A lis pendens is a pending lawsuit or legal action, or a formal notice of a pending lawsuit or legal action. For example, a lis pendens is an official public notice that a piece of real property has a pending lawsuit or claim attached to it—which may be especially relevant to potential buyers of the property, as a sale of the property will probably not extinguish or resolve the pending claim.

Lis pendens might also refer to the jurisdiction (power, authority, control) a court acquires over property while a legal action is pending. Or lis pendens may refer to a notice recorded in the public records (often county records) in the chain of title to a piece of real property—which is required or permitted in some jurisdictions to put all persons on notice that the property is the subject of litigation or of a claim. This notice informs potential buyers of the property that their future ownership of the property may be subject to other claims.

Lis pendens is often used when spouses are going through the divorce process and their real property assets, for example, have not been finally divided by their agreement or by the court. Banks commonly use the lis pendens process to put the public on notice that a property is in foreclosure. And a homeowners’ association may file a lis pendens when it seeks to foreclose on a homeowner’s home to satisfy delinquent fees or assessments.

The procedure for a lis pendens is usually located in a state’s statutes—often in the property code or in the code of civil procedure, for example.

In Hawaii, a lis pendens is a notice that signals there is litigation pending that may affect the title to a specific piece of real property. This notice is typically recorded in the public records of the county where the property is located, thereby alerting potential purchasers or other interested parties that there are claims or legal actions that could impact their interests in the property. The purpose of recording a lis pendens is to preserve the rights of the party filing it while the lawsuit is ongoing and to warn others that the outcome of the pending litigation may affect the property's ownership or create an encumbrance on the title. In Hawaii, the process for filing a lis pendens is governed by state statutes, which can be found in the Hawaii Revised Statutes. These statutes outline the specific requirements for filing a lis pendens, including the necessary content of the notice and the method of recording it with the appropriate county office. The use of lis pendens is common in cases involving disputes over real property, such as foreclosure proceedings, divorce cases where property division is contested, and situations where a homeowners’ association may be seeking to enforce its rights against a homeowner.