Cape Coral
Foreclosures Calendar

For the most accurate information available, I go straight to the source of the Cape Coral foreclosures calendar - the Lee County Clerk of Courts, Civil Division. In addition to maintaining an online calendar, they house the physical files and computer court records.

Follow the instructions below and I’ll walk you through how to access the Lee County, Florida foreclosure calendar and tell you how I use it. NOTE: Even though this is the best source of information for what foreclosures will happen on a given day, properties can be pulled from the sale the day it is scheduled – without notice.

1. Open a new window to the Lee Clerk's online foreclosure calendar by clicking here.



2. The Lee County, Florida foreclosure calendar brings up a calendar of court case numbers. Use the arrows at the top of the calendar to go to the month you are interested in.
3. Next select a week you want to research by clicking on "View the foreclosure sales for the week" to the left of each week. This opens a spreadsheet of cases for that week listed in date order.
4. Click on a court case number on a day you want to research – each number is a link.
5. This brings up a page called “Civil / Small Claims Detail Information”. This page is the bare bones of the case. It gives the names of the parties to the action and the title of every document filed in the case.

   In my opinion, the most useful information here is the name of the defendant – that’s the property owner. (The bank or mortgage holder comes first followed by the word “plaintiff”, which means the person or party initiating the action. The connector “vs.” takes us to the name of interest – the “defendant”, the person or party the action is against.)

6. To print the calendar in what I consider to be a useful format, click on "View Foreclosure Sales for the week", select "page setup" from your printer menu and change the page orientation to landscape, then select print.

Before I continue, let me warn you – if you do not set decide before you begin what and where you want to buy in Lee County, Florida or Cape Coral – you WILL be overwhelmed by the number of cases to be researched. When I looked at the calendar on July 12, 2008, there could be over 50 foreclosures up for auction in Lee County on a given day. For my purposes, I look at only straightforward foreclosure cases on properties with three bedrooms, two bathrooms, a swimming pool and direct gulf access in southeast Cape Coral. Basically, I search for homes that I would consider good vacation rentals.

I will tell you how to research a property on my page about how you can find out about a property online.

My philosophy in researching Cape Coral foreclosures is that pool homes with good Gulf access will maintain their value better than any other properties in the area and they will recover faster. But that’s just me – many people focus on vacant lots or the cheaper homes available in southwest Cape Coral.

Regardless of your approach, narrow it down BEFORE you begin or you will get overwhelmed and discouraged by sheer volume of research.

(My husband does not ascribe to this theory . . . he thought we were missing lots of good deals by narrowing our search. He was probably right. But since I always did the research, that’s what he got – my abbreviated shortlist of properties. And it worked for us – I didn’t lose my mind and he still had too many properties to choose from.)

What I look for on the Civil / Small Claims Detail Information

1. Basic information on the case. VERY basic. From what is listed, you can do a cursory review of the case to determine if it is complicated or straightforward.
   1. To determine this I first scroll down to the list of defendants. If there are many “unknown spouse” or “unknown heirs” on the defendant list, I go to the next case. If the defendant list is short and straightforward, I go to the next section.
   2. The next section is “Service Events”. In any court case, the defendants (property owner’s and anyone with an interest in property) must receive official notice in a specific manner. I look to make sure that the defendants listed in the first section have a “Service date” listed on the line “Summons Issued” and any other serviceable events.
   3. The last section is called “docket lines”. I scroll through this to see if there is anything that is a red flag. I recommend you look at lots of these when you start your research to get a feel for how they “usually” go. For example, in a straightforward foreclosure there is the issuance of a complaint followed by service of the summons. If at this point the defendants start filing motions to argue against the action known as a “response”, I move on. This type of case is typically delayed and rescheduled multiple times. You can see that, too – if it has been repeatedly scheduled for foreclosure sale and then pulled off the docket (that’s what the court calendar is called). If you have plenty of time to research and go to sales, this could still be a good option for you.

2. If it appears to be straightforward, I look at the Name of Defendant. With this information you can search the property database on the Lee County Property Line. For detailed directions on how to search for a property by owner’s name go to my page Online Research.


The content of these pages is provided for informational purposes only and represents my personal view and experience on the subject of the Cape Coral foreclosure process. It is not offered as, nor should it be taken as, professional advice. Seek professional legal and financial counsel before making any investment decisions.

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