Dyer

Plaintiff Kristina Dyer appeals the judgment entered following the trial court’s grant of summary judgment in favor of defendants Exon Martinez, Argent Mortgage Company, EEC (Argent), and Town & Country Title Services, Inc. (Town & Country). The court granted summary judgment based on defendants’ status as bona fide purchasers and encumbrancers for value who took their interests without knowledge of Dyer’s specific performance action against the real property seller. Dyer contends the trial court erred because she had placed a lis pendens with the recorder’s office the day before the property closed escrow, putting defendants on constructive notice of her action, even though the recorder’s office had not yet indexed the lis pendens.

For well over a century, the law in California has been that a recorded document does not provide constructive notice unless and until it can be located by a title search. We have found nothing in the current statute governing the recording of a lis pendens to indicate the Legislature intended to change this long-standing rule concerning constructive notice. Because the lis pendens at issue was not indexed at the time defendants took their…