US Probate & Foreclosure Leads Scraper

Aggregate distressed-property events from US government open-data portals. Returns probate filings, foreclosure notices, sheriff sales, tax liens, and tax sales in one unified schema — sourced from the Socrata Open Data network that powers dozens of county and state data sites.

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Probate & Foreclosure Leads Scraper Features

• Aggregates five distinct distressed-property event types into one schema
• Pulls from dozens of county and state open-data portals, no scraping per county
• Normalizes heterogeneous source fields into a single output record — NOLA sheriff sales, NYC tax liens, King County foreclosures, and others line up automatically
• Filters by state, county, event type, date range, owner-occupancy, and minimum estimated equity
• Returns the raw source row alongside the normalized record, so nothing is lost in translation
• Pure JSON API — no browser, no proxies, no captcha

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Who Uses Probate & Foreclosure Data?

• Real estate investors — Feed distressed-property leads into direct-mail campaigns and CRM pipelines
• Wholesalers — Find motivated sellers before they hit the MLS; the early bird gets the cash deal
• Title companies — Track lis pendens, sheriff sales, and tax-lien filings by county
• Estate and probate attorneys — Monitor new probate records for estate-administration outreach
• PropTech analytics — Build distressed-property scoring models from a unified, geocoded event feed

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How Probate & Foreclosure Leads Scraper Works

1. Discovers datasets by querying the cross-portal Socrata Discovery API with keywords like "foreclosure", "lis pendens", "tax lien", and "sheriff sale".
2. Classifies each matching dataset as probate, foreclosure, sheriff sale, tax lien, or tax sale using title and description keywords.
3. Pages through each dataset's SODA API with $limit / $offset until the record cap is reached.
4. Normalizes the raw rows into a unified schema — field names like defendant, propertyaddress, saledate get mapped to canonical fields so you do not have to write 30 portal-specific parsers yourself.

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Input

{
    "eventTypes": ["foreclosure", "sheriff_sale", "tax_lien"],
    "states": ["LA", "NY"],
    "maxItems": 500,
    "sp_intended_usage": "Lead gen for distressed-property direct mail",
    "sp_improvement_suggestions": ""
}

Field	Type	Default	Description
eventTypes	array	[] (all)	One or more of probate, foreclosure, sheriff_sale, tax_lien, tax_sale.
states	array	[] (all)	US two-letter state codes. Filters source portals by their geographic scope.
counties	array	[] (all)	County names like King, Cook, Orleans. Case-insensitive.
dateFrom	string	""	ISO date (YYYY-MM-DD). Keeps records with sale_date or filing_date on/after this date.
dateTo	string	""	ISO date. Keeps records with sale_date or filing_date on/before this date.
minEstimatedEquity	integer	0	Drops records where estimated_value - mortgage_balance is below this USD amount. 0 disables the filter.
onlyOwnerOccupied	boolean	false	When true, drops records where owner-occupancy cannot be verified from the source data.
maxItems	integer	100	Hard cap on records returned, counted across all datasets.
proxyConfiguration	object	Apify proxy off	Socrata endpoints are open APIs and do not need proxies. Leave defaults.

State-filtered example

{
    "eventTypes": ["tax_lien"],
    "states": ["NY"],
    "maxItems": 1000,
    "sp_intended_usage": "Tax lien investor research",
    "sp_improvement_suggestions": ""
}

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Probate & Foreclosure Leads Scraper Output Fields

{
    "event_id": "data.nola.gov:d52w-8nva:2012-5883",
    "event_type": "sheriff_sale",
    "source_url": "https://data.nola.gov/d/d52w-8nva",
    "dataset_name": "Sheriff Sales - Lien Foreclosures",
    "domain": "data.nola.gov",
    "county": "Orleans",
    "state": "LA",
    "filing_date": null,
    "sale_date": null,
    "case_number": "2012-5883",
    "decedent_name": null,
    "executor_name": null,
    "attorney_name": null,
    "defendant_name": "GREGORY DELORIMIER",
    "plaintiff_name": "CITY OF NEW ORLEANS",
    "property_address": "5300 LAFAYE STREET",
    "property_address_normalized": "5300 LAFAYE STREET",
    "parcel_apn": null,
    "property_type": null,
    "estimated_value_usd": null,
    "mortgage_balance_usd": null,
    "lien_amount_usd": null,
    "opening_bid_usd": null,
    "winning_bid_usd": 0,
    "owner_occupied": null,
    "property_equity_estimate_usd": null,
    "status": "Pending",
    "lat": null,
    "lng": null,
    "raw_source_fields": "{\"cdccasenumber\":\"2012-5883\",\"defendant\":\"GREGORY DELORIMIER\",...}"
}

Field	Type	Description
event_id	string	Stable per-event identifier: <domain>:<dataset_id>:<case_number_or_parcel>.
event_type	string	One of probate, foreclosure, sheriff_sale, tax_lien, tax_sale.
source_url	string	Permalink to the underlying open-data dataset.
dataset_name	string	Name of the Socrata dataset this record came from.
domain	string	Source portal domain, e.g. data.nola.gov.
county	string|null	County name inferred from the portal domain. Null for state-level portals.
state	string	US two-letter state code.
filing_date	string|null	Filing, recording, or notice date — whichever the source provides.
sale_date	string|null	Scheduled or completed sale/auction date.
case_number	string|null	Court case or docket number.
decedent_name	string|null	Decedent name (probate records).
executor_name	string|null	Executor, administrator, or personal representative (probate).
attorney_name	string|null	Filing attorney name when present.
defendant_name	string|null	Defendant, debtor, owner, or mortgagor name.
plaintiff_name	string|null	Plaintiff, creditor, lender, or mortgagee name.
property_address	string|null	Street address as it appears in the source dataset.
property_address_normalized	string|null	Uppercased trimmed version of property_address for matching.
parcel_apn	string|null	Assessor parcel number or equivalent identifier.
property_type	string|null	Property-use or building-class code from the source.
estimated_value_usd	number|null	Assessed or estimated market value when the source provides it.
mortgage_balance_usd	number|null	Outstanding mortgage or judgment balance.
lien_amount_usd	number|null	Lien amount or tax owed.
opening_bid_usd	number|null	Opening, minimum, or upset bid at auction.
winning_bid_usd	number|null	Winning or final sale amount.
owner_occupied	boolean|null	True when the source marks the property owner-occupied or homestead.
property_equity_estimate_usd	number|null	estimated_value_usd - mortgage_balance_usd, null if either is missing.
status	string|null	Status string such as Pending, Sold, or Redeemed.
lat	number|null	Latitude when geocoded in the source.
lng	number|null	Longitude when geocoded in the source.
raw_source_fields	string	Original source row, JSON-encoded — preserves any fields not covered by the unified schema.

Field population varies by portal. NOLA sheriff sales include case numbers, parties, and addresses; NYC tax liens include borough/block/lot but not names; King County lists parcel IDs only. The raw_source_fields column is always populated, so nothing the source exposes is lost.

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FAQ

How do I scrape probate and foreclosure records in the US?

Probate & Foreclosure Leads Scraper queries the Socrata Open Data network — the same backend used by data.cityofnewyork.us, data.nola.gov, datacatalog.cookcountyil.gov, and dozens of other county and state portals. It classifies matching datasets by keyword, pages through each one, and normalizes the heterogeneous columns into a single distressed-property schema.

How much does Probate & Foreclosure Leads Scraper cost to run?

Probate & Foreclosure Leads Scraper uses pay-per-event pricing: $0.10 per run plus $0.001 per record returned. A 100-record run costs $0.20. A 5,000-record county sweep costs $5.10.

What data can I get from this scraper?

Probate & Foreclosure Leads Scraper returns up to 30 normalized fields per record — case numbers, defendant and plaintiff names, property addresses, parcel IDs, sale dates, bid amounts, property types, and owner-occupancy flags. The exact field population depends on what each source dataset publishes. The raw source row is always included so you can dig deeper when the source has fields we did not normalize.

Does this scraper need proxies?

Probate & Foreclosure Leads Scraper does not need proxies. Socrata open-data APIs are public, unauthenticated, and do not rate-limit casually. Leaving the proxy configuration at its defaults is the right call.

Can I filter by state or event type?

Yes. Set states to one or more two-letter state codes to restrict the source portals that get queried. Set eventTypes to any subset of probate, foreclosure, sheriff_sale, tax_lien, tax_sale. Combine with counties, dateFrom/dateTo, and minEstimatedEquity to narrow the feed further.

Which counties does it cover?

Coverage follows the Socrata Open Data network. That means major counties and cities — NYC (New York), King (WA), Cook (IL), Orleans (LA), Prince George's (MD), Riverside (CA), Howard (MD), Montgomery (MD), Sonoma (CA), Middlesex (MA), and others — plus state-level portals for CT, NY, NJ, MD, CO, OR, IA, and WA. Coverage expands as counties publish new datasets; the scraper picks them up automatically on the next run.

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Need More Features?

Need custom fields, a specific county portal, or an enrichment add-on like value/equity estimates? File an issue or get in touch.

Why Use Probate & Foreclosure Leads Scraper?

• Five event types, one schema — Probate, foreclosure, sheriff sale, tax lien, and tax sale records land in the same 30-field record shape. No separate parsers, no reconciliation pipeline.
• National reach without per-county scrapers — Adding a new county means the source portal joined Socrata; you do not rebuild anything. That is the whole point of picking an open-data backbone over scraping 500 court websites one at a time.
• Affordable — $0.001 per record. A full state-wide sweep is a rounding error in a direct-mail budget.