A lis pendens just froze your property. What a notice of pendency really does.

A notice of pendency, or lis pendens, does not seize your property or freeze your title. It is a recorded warning that anyone who buys or lends after the filing takes subject to the outcome of the lawsuit. It lasts three years unless extended. It is filed without a judge’s permission, and it can be cancelled.

What does a notice of pendency actually do to my property?

A notice of pendency is constructive notice to anyone who later buys the property or lends against it. Under CPLR 6501, a person whose conveyance or encumbrance is recorded after the notice is filed is bound by all proceedings taken in the action, as if that person were a party. Sale remains legal. Sale becomes unattractive.

Nothing is confiscated. You still own the property. You can still sign a deed, still close, still mortgage. What changes is that the buyer or lender inherits the lawsuit’s result.

The notice binds only what comes after it. Interests recorded before the filing are untouched. The clerk must record and index it immediately, so it appears where every title search looks.

Law: CPLR 6501; CPLR 6511(c).

That is why it feels like a freeze. A purchaser will not close over it. A lender will not fund. A refinance stalls.

When does a claim actually affect title to real property?

CPLR 6501 permits a notice of pendency only where the judgment demanded would affect the title to, or the possession, use or enjoyment of, real property. Summary proceedings brought to recover possession of real property are excluded by the statute itself. The test is read narrowly. A claim for money damages does not meet it.

The leading case is 5303 Realty Corp. v. O & Y Equity Corp. The buyer had contracted to acquire the stock of an entity whose business was owning and operating a single office building. The subject of the contract was stock. A notice of pendency went on the building.

The Court of Appeals refused to stop at the demand for relief. It examined the complaint in its entirety and found the true action was one to enforce a contract to sell stock. A suit to specifically perform a contract for the sale of stock representing beneficial ownership of realty will not support a notice of pendency. Therefore, cancelled.

Case: 5303 Realty Corp. v. O & Y Equity Corp., 64 N.Y.2d 313 (1984).

Labels do not control. A complaint that demands title language on the last page does not thereby affect title, and a badly drafted complaint pleading a real claim to the property does.

Can I cancel a lis pendens by proving the plaintiff’s claim is meritless?

A notice of pendency cannot be cancelled merely because the underlying claim is weak. On a motion arguing the action falls outside CPLR 6501, the court’s scope of review is circumscribed and its analysis is limited to the face of the pleading. Likelihood of success on the merits is irrelevant to the validity of the notice.

This is the hardest thing to accept at 2am. You have the emails. You know the plaintiff is inventing a contract. None of that wins that motion.

Two other routes do turn on conduct and proof. Under CPLR 6514(b) a court may, in its discretion, cancel where the plaintiff has not commenced or prosecuted the action in good faith. And a CPLR 3211 motion disposing of the cause of action supporting the notice takes the notice with it.

The scheme lets a party retard the alienability of your real property without prior judicial review. That imbalance is why courts read the statute narrowly and demand strict compliance with its procedures. The narrow reading is the defense.

Case: 5303 Realty Corp. v. O & Y Equity Corp., 64 N.Y.2d 313, 320-321 (1984).

The motion to cancel is not an argument about who is right. It is an argument about what the complaint says and what the filing did.

What procedural mistakes make a notice of pendency defective?

Strict compliance with article 65 is required. The complaint must be filed with the notice unless it is already on file in that county. The notice must state the names of the parties, the object of the action, and a description of the property. The summons must be served, or first publication made, within thirty days after filing.

I read the notice of pendency, the complaint filed with it, and the affidavit of service, in that order, before anything else. I check the filing date against the service date before I form a view of the dispute.

Three consequences follow, each easy to miss.

• The complaint filed with the notice must be adequate unto itself. A later amended complaint cannot justify an earlier notice of pendency.
• The notice is effective only if, within thirty days after filing, a summons is served, or first publication under an order is made and publication later completed. Miss that window and cancellation on motion is mandatory.
• The notice must describe the property affected. CPLR 6501 reaches only property the judgment demanded would actually affect, so a description covering parcels the complaint never puts in issue is worth attention.

Law: CPLR 6511(a), (b); CPLR 6512; CPLR 6514(a).

Case: 5303 Realty Corp. v. O & Y Equity Corp., 64 N.Y.2d 313, 320-321 (1984).

How long does a notice of pendency last in New York?

A notice of pendency is effective for three years from the date of filing. The plaintiff may move for an extension of a like additional period, for good cause shown, but only before the prior period expires. The extension order must itself be filed, recorded and indexed before the prior period runs out.

The Court of Appeals calls this an exacting rule. A notice that has expired without extension is a nullity, and a lapsed notice may not be revived. A plaintiff who moves one day after the three years have run has nothing to extend. Therefore, expired.

One carve-out: in a foreclosure action, CPLR 6516(a) lets the plaintiff file a successive notice to comply with RPAPL 1331 even though the earlier one lapsed.

Law: CPLR 6513; CPLR 6516(a).

Cases: Matter of Sakow, 97 N.Y.2d 436, 442 (2002); Strong Is. Contr. Corp. v. Padilla, 218 A.D.3d 820 (2d Dep’t 2023).

Calendar the filing date the day you learn of it. The three-year date belongs on your calendar too.

How do you get a notice of pendency cancelled under CPLR 6514?

CPLR 6514 separates cancellation into two categories. Subdivision (a) lists mandatory grounds, where the court shall direct the county clerk to cancel. Subdivision (b) is discretionary and turns on the plaintiff’s good faith in commencing or prosecuting the action. A separate attack argues the action never fell within CPLR 6501.

Two routes never reach a judge, both only before entry of judgment. Under CPLR 6514(d) the clerk cancels on an attorney’s affidavit identifying which defendants were served, defaulted or appeared, plus a stipulation consenting to cancellation, acknowledged in the form required to record a deed. Under CPLR 6514(e) the clerk cancels on an attorney’s affidavit showing no appearances and that the time to appear has expired.

A court cancelling under section 6514 may direct the plaintiff to pay costs and expenses occasioned by the filing and cancellation. That is discretionary.

Law: CPLR 6514(a)-(e).

Can I post a bond to get the lis pendens off my property?

CPLR 6515 lets an aggrieved party buy the notice of pendency off the record with an undertaking. The court may direct cancellation on just terms, whether or not the judgment demanded would affect specific real property, if the moving party gives an undertaking in an amount fixed by the court and one of two conditions is met.

The first condition is that adequate relief can be secured to the plaintiff by the undertaking. The second is that the plaintiff, ordered to give its own undertaking indemnifying you if the notice is not cancelled, fails to do so.

Two limits. The court may cancel, not must, and it fixes the amount. The section is unavailable in a foreclosure action as defined in CPLR 6516(b), and in partition or dower.

Law: CPLR 6515; CPLR 6516(b).

A bond converts a claim against your building into a claim against a sum of money. That is usually the whole fight.

If the notice of pendency is cancelled, can the plaintiff just file another one?

CPLR 6516 forbids it outside foreclosure. Except as provided in subdivision (a), a notice of pendency may not be filed in any action in which a previously filed notice affecting the same property has been cancelled or vacated, or has expired or become ineffective. The Court of Appeals calls this the no second chance rule.

The Court of Appeals held that an expired or cancelled notice may not be refiled on the same cause of action or claim. Refiling after expiration would make the three-year limit in CPLR 6513 useless and remove the incentive for diligent prosecution.

The exception is narrow. In a foreclosure action, a successive notice may be filed to comply with RPAPL 1331, even though a prior notice in that action or a previous foreclosure expired under CPLR 6513 or became ineffective under CPLR 6512. That subdivision does not reach mechanic’s lien foreclosure.

Law: CPLR 6516(a), (b), (c).

Case: Matter of Sakow, 97 N.Y.2d 436, 442-443 (2002).

What happens to a sale once the notice is cancelled?

Once the notice is cancelled and nothing else restrains the transfer, the owner can convey clear title, and a purchaser’s knowledge of the plaintiff’s continuing fight does not change that. That is the holding of Da Silva v. Musso, read with the mandatory cancellation grounds in CPLR 6514(a) and the stay provisions of CPLR 5519.

The claimant’s specific performance action ended in a final judgment against him. He appealed, obtained no stay under CPLR 5519, and his notice was cancelled under CPLR 6514(a). The owners sold, and the purchaser knew of the appeal. The Court held that the purchaser’s actual knowledge of a pending appeal is not legally significant, and that absent an outstanding valid notice the owner’s ability to transfer clear title remains unimpaired.

The premise is that nothing else restrains the transfer. A CPLR 5519 stay, an injunction, or another recorded encumbrance changes the answer. Otherwise the holding cuts both ways: if the notice against you is cancelled, you can sell, and if you are the party who filed, actual notice to the world is no substitute.

Case: Da Silva v. Musso, 76 N.Y.2d 436 (1990).

What should you do in the first week after a lis pendens is filed against you?

The first week is about dates and documents, not argument. A notice of pendency lives or dies on the filing date, the service date, the contents of the notice, and the four corners of the complaint filed with it. Every one of those is a fixed, checkable fact. Gather them before anyone drafts a motion.

• Obtain the notice as filed and indexed in the clerk’s office for each county where the property sits, with the exact filing date.
• Obtain the complaint filed with the notice. Not a later amended version. The one filed with it.
• Calendar thirty days for service under CPLR 6512 and three years for expiration under CPLR 6513, both from the filing date.
• Obtain the affidavit of service and compare it to the thirty-day window.
• Read the complaint for the judgment it actually demands. Ask whether that judgment would affect title, possession, use or enjoyment, and compare the description in the notice to the property the complaint puts in issue.
• Check for an earlier notice against the same property. If one was cancelled, vacated or allowed to expire, CPLR 6516(c) may bar this one outright.
• Tell your title company, lender and any contract vendee, and pull the contract of sale for its time-of-the-essence and title-objection deadlines.
• Decide among three moves, not mutually exclusive: cancellation under CPLR 6514, an undertaking under CPLR 6515 if the action is not excluded, and a CPLR 3211 motion at the cause of action supporting the notice.

Speed is worth more here than eloquence. A notice filed against a property under contract does its damage in weeks, and the mandatory grounds in CPLR 6514(a) are the fastest way off the record.