The Pastor Lives There, So It’s Exempt: Indiana’s Tax Board Grants a Methodist Parsonage Full Relief

• Indiana’s Board of Tax Review granted a 100 per cent parsonage exemption to Evangel Heights United Methodist Church in South Bend for 2025.
• The church owns a single-family home at 1622 Hoover Avenue, on less than an acre, where its ordained pastor lives.
• It first sought a general religious exemption, then qualified under the parsonage statute.
• The church filed an affidavit confirming the pastor lives there and the house is not rented to others.

A South Bend church has won full property tax relief on the house where its pastor lives. In a decision dated October 28, 2025, the Indiana Board of Tax Review granted Evangel Heights United Methodist Church a 100 per cent exemption for the 2025 assessment.

The church, an Indiana nonprofit formed in 1952, owns a single-family home on less than an acre at 1622 Hoover Avenue in St Joseph County. The house is occupied by the Rev Michelle Cobb, an ordained United Methodist minister, who leads worship at a separate church building.

The church first asked for a general religious exemption, but its claim was ultimately decided under Indiana’s parsonage provision. It filed its application on September 18, 2024, after the 2024 deadline but before the April 1 deadline for 2025. It also submitted an Affidavit of Parsonage confirming that the pastor lives in the house and that it is not rented to anyone else. The county assessor conceded that these requirements were met.

The board concluded that “the Church demonstrated that the subject property qualifies for a parsonage exemption under Indiana Code § 6-1.1-10-21”.

The case shows how much property tax treatment depends on paperwork: the right application, filed on time, with a sworn statement of how the house is used. A filing that missed one year’s deadline still counted for the next. Jamaican churches with manses or mission houses should keep clear records of who lives in each property and in what role, and should make sure every exemption is applied for correctly and on time. Rules differ between jurisdictions, but the principle is the same: an exemption has to be claimed and supported, not assumed.