I recently wrote an article for the Foreclosures.com newsletter, October 2008:
Excerpted:
In California, the purpose of the Lis Pendens is to give constructive notice to the public at large that this property has a lawsuit pending that could affect whether or not the owner of record has the right to sell it, put it up as collateral for a loan or otherwise transfer it. The technical aspects of filing and recording Notice of Pendency of Action are enumerated under §§405–405.6 of the California Code of Civil Procedure.
As recently as 2004, the California Supreme Court concluded that Code of Civil Procedure section 405.20 provides that, “a lis pendens may be filed by any party in any action who asserts a ‘real property claim’…(Kirkeby v. The Superior Court of Orange County (2004) 33 Cal.4th 642.) In that particular case, the plaintiffs had alleged a fraudulent transfer of the property had occurred.
Any investor planning on acquiring or lending against a property with a recorded lis pendens needs to do careful investigation. At the bare minimum, the investor should obtain the operative court pleadings. The lis pendens should contain the case number and the county the action is filed in, as well as the names of the parties. Some counties like Alameda county and San Francisco county make their court documents available online for instant access and without charge.
=========================================
Click HERE for the full text of the article, or please visit: http://www.brewerfirm.com/article-LisPendens.html
