Friedlander, J.
….
The Trust contends the trial court’s order for deed was untimely. Pursuant to the Trust’s interpretation of I.C. § 6-1.1-25-4.6(b), the trial court was required to enter an order directing the County auditor to issue tax deeds no later than sixty-one days after the Petition for Issuance of Tax Deed was filed. As the Trust notes, the order was filed on July 17, 2014, which was almost a year after 524 filed a motion asking the court to order the auditor to issue tax deeds for the Parcels.
I.C. § 6-1.1-25-4.6(b) states [Footnote omitted]:
(b) Not later than sixty-one (61) days after the petition is filed under subsection (a), the court shall enter an order directing the county auditor (on the production of the certificate of sale and a copy of the order) to issue to the petitioner a tax deed if the court finds that the following conditions exist:
(1) The time of redemption has expired.
(2) The tract or real property has not been redeemed from the sale before the expiration of the period of redemption specified in section 4 of this chapter.
(3) Except with respect to a petition for the issuance of a tax deed under a sale of the certificate of sale on the property under IC 6-1.1-24-6.1 or IC 6-1.1-24-6.8, or with respect to penalties described in section 4(k) of this chapter, all taxes and special assessments, penalties, and costs have been paid.
(4) The notices required by this section and section 4.5 of this chapter have been given.
(5) The petitioner has complied with all the provisions of law entitling the petitioner to a deed.
The county auditor shall execute deeds issued under this subsection in the name of the state under the county auditor’s name. If a certificate of sale is lost before the execution of a deed, the county auditor shall issue a replacement certificate if the county auditor is satisfied that the original certificate existed.
Pursuant to the terms of the statute, the trial court must enter an order directing the county auditor to issue a tax deed within sixty-one days of the time of the filing of the petition for tax deed, but only after certain enumerated conditions are met. The fifth condition is that the petitioner has complied with all requirements that entitle the petitioner to the requested deed. The language of subsection (b)(1)-(5) focuses upon affirmative steps that a petitioner must undertake and accomplish in order to be entitled to a tax deed. It would seem in this case that 524 accomplished all of those steps upon the August 28, 2013 filing of its motion asking the court to order the auditor to issue a tax deed for the Parcels. We note, however, that the Trust objected to that request and the matter was set for hearing on April 22, 2014. Were we to adopt the Trust’s interpretation of this statute, the trial court would have been required to enter its order directing the auditor to issue a tax deed for the Parcels almost six months before it conducted the hearing to determine whether 524’s petition should be granted over the Trust’s challenge in the first place. This surely cannot be what the Legislature intended.
Rather, we conclude that there is implicit in the statute a sixth condition, which is that the petitioner is legally entitled to a tax deed after completing all of the requisite steps. In cases, such as here, where the petition for an order directing a county auditor to issue a tax deed has been challenged, such entitlement is not established until the court rules on the validity of the challenge, and concomitantly the validity of the request for an order directing the auditor to issue the tax deed. In other words, under such circumstances, pursuant to I.C. § 6-1.1-25-4.6(b), a trial court has sixty-one days, after resolving a challenge to a petitioner’s request for a tax deed in favor of the petitioner, to enter an order directing the auditor to issue the deed.
In the present case, the trial court’s rejection of the Trust’s challenge was simultaneous with its order directing the auditor of Lake County to issue the tax deed for the Parcels. Therefore, we conclude the order was timely pursuant to I.C. § 6-1.1-25-4.6(b).
Judgment affirmed.
Baker, J., and Najam, J., concur.