A Florida Pre Foreclosure Investors Best Friend is the official county records. This friend is easy to find, nearly all of the Counties in Florida have a homepage for the Clerk of Circuit Courts. One of the obligations and requirements of this office is to maintain and enter recorded documents into the official county records. I believe, at the current time, of the 67 counties in Florida there are only 5 which do not have a Clerk of Courts website. In those 5 counties you will be required to visit your best friend at the county clerk's office.

From the Clerk's homepage you can locate the link for the official county records. Once located, it is easy enough to enter a query by document type. "Lis Pendens". This document is one of the earliest recorded documents in a foreclosure action and is viewable online. The down side is that the Lis Pendens is also a leading pleading in all civil cases so there will be some filed for quiet title actions and other civil suits but the vast majority will be foreclosure of mortgage cases. The upside is that it sometimes takes 30 days for the property information to appear on commercial pay for access sites as a pre foreclosure. Best friends frequently tell you their secrets before telling others.

This viewable document will contain the names of Plaintiff's (those who are foreclosing) and the Defendant's (those parties of interest and owners who are being foreclosed on). You will also find the legal description for the property and the attorney for Plaintiff's contact information.

Once you have retrieved the names of Plaintiffs, its over to the Property Appraisers website. Every County except for Taylor, I believe, has a Property Appraisers site. Run a query of the land records by the Plaintiffs named on the Lis Pendens. This will return the property data card so you can retrieve owner contact information, property features, zoning, assessed value and aerials in most counties via GIS. Most counties also have a sales data search to locate comp properties.

Pre Foreclosure Investing Save Time
To save time and energy, you could run a query of the official records by those named defendants found on the Lis Pendens to ascertain additional information in regards to mortgages, liens and judgments filed against them.

If you are investigating pre foreclosures it pays to have a best friend and every Florida Pre Foreclosure Investors Best Friend should be the official county records. By using the below tips you will have all of the pre foreclosure leads you can handle.

James A. MIkel

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