If you ever wanted to know how to look up or get updates on a foreclosure court proceeding in N.Y.C, you are in the right place. Because foreclosure cases in New York State involve the filing of a Request for Judicial Intervention or "RJI", they become a matter of public record and are searchable by any interested party. Below I will show you step by step how you can look up and get updates on a foreclosure court case in Queens, Brooklyn, The Bronx, Manhattan or Staten Island. Actually, this method will be good for ANY county in the State of New York. You can look up past and upcoming court appearances, motions, judgments and more!
The New York State Unified court system allows you to look up and track online cases pertaining to:
· *Civil Supreme Court
· Civil local Court
· Criminal Court
· Family Court
*New York foreclosures are handled by the Civil Supreme Court in that particular county. Keep in mind that the Supreme court also handles other types of cases such as:
· Commercial Division.
· Ex-Parte.
· Guardianship.
· Matrimonial (Divorce).
· Mental Health Part.
· Motion Support.
· Subpoenaed Records.
If you search by “party“ (name) you might pull up another case associated with that person or party in another category. Unless you have a specific Index court case number you cannot specify any one type of case. You will have to sort through the results, find the matching name and look at the “plaintiff”. If the plaintiff is a bank or corporation, it is more than likely a foreclosure case.
In order to get a specific index number you will either need to be privy to a court correspondence such as a notice mailed to the defendant or have access to a Real Estate database website such as GeoDataPlus or Property Shark that will typically provide that information through a "lis pendens" (latin for pending suit) search. A good Realtor can help you with that if need be.
To access the Supreme Court section directly, use the website link below:
(You might be prompted to sign in or create a free account profile)
Although you are able to search primarily with 4 criteria: Index Number, Party, Attorney or Justice. The index or party searches will be used most commonly and give you the most focused results. Below are the input formats for each, but in this article we will address the "party search" method.
Index Search- search by entering the Index Number of a case. Please be sure to use the correct format which is NNNNNN/YYYY where NNNNNN is the index number, containing up to six digits e.g. 123456 and YYYY is the four digit year (e.g. 2006). You may limit your search to one or more counties by selecting from the drop-down list of county names (remember, most counties use the same numbering scheme so it is possible to encounter the same index number in multiple courts). Finally, you may choose to sort your search results by Index Number (the default), Defendant Name, Plaintiff Name, County or Appearance Date.
Party Search- enables you to search on the name of one of the parties. You can select the party as Defendant (usually the home owner), Plaintiff (usually the bank) or Either defendant or plaintiff. Please remember that most courts enter an individual’s name as Last Name, First Name (e.g. Smith, John). To make your search faster you may limit your search to one or more Counties by selecting from the drop-down list of county names and you can also select a specific year in which the case was filed to further limit your search. By default only those cases which are open are returned – if you wish to see closed cases please select "All" as your Case Status. All cases matching the criteria you entered will be returned – if you wish to only view those with a future appearance on the calendar set Return only Cases with Future Appearances to "Yes". Finally, you may choose to sort your search results by Index Number (the default), Defendant Name, Plaintiff Name, County or Appearance Date.
Here are the steps to start with "Party Search":
1- After you have reached the website and clicked on your search method (in this case "Party Search"):
-Input the Last, First name of owner on record/mortgage holder and select “defendant”
(You might need to search by last name only if no results come back).
-Select the County if known.
-For “Case status” select “ALL” - The case you are looking for might be “disposed” (closed).
-For “Return only cases with future appearances” select “No”.
-Select “Find Case(s).
2- Look through the results and locate the case(s) that match the name you are looking for. Again, Keep in mind that there might be other cases with the same first and last name especially if it's a common name. You might have to look at specific documents that have been filed with that case to confirm that it is the property or owner you are looking for.
3- Click on the Index number of any result of interest to find out more details. At this point you will be able to access:
-Past and future scheduled appearances
-Motions
-E-filed Documents
4- You can also select “Add to eTrack” and have any future updates on the selected case emailed directly to you (You have to be signed in or register for a free account).
Hope this helps you in your research. In order to understand exactly what any future appearances, motions or documents actually mean, it is then advised to speak with an attorney who knows foreclosure proceedings.
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