Cape Coral Foreclosures
Lee County Court Records

The Lee County Justice Center maintains the official court documents for all Cape Coral foreclosures, as well as those in Sanibel, Captiva, Ft. Myers and Bonita Springs, Florida.

If you are interested in purchasing foreclosures, you can go straight to the Justice Center for all your research. However, there is a 30 minute limit on using the public computers if anyone is waiting.

You may want to look at the foreclosure calendar online first and do some preliminary online research of the properties up for auction using the defendant’s name and the Lee County Property Appraiser’s site.

At a minimum, I suggest you print out the foreclosure docket list for the dates you are interested in and take it with you. There is a charge for printing at the Justice Center.

Regardless of your approach, you will need to do due diligence with the official court record prior to bidding.

The Lee County Justice Center is located at 1700 Monroe St., 2nd floor, Ft. Myers, FL 33901. For the most up-to-date information on their hours of operation, click here. To enter this building you must pass through a security checkpoint with a metal detector.

Take the escalator in front of you to the second floor. Turn right then look left and you will see a desk for “Civil Files”. (Modify these instructions if you need to use the elevator which is just behind the escalator and to the left.)

You can either choose to use the computer or view paper files. When a clerk waits on you, let them know you are interested in researching foreclosures and that you have never been there before and would like a brief tutorial. They are very helpful and informative but cannot give legal advice.

If you choose paper files, there is a nominal fee for looking at more than ten AND if someone else is looking at a file, you will not have access to it at that time. If you choose the computer, there is a nominal printing fee.

If you choose the computer, the clerk will sign you on and then give you a brief – very brief - instruction. It is a pretty basic system. Documents from the physical file are scanned into the computer and you can view them one at a time.

I typically start my research with the complaint which provides information such as the name of the defendant(s), a legal description of the property, a street address for the property and the amount the bank is seeking. (I once encountered a court case where the legal description and street address did not match when I entered them into the Lee County Assessor’s database. Due diligence is critical!)

Attached to the complaint there is usually a copy of the original mortgage that shows the amount of the original note. Look through all the documents on the first cases you research to become familiar with what they contain.

If what I found online and in the court files didn’t rule out the property (ie. too expensive, wrong neighborhood, to complex, etc.), the next step for us was to drive by the properties we were interested in and then ask our realtor friend to give us some market comps.

When a property interested us enough to consider bidding, we sought legal advice regarding our proposed purchase before the auction. In one instance, we were advised to “run - not walk” from what had appeared from all our research to be a very attractive property.

Still with me? On to the foreclosure auction.

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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