Lis Pendens in Texas

A lis pendens is a public notice that someone is suing over a specific piece of real property. It does not transfer anything and it does not decide anything — it just makes sure that every future buyer, lender and title examiner is on notice that the property’s ownership is being fought over in court. Here is what that means in Texas, how to find one, how one gets released, and why most Texas foreclosures never produce one in the first place.

Counts are read live from the Texas Signals index and refresh twice weekly. The lis pendens figure counts only filings recorded as a lis pendens — we do not relabel notices of trustee’s sale as lis pendens to make the number bigger.

The one thing to get straight: lis pendens ≠ foreclosure notice

This is where nearly every “foreclosure lis pendens” search goes wrong, and it is wrong for a reason specific to Texas. In many states a lender has to sue you to foreclose, and that lawsuit generates a lis pendens — so in those states “lis pendens” is practically a synonym for “the foreclosure has started.” Texas does not work that way.

Almost every Texas mortgage is secured by a deed of trust that already grants the lender a power of sale. To foreclose, the lender does not file suit at all. It sends the borrower notice, posts a Notice of Trustee’s Sale at least 21 days ahead under Property Code §51.002, and sells the property on the courthouse steps on the first Tuesday of the month. No lawsuit, no court file, and therefore no lis pendens. That is why the counts above are so lopsided.

So when you do find a lis pendens on a Texas property, it usually is not the mortgage. The common sources are HOA assessment suits, partition and heirship disputes among family members, divorces, quiet-title actions, mechanic’s and materialman’s lien foreclosures, taxing-authority foreclosure suits (which are judicial, under Tax Code §33.41), judicial foreclosure of a home-equity loan, and specific-performance suits filed by a buyer whose contract fell apart.

What a Texas lis pendens actually is

Under Texas Property Code §12.007, a party to an eligible lawsuit may record a notice of the suit in the real property records of the county where the property sits. “Eligible” is narrower than people assume: the action must involve title to real property, the establishment of an interest in real property, or the enforcement of an encumbrance against real property. A suit that is only about money — an unpaid invoice, a personal debt — does not qualify, which is exactly the ground most successful expunction motions are won on.

The notice itself is short. It must identify the court and the cause number, the style of the proceeding, the parties, the kind of proceeding, and a description of the property. The filer also has to serve a copy on every other party. Then §13.004 does the heavy lifting: a recorded lis pendens is constructive notice of its contents to the world. Nobody who deals with that property afterward gets to claim they did not know.

What it does to a buyer or investor

In practice, four things. Title companies will except to it or refuse to insure over it, so you cannot deliver clean title. Conventional lenders will not fund against it. Anything you buy is subject to the judgment in the pending suit, so an adverse ruling can reach the property in your hands. And it does not expire on its own — a lis pendens filed years ago can still be sitting in the index long after everyone stopped litigating, because nobody bothered to record the release.

How to search for a lis pendens in Texas

A lis pendens is recorded with the county clerk, in the official public records — not with the appraisal district, and not in the district clerk’s civil index (that holds the lawsuit, not the recorded notice). Practical sequence:

1. Open the county clerk’s official public records search for the county the property is in. Most large Texas counties publish a free index.
2. Search the current owner’s exact name both as grantor and as grantee, and filter document type to lis pendens or notice of lis pendens. Names get indexed inconsistently — try the LLC, the trust, and the individual.
3. Search the legal description, not the street address. Recorded instruments are indexed by lot/block or abstract/survey, and an address search silently misses filings.
4. Pull the document and read the cause number off it, then look that case up in the district clerk’s records to see what is actually claimed and whether the case is still alive or was dismissed years ago.
5. Check for a later release, expunction order, or §12.008 cancellation recorded after the original notice. A lis pendens with a recorded release is history, not a cloud.

Running a pre-foreclosure title search

If you are working distressed property, the lis pendens check is one line item in a wider pre-foreclosure title search. On any property you are about to make an offer on, pull: the vesting deed and the chain back far enough to see how the current owner took title; every deed of trust and any assignments; abstracts of judgment against the owner; state and federal tax liens; HOA assessment liens; mechanic’s liens; child-support liens; the tax office’s certificate for delinquent taxes; and any lis pendens. The posted trustee’s sale tells you the first lien is in trouble — it tells you nothing about what is stacked behind it, and behind it is where deals die.

Release of lis pendens in Texas — the three ways out

A lis pendens is not permanent, but it does not lift itself either. Something has to be recorded.

1. Voluntary release

The party who filed the notice records a release of lis pendens. This is the fast path and it is usually the product of a settlement, a dismissal, or the claimant simply deciding the fight is not worth it. Once recorded in the same county’s real property records, the cloud is cleared as of that date.

2. Motion to expunge (Property Code §12.0071)

The owner can move to expunge, and the statute tells the court it shall order the notice expunged if any of three things is true: the pleading on file does not contain a real property claim; the claimant fails to establish the probable validity of the real property claim; or the person who recorded the notice did not serve a copy on each party entitled to it. The first ground is the workhorse — plenty of lis pendens filings are recorded to pressure an owner in a dispute that is really about money, and those do not survive the motion. An expunction order, once recorded, means the notice is no longer constructive notice to anyone.

3. Cancellation after the case ends (§12.008)

After the underlying action is dismissed or reaches final judgment, the court can cancel the notice. This is the cleanup step people forget, which is why stale lis pendens notices from long-dead lawsuits keep showing up in title work.

This is general information about Texas recording practice, not legal advice, and it is not a substitute for a title examination. Statutes and local clerk procedures change — if a lis pendens is on a property you own or are buying, have a Texas real estate attorney or your title company read the actual instrument and the court file.

Recorded lis pendens filings in the Texas Signals index

We currently index 399 filings whose recorded document type is a lis pendens — all of them in Harris County, recorded Jun 11, 2026 – Jul 31, 2026. That is a narrow slice on purpose: lis pendens documents come from county clerk real-property feeds, and we only publish a county once we can refresh it reliably. Every other county’s coverage below is pre-foreclosure and trustee’s-sale data, which is a different instrument — we are not going to call it a lis pendens.

Pre-foreclosure and distress filings by Texas county

If what you are really after is distressed property rather than a title dispute, this is the useful table. Each county below has a live page with addresses, filing status and filing dates, refreshed twice weekly from that county’s public records — 57,971 filings across 76 counties. Counties not listed are not yet ingested; that is a coverage gap on our side, not a claim that nothing is filed there.

The honest limits of this data

• Lis pendens coverage is thin. Recorded lis pendens documents come from one county's clerk feed today (Harris). Everything else in the index is trustee’s-sale and pre-foreclosure data. We would rather say that plainly than inflate one number into the other.
• Not a title search. This is a filings index, not a title report. It cannot tell you lien priority, whether a release was recorded, or whether the underlying suit is still alive. Before you close, somebody has to actually examine title.
• Address quality varies by county. Some Texas clerks publish only a legal description on a foreclosure notice. Where we cannot resolve that to a street address with confidence, we leave it out rather than guess.
• Refresh lag. Records are pulled twice weekly. A notice recorded yesterday may not be here until the next run, and a suit settled yesterday may still show.

Texas lis pendens FAQ