If you have pulled up your county records and found the phrase lis pendens attached to your own address, here is the short version. It means a lawsuit has been filed that involves your property. It is not a verdict, and it is not a judgment. It is a notice, and it changes what happens next.
The letter stage comes before this. If you are still working out which document you are holding, start with how to read a notice of default. Once a case has been filed, what happens after a foreclosure notice in Manatee County walks through the sequence. From there, the two questions I hear most are whether you can stay in the house while the case runs and whether you will owe money at the end of it.
Video transcript
Auto-captioned from the video above and lightly cleaned — filler words removed, nothing added. If you plan to quote any figure from it, check the video itself.
Lis pendens. And it usually shows up on a piece of paper with no explanation attached. Before anything else, hear this. A lis pendens is not a judgment about you and it’s not the end of your house. It’s a filing. Here is exactly what that filing means in plain English.
So what do those two words actually mean?
Lis pendens is Latin and it means a suit pending. That is the whole definition. A lawsuit has been filed that involves this property. So when you see it on your own house, it means somebody has started a court case that touches this address. That’s all it means. It’s not a verdict. It’s not a judgment. It is not a bill.
Is it a lien against me?
No. And this is the part that people most often get wrong. A lien is a claim for money. A lis pendens is not a claim for money. It does not create a debt and it does not add a dollar to what you owe. What it does is attach to the property. So the case follows the house instead of getting lost along the way. It also does not land on your credit report. This is a county records and a court records matter. It is not a credit matter.
Why is there one on my house?
If you’re in foreclosure in Florida, this is standard. And it is not a sign that something unusual happened to you.
Here’s the order. The lender’s attorney files the lawsuit and records a lis pendens at the same time. Then the complaint and the summons get served on you, usually by a process server at your door. So if you’ve been served, you almost certainly have a lis pendens already. The two arrive together. And that is how nearly every foreclosure case in this state begins.
And foreclosure is not the only reason one shows up. A divorce where the house is being fought over, heirs disagreeing about an inherited property. A boundary dispute with a neighbor, an HOA case, a problem with a contractor. If a court is going to decide something about a piece of real estate, a lis pendens is how the world gets told about it.
So what does it stop me from doing?
Practically, it makes the house hard to sell while the case is open. Hard, not impossible. A buyer who sees a lis pendens is buying a lawsuit along with the house. And most buyers will not do that. A title company will not insure a clean sale until that case is resolved one way or another. So the honest answer is this. You can still sell, but the case comes with the property. And that changes who your buyer can be and what they are willing to pay.
Does it mean I have already lost the house?
No. This is the biggest misunderstanding and it costs people real time. A lis pendens is filed at the start of a case, not the end of one. It is the opening. Everything that could still happen is still in front of you. Reinstating the loan, working out a modification, selling before the case finishes, defending the case. None of that is closed off by the recording itself.
What the lis pendens does mean is that the clock is now real. Once you are served, you have a deadline to respond and it is counted in days, not months. Missing that deadline is what turns a case into a judgment, not the two Latin words on the paper.
Can it be removed?
Yes, and it usually goes away in one of a few ways. The case ends, it is dismissed or settled, or the house sells and the loan is paid off and the lis pendens gets released. It also will work with a short sale, or a judgment discharges it.
What happens when the lis pendens should not have been filed, or was filed improperly, or the case behind it has stalled out? That is an argument for a lawyer to make. It is not a form you fill out yourself. But it’s a real path. And it’s worth asking about.
One more thing worth knowing. Florida does not treat a lis pendens as harmless paperwork. There are real consequences for recording one improperly. So if yours looks wrong, there may be something to do about it. That is a conversation to have with an attorney, not something to sit on.
So what should I do right now?
Three things. First, do not ignore it. Do not make a big decision today. The recording itself has not taken anything from you yet. The deadline is what takes things.
Second, find the papers. The complaint and the summons came with this. Write the date you were served on the front of the complaint. That one date is the anchor for everything that follows.
Third, talk to a foreclosure defense attorney. This is the one part of the process where a professional is not optional. Legal aid if money is tight, and your county bar association’s referral service if it is not. Then once you know where your case actually stands, you and I can talk about the house itself. What is it worth today? What do you owe and what selling before the case finishes would actually look like.
Two words on a piece of paper do not decide your outcome. What you do in the next few weeks does.
If you have a lis pendens on your house and you’re not sure what it means for you, call or text me at 941-737-6562. You can email me at linda@reynoldsrealty.com and we’ll schedule a time to talk. And just know there’s no judgment, just options.
Talk it through
If you have a lis pendens on your house and you are not sure what it means for you, call or text 941-737-6562, or email linda@reynoldsrealty.com. I am glad to read it with you.
No judgment. Just options.