Published Lis Pendens

[Tanner Miller]

Hello BP!

I am on the outskirts of Raleigh looking to get more into Foreclosure's for investments and wondering if anyone know where to find the list of Lis Pendens for Wayne, Johnston, Wake and other surround counties. I have contacted the clerks office in each of these respective locations and they only publish documentation when a formal foreclosure has been set and the auction date is posted. I would like to see if there is any more lead time available or if North Carolina doesn't publish them. 

I have looked at both Tax and mortgage foreclosures to see what is the best option at this time. I am sure there are a number of questions I am not even addressing so happy to provide amplifying data if I am missing something, but I figured this was a good spot.

[Chris Martin]

NC is a trustee state, so a mortgage default will trigger the "power of sale" process as spelled out in the recorded Deed of Trust. The legal details are in Article 2A, Sales Under Power of Sale in the NC General Statutes Chapter 45, Mortgages and Deeds of Trust. 

The earliest recorded legal action on a mortgage default is the substitute trustee filing. That is the document you will want to find in a county register of deeds search. The clerk's office will have a case file in their Special Proceeding office that corresponds to the Document Number on the substitute trustee filing. 

The S-TR filings, today, are sparce enough that you can process them by hand. When I was active at the courthouse steps, there were literally 50x the cases filed now in 2024. Back then I used an online service to filter my target areas. For example, @Dan Gabrielli has a good ePreforeclosure service for a number of NC counties. 

Tax foreclosures are a different beast. I've never bought a tax foreclosure and can't speak about that process. 

In today's market, with low foreclosure discount compared to past buyer's markets and a lot of "motivated buyers", the risk/reward ratio keeps me far away from the courthouse steps. 

Hope that helps.