What is a Lis Pendens?

A Lis Pendens or a Notice of Pendency is a notice that a legal action is pending against your property and that your property has been encumbered by it. The legal action could be a mortgage or tax lien foreclosure, brought because there were either missed payments on the mortgage or missed tax payments to a municipality. The action could be to determine some other lien on, or to clear disputed ownership of, the property. What is important is that you probably won’t able to transfer your property free of the lien or obtain a loan against your property until that encumbrance is removed. This is because the lis pendens attaches to the property itself. A lis pendens typically expires after three years but is often renewed. Any search of your property will reveal the existence of that lis pendens and title companies refuse to insure ownership transfer free of the lis pendens. In order to have the lis pendens removed from the County records, a Cancellation of Lis Pendens will need to be filed, which will either require consent of the filing attorney or a court order. Either way, the underlying action pending against your property will need to be addressed.

Prior results do not guarantee a similar outcome. All information posted is general advice only, based upon the rules of NYS, and is not intended to be a substitute for personal legal advice. Although information provided here was accurate as of the date of posting, laws change frequently and rules in other jurisdictions may differ. Therefore, readers should not rely upon these postings but should consult an attorney to discuss their specific factual situation.