Indiana Wholesaling Law: HB 1068

State: Indiana | Bill: House Bill 1068 (2024) | Effective date: July 1, 2024 (in effect now) | Applies to: Residential single-family homes | Bottom line: You can still wholesale in Indiana with no license, no waiting period, and no assignment restriction. The law only requires a short disclosure in every single-family solicitation. Skip it and you commit a deceptive act the Attorney General can enforce, plus the seller can cancel within two days. Comply and carry on.

What the Law Says (Plain English)

Indiana did not ban wholesaling and did not require a license for it. HB 1068 created a category called the "unlicensed real estate solicitor": a person who (1) does not hold an active Indiana real estate license and (2) "solicits the sale or purchase of a residential single-family home." That is the trigger. It covers investors, wholesalers, and acquisition marketers who contact homeowners directly.

Notice what the trigger is: the solicitation (your postcards, texts, cold calls, ads, websites, social media), not the assignment. Indiana regulates transparency in how you approach homeowners, not the mechanics of flipping the contract afterward. The statute defines "solicitation" broadly to include print, electronic, and broadcast methods, and it expressly lists televised ads, radio, newspaper and magazine ads, billboards, postcards and mailers, yard signs, websites, email, text messages, phone calls, social media, and "any other print or electronic method" (IC 32-21-16.5-2).

If you fit the definition, every solicitation you send must carry a specific disclosure. Indiana mandates the exact sentence (see Required Disclosure Language below), and the disclosure has to convey three things:

1. That you are not a licensed real estate professional (the statute fixes the wording)
2. Your legal name (not just a brand or LLC nickname)
3. The legal name of the person or entity expected to purchase the property, if different from you (for example, if your LLC will be the buyer on the contract, name it)

If you skip the disclosures, or your disclosure does not meet the statute's requirements, and you get a homeowner under contract anyway, the homeowner can cancel the contract within two days of signing by delivering a written rescission (IC 32-21-16.5-6(a)). Note: two days, not two business days, and the rescission must be in writing.

One more duty: before you sign a written agreement with the homeowner, you have to tell them whether any information in your earlier disclosure (your legal name or the expected purchaser's name) has changed (IC 32-21-16.5-5).

The "unlicensed real estate solicitor" definition (IC 32-21-16.5-3) expressly does NOT reach any of the following:

• A home builder
• A 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization
• A governmental entity
• A person already covered by the existing real-estate-license exemptions in IC 25-34.1-3-2(b)
• Someone who simply asks whether a home is available for purchase, without presenting or entering into any agreement
• Someone who offers to buy, or buys, with genuine intent to take title, record the deed, and use the home as a personal residence or an investment

What You CANNOT Do

• Send postcards, texts, emails, or run ads to Indiana homeowners offering to buy their single-family house without the three disclosures in the piece itself
• Market under only a brand name. Your legal name has to appear
• Hide who is actually buying. If the purchasing entity is different from you, its legal name must be disclosed too
• Sign up a seller without having given a compliant disclosure and count on the contract sticking. They get two days to walk by written rescission

What You CAN Still Do

• Assign contracts. Nothing in HB 1068 restricts assignments, imposes a waiting period, or requires a license to wholesale
• Market to sellers at full volume, as long as the disclosure block is in every piece
• Ask a homeowner whether the house is for sale without making an offer (expressly exempt)
• Buy, take title, and record the deed (expressly exempt from the solicitor definition)
• Wholesale property types outside "single-family" (see Loophole #2, with a caution)

The Loopholes

Loophole #1: Just Comply (Clean, and the whole answer for most people)

The statute's only teeth are the disclosure requirement and the two-day cancellation right that punishes skipping it. The trigger words regulate a person who "solicits the sale or purchase of a residential single-family home," and the only thing the law demands of that person is transparency. There is no waiting period to run out, no license to get, and no restriction on assigning. Add the three-line disclosure block to every mailer, ad, text template, and contract packet, and you are outside the penalty entirely. Cost: a few lines of copy. This is the rare state where compliance is cheaper than any workaround.

Loophole #2: Non-Single-Family Property (Clean for land and commercial, verify for 2-4 units)

The quoted trigger is limited to a "residential single-family home." Vacant land, commercial property, and larger multifamily sit outside those words, so soliciting those deals is not covered. Duplexes through fourplexes are probably outside "single-family" too, but the statute never defines the term, so confirm 2-4 unit coverage with an Indiana attorney before building a business on it.

Loophole #3: The Take-Title Exemption (Clean if genuine, Gray for fast flips)

The law does not apply to someone who purchases a home "with the intent to take title, record the deed, and use the property as a personal residence or investment." If you genuinely buy and hold, you are exempt from the solicitor rules. The untested question is the double close: you do take title and record the deed, but does a same-week resale count as using the property "as an investment"? The Chico report flags that framing a flip as an "investment" without genuinely holding could draw scrutiny. Gray. Talk to an Indiana attorney if you want to rely on this instead of simply disclosing. In practice, Loophole #1 is so cheap that you rarely need this one.

Loophole #4: Inquiry Without an Offer (Clean for a first touch, Gray as a system)

Asking whether a home is for sale, without making an offer, is expressly exempt. A genuine first-touch conversation is fine without disclosures. But building a whole outreach machine of "soft inquiries" designed to avoid the disclosure duty is Gray: persistent, structured inquiry campaigns with obvious intent to buy could be read as solicitation. Safer play: put the disclosures in everything anyway.

Loophole #5: Get Licensed (Clean)

The definition only reaches a person who does not hold an active Indiana real estate license. A licensee is outside the "unlicensed real estate solicitor" definition entirely, though then normal license law and commission rules apply to your conduct instead.

Penalties If You Violate It

• Deceptive act enforced by the Attorney General. Soliciting the sale or purchase of a single-family home without the required disclosure is a "deceptive act" under Indiana's Deceptive Consumer Sales Act (IC 24-5-0.5-11(a)). The Attorney General "shall enforce this section in the same manner as any other deceptive act under this chapter" (IC 24-5-0.5-11(b)), and the wholesaling chapter repeats that a violation "is a deceptive act that may be enforced by the attorney general" (IC 32-21-16.5-6(c)). That routes a disclosure failure into the DCSA's enforcement machinery (injunctions and civil penalties), in addition to any remedy the owner already has. This is real exposure, not just deal risk, so the earlier "no documented penalties" read was wrong.
• The seller can cancel. If your disclosure did not meet the statute's requirements, the homeowner can nullify the contract within two days of signing by delivering a written rescission, and is not liable for doing so (IC 32-21-16.5-6(a), (b)). That is deal risk: your contract is not solid until the window closes.

Both consequences vanish the moment you run a compliant disclosure, which is why honest disclosure is the whole game here.

Required Disclosure Language

Indiana mandates the exact sentence, so copy it verbatim. Do not paraphrase.

> "This solicitation is not from a licensed real estate professional."

Citation: IC 32-21-16.5-4(a).

Alongside that sentence, the disclosure must also state (IC 32-21-16.5-4(b)(4)):

• The legal name of the unlicensed real estate solicitor (you or your entity), and
• The legal name of the person expected to purchase the home, if that is someone other than you.

Formatting and delivery requirements (IC 32-21-16.5-4(b)):

• Include it in all solicitations made by you or on your behalf to solicit the sale or purchase of a residential single-family home (b)(1).
• If the solicitation is in writing, the disclosure must be "legible and in plain sight" (b)(2).
• If the solicitation is aural (a phone call, radio spot, voicemail), it must be "clearly and audibly" delivered, relative to the clarity and audibility of the audio of the solicitation (b)(3).
• Before you sign a written agreement with the homeowner, tell them whether anything in this disclosure has changed (IC 32-21-16.5-5).

The statute fixes the one sentence above and requires the two names. It does not prescribe a font size, a separate document, or signatures.

Quick Reference

This summary is an analysis of the sources below, not legal advice. Confirm your specific deal structure and marketing with an Indiana real estate attorney.

Sources: Indiana House Enrolled Act 1068 (2024), P.L. 47-2024, codified at IC 24-5-0.5-11, IC 25-34.1-12, and IC 32-21-16.5 (the controlling statute text); plus a third-party wholesaling regulation report (INDIANA section) and the Chico report "Real Estate Wholesaling Laws 1.2" (Indiana section).