I ran into a road block in the county recorder’s office looking for lis pendens.
“What’s the person’s name?” they asked.
“I have no idea,” I said.
“Well what’s the property address?” they asked.
“That’s what I’m here to find out!” I said.
“Well then we can’t help you.” they said, then they sent me out into the hall to look at the bulletin board of the upcoming auctions, both of which had “postponed” on them.
Where am I going wrong here? What do I have to say or who do I have to talk to to get UP TO DATE lis pendens so I can go knock on some doors and save some people’s credit? Obviously RealtyTrac and the other umpteen companies out there who sell the info are getting it.
Don’t get discouraged, remember your walking into a county government office and making a request that they don’t normally deal with. Think of the recorder’s office or clerk of court’s office as a big database filled with property addresses, owner’s names, folio numbers, assessed value and of course lis penden actions. They are accustomed to retrieving information based upon address or owner name. You need to ask them if their system is computerized (hopefully it is) and if they can do a search for recently recorded lis pendens regardless of owner name or address. If they are unable to retrieve data in this manner maybe you can narrow your search to a neighborhood you are familiar with and just look through the property records for every property. Once you become familiar with the record layout you can probably make quick work of the task. You might also inquire if they provide, free of charge or for a small fee, a database of their property records. If yes then you can search for the information yourself, but it might be stale data by the time they package it for sale.
Sweet answer! Thank you! This extra bit of work involved must also mean that fewer other investors or bird dogs are going to go through it to retrieve the fresh data, and instead just wait for a service or title co. to provide it.