Behind on Taxes in Goshen? Find Every Lien Before You Sell

Taxes Are County Business — Here's the City Side

How delinquent property taxes turn into an Elkhart County tax sale, and what the timeline looks like, is explained on our Elkhart County tax page and the county tax sale guide; Indiana's rules in more depth are on the South Bend page. The one Goshen advantage there is geography — the treasurer's office is in town, so asking for your exact figure in person is easy.

What those pages do not cover is that a Goshen homeowner who is behind on property tax is often behind on city charges too, and some of those attach to the house in a way that ranks alongside the tax bill.

How a Goshen Sewer Lien Works

Goshen runs its own water and sewer utility and bills it from the office at 203 S. 5th St. Under Indiana's municipal sewage works law, unpaid sewer fees assessed against a property become a lien on it. A few features of that law matter when you are trying to sell:

• The lien is superior to all other liens except tax liens — including your mortgage.
• It attaches when notice of the lien is filed in the county recorder's office, so it shows up in a title search.
• Before filing, the utility sends a notice giving fifteen days to pay, including penalties.
• If the house changes hands before a lien is filed, the city notifies the person who owned it when the fee became payable.

Goshen does use this. In 2023 its Board of Public Works reported moving roughly $8,500 in old final-account balances to collections, sewer liens and write-offs. The same report shows the city also uses collection agencies, so an old balance can follow you personally as well as the house.

Walking the Full Payoff Before Closing

If you are behind on taxes and thinking about selling, pull the complete list of what the house owes. A title company will find recorded items, but the earlier you know, the easier the numbers are to plan.

Everything on that list comes out of the sale price before you are paid. Nothing has to be cleared first.

When the House Is Empty as Well as Behind

Tax arrears and vacancy often arrive together — an inherited house nobody lives in, a rental between tenants, a home someone moved out of when money got tight. In Goshen that combination stacks two separate problems.

The county side keeps moving toward a tax sale on its own timetable. On the city side, an empty house still has to meet Goshen's Neighborhood Preservation Ordinance, including the requirement to keep a vacant structure's doors, windows and basement entrances secured. If it deteriorates, the City Building Commissioner can issue a repair order, and the Board of Public Works & Safety can impose a civil penalty for willful non-compliance. At a November 2025 hearing, city staff described the available penalty as up to $5,000 per order, and the Board imposed that amount on an owner who had not responded for eleven months. Those amounts are then one more thing a sale has to pay.

Meanwhile, if the water and sewer service is still active, the charges continue whether anyone uses them or not. Closing the account with the billing office once the house is empty and winterized stops that from growing.

Our Goshen vacant house page goes into the city's process for empty properties in more detail.

Local Help Before You Sell

If the arrears are modest and you want to keep the house, the Elkhart Township Trustee (106 N. 5th St.) takes applications for help with utilities and other basic needs, which may free up money for the tax bill. LaCasa of Goshen, a HUD-approved counseling agency on North Cottage Avenue, offers budget and financial counseling in English and Spanish and can help you judge whether a payment plan is realistic.

If it is not, a sale before the tax sale preserves your equity. We give a written offer within 24 hours, pay every tax and city balance from our funds at closing, and cover the closing costs. Our city page has more on selling a house in Goshen if you want to compare routes.

Goshen Resources When You're Behind