as Johnson County's probate division, and guides that give a Court Street address for any Johnson County court, are wrong on both counts. The record custodian for every probate file is the Clerk at Five East Jefferson Street.
Greenfield, on the I-70 corridor east of Indianapolis, and the one county here where estates land in two courts rather than one. The Hancock County local rules, amended effective 8 January 2025, assign EM, ES, EU, GU and TR jointly to the Circuit Court and Superior Court No. 1.
| Detail | Information |
|---|---|
| Courts | Hancock Circuit Court and Hancock Superior Court No. 1 |
| Circuit Court | Hon. R. Scott Sirk, 9 East Main Street, Suite 302, Greenfield, IN 46140, 317-477-1107 |
| Superior Court No. 1 | 9 East Main Street, Suite 303, Greenfield, IN 46140, 317-477-1148 |
| Clerk | 9 East Main Street, Room 213, Greenfield, IN 46140, 317-477-1109 |
| Online search | MyCase |
Because estates go to either court, a search filtered to Hancock Circuit Court alone returns roughly half the county's estates. Search the county, not the court. Superior Court No. 2 takes no estate case types.
| County | Probate court | Online docket search | Documents |
|---|---|---|---|
| Marion | Superior Court D08 | Yes, MyCase | Partial on MyCase; Clerk request form for the rest |
| Johnson | Superior Court No. 2 | Yes, MyCase | Partial on MyCase; Clerk at Five East Jefferson Street |
| Hancock | Circuit Court and Superior Court No. 1 | Yes, MyCase | Partial on MyCase; Clerk at 9 East Main Street |
All three counties are searchable from a desk, which puts Indiana ahead of most states in this library. The constraint here is not finding the case, it is getting the documents inside it.
Searching MyCase costs nothing, and documents attached to the chronological case summary are free to view.
Copies are where the money starts. Marion County's Clerk charges $3.00 per record for certification plus $1.00 per page, and sends non-certified copies by email at no charge. Published Indiana clerk fee schedules use the same structure of $1.00 per page with a $3.00 certification fee, though it is set locally rather than being fixed statewide, so confirm with the county clerk before ordering in volume.
Filing fees are a different question and only matter if you are opening an estate rather than researching one. IC 33-37-4-7 sets a probate costs fee of "one hundred twenty dollars ($120) for each action filed," with further fees layered on under IC 33-37-5. Indiana clerk offices commonly publish an estate filing total of $177, for example Ripley County's schedule. Treat the $120 as the statutory figure and the total as county-published.
The practical point: free search plus free non-certified copies in Marion County means the research cost in Indiana is time, not money. Order certified copies only where you need them for a transaction.
Indiana sets no deadline for completing an administration, but it sets several interim deadlines, and those are what keep generating public filings.
| Stage | Statutory position |
|---|---|
| Notice of administration | Published once each week for two consecutive weeks, served on each heir, devisee, legatee and known creditor, IC 29-1-7-7 |
| Proof of publication filed | Within 30 days after publication, IC 29-1-7-7 |
| Inventory prepared | Within 2 months after appointment unless the court grants longer, IC 29-1-12-1 |
| Creditor claim window | 3 months after the date of first published notice, IC 29-1-14-1(a) |
| Outer bar on claims | 9 months after the death of the decedent, IC 29-1-14-1(d) |
Read those two claim deadlines together. Claims are barred if not filed within three months of first published notice, and barred in all events if not filed within nine months of death. An estate that publishes promptly clears its claim window roughly three to four months after the death. The nine-month bar is the backstop that catches estates where notice went out late.
Two things the original version of this guide got wrong, and that circulate widely elsewhere, are worth correcting directly.
The creditor period does not freeze the property. There is no Indiana rule suspending a personal representative's power to sell estate real property while the claim window runs, and IC 29-1-7.5-3 expressly gives an unsupervised personal representative the power to sell without a court order. Estates list and close inside the claim period routinely. Treating that window as protected time is how agents arrive at properties already under contract.
The inventory is not necessarily a public filing. IC 29-1-12-1 requires a verified inventory within two months of appointment, showing fair market value and known liens on each item. But it lets the personal representative furnish copies to interested persons who request them instead of filing the original with the court. Where that route is taken, the document that names the house never enters the public record.
IC 29-1-8-1 allows collection by affidavit 45 days after death where the gross probate estate, less liens, encumbrances and reasonable funeral expenses, does not exceed $100,000 for a decedent dying after 30 June 2022.
That threshold is often quoted as a reason estates disappear from view. It applies to personal property, instruments evidencing debt, stock and choses in action. Real property is not transferable by that affidavit. For lead generation this is good news: an Indiana decedent who owned a house generally still produces an estate filing.
The docket tells you an estate exists. Five steps tell you whether it is worth working.
1. Search the county of domicile, not the property county. Venue follows the decedent under IC 29-1-7-1. A Marion County house can belong to a Johnson County estate.
2. Search the county, then confirm the court. Marion sends probate to Superior Court D08, Johnson to Superior Court No. 2, Hancock to the Circuit Court and Superior Court No. 1 both. Filtering to one court in Hancock loses about half the estates.
3. Read the case type code before the caption. ES is supervised and will keep producing orders you can follow. EU is unsupervised and will not. An EU filing is the more urgent call, because that personal representative can sell without returning to court.
4. Find the property yourself. Do not rely on the inventory being in the file. Match the decedent's name and last known address against the county assessor and recorder, which is also where you pick up the mortgage position and the tax status. Delinquent taxes against an open estate remains the clearest motivation signal in public data.
5. Identify who can sign. Only the personal representative named in the letters can convey. The petition and the letters usually carry an address, and the attorney of record appears in the caption. On a supervised estate the attorney is often the better first contact.
Two timing corrections follow from the statute. The clock that matters is the appointment date, not the creditor calendar, because authority to sell begins at appointment. And unsupervised estates are the short-fuse cases: no court approval is required, so the gap between "family decided" and "under contract" can be a few weeks with nothing on the docket in between.
Three: Marion, Johnson and Hancock. Together they cover Indianapolis and the growth corridors immediately south and east of it.
Every lead is a verified court filing with a case number, not a death record or a pre-probate prediction. Each carries the property records matched to the estate with the most recent owner of record, the personal representative skip traced with mailing address, phone and email where available, the attorney of record where one is named, and MLS tracking so you can see whether the property has already listed.
Indiana is a state where the manual method genuinely works. MyCase is free, all three counties are on it, and the search itself takes minutes. What takes the week is everything after: reading dockets across three courts in three counties, working out which filings are ES and which are EU, cross-referencing assessor and recorder records to find the parcel the inventory never disclosed, then skip tracing the personal representative. That is the part worth deciding whether to do yourself.
You can see the full coverage list at probatedata.com/counties, or start a 7-day trial for $1 and search the Indiana counties directly.
For the wider method across every state, see the national guide to finding probate records by county.
Yes. Estate filings are court records held by the county clerk and are open to anyone under the Indiana Rules on Access to Court Records, with no requirement to be an heir, an attorney or a party. The access rules do exclude specific categories of information, so a case can be fully public while individual documents inside it are not. Public also does not mean present online: the chronological case summary lists what was filed, but only some documents are attached to it.
Through MyCase, the free public case search at mycase.in.gov, also served at public.courts.in.gov/mycase. Search by party name, narrow to the county, then look for the ES and EU case type codes, which are supervised and unsupervised estates. MyCase carries case information only from courts on the state's Odyssey case management system, and every circuit and superior court in Marion, Johnson and Hancock counties has been on Odyssey since 2013 to 2015.
Indiana has no dedicated probate courts. Circuit and superior courts share jurisdiction and each county's caseload allocation local rule assigns the probate case types, so the answer differs by county. Marion County sends probate to Marion Superior Court D08 at the Community Justice Campus, Johnson County to Superior Court No. 2, and Hancock County to the Circuit Court and Superior Court No. 1 jointly.
Yes. There is no Indiana rule suspending a personal representative's power to sell estate real property while the creditor claim window is running. Indiana Code 29-1-7.5-3 expressly allows an unsupervised personal representative to sell, mortgage or lease estate real property without an order of the court. Estates list and close inside the claim period routinely, so the appointment date matters more than the creditor calendar.
Indiana sets no deadline for completing an administration, but it sets interim deadlines. Notice of administration is published once each week for two consecutive weeks under Indiana Code 29-1-7-7, the inventory is due within two months of appointment under Indiana Code 29-1-12-1, and creditor claims are barred three months after first published notice under Indiana Code 29-1-14-1(a) and in all events nine months after death under subsection (d). An estate that publishes promptly clears its claim window roughly three to four months after the death.
Searching MyCase is free, and documents attached to the chronological case summary cost nothing to view. Marion County's Clerk charges $3.00 per record for certification plus $1.00 per page, and sends non-certified copies by email at no charge. That $1.00 per page plus $3.00 certification structure is common across Indiana clerk fee schedules but is set locally rather than fixed statewide, so confirm with the county clerk before ordering in volume.
Indiana Code 29-1-8-1 allows collection by affidavit 45 days after death where the gross probate estate, less liens, encumbrances and reasonable funeral expenses, does not exceed $100,000 for a decedent dying after 30 June 2022. It applies to personal property, instruments evidencing debt, stock and choses in action. Real property cannot be transferred by that affidavit, so an Indiana decedent who owned a house generally still produces an estate filing.
Supervised administration is the default and the court approves the major actions, which produces more orders and a fuller public record. Unsupervised administration is granted under Indiana Code 29-1-7.5-2 where the estate is solvent, the personal representative is qualified, and either every heir and devisee has consented or the will authorises it. On the docket they appear as case type ES and EU respectively, and an unsupervised estate can sell property without generating a docket entry.
