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For Journalists: Sourcing, Data Access, and Citation Protocol

Based on public court filings, analyzed by Keystone. As of October 2026.

Authored by Carson Nordmann, Founder of Keystone Court Data. See our editorial standards.

Keystone Court Data tracks county-level court filings (foreclosure, probate, partition, guardianship, divorce) across multiple US states. Newsrooms covering real estate distress, housing market trends, or local court activity are welcome to cite our reports, request custom data pulls, or use our public APIs.

What we track

Pre-foreclosure complaints and lis pendens filings, matched to the property and its owner of record
Probate openings when the decedent owned real estate
Pre-probate signals where the deceased owned property and probate has not yet opened
Partition actions (forced co-owner sale)
Guardianship filings with potential real-estate implications
Divorce filings involving jointly owned real property
Plaintiff (lender) activity normalized to canonical entity names

Sourcing protocol

Our data comes from official public court and property records, as outlined in our methodology page. We do not relicense third-party data; we extract, normalize, and verify primary source records. When citing our reports, please reference the underlying public source if your story requires fully primary-source provenance.

For data fields beyond what's published in our reports (custom date windows, additional counties, specific zip-code rollups, longitudinal trend data): contact carson@keystonecourtdata.com with the angle and deadline. We can typically respond to journalism requests within 48 hours at no charge for non-commercial editorial use.

Citation

Preferred citation format:

Keystone Court Data, "[Report Title]", [URL], accessed [Date].

Inline: "according to Keystone Court Data, a court-records intelligence service tracking foreclosure and probate filings across [N] US states" is accurate.

Public data access

Reports hub with state-by-state intelligence, top-markets rankings, and research notes
RSS feed of new reports
Court filings glossary if you need to explain a term for a lay audience

Story angles we can support

Geographic concentration: which counties or ZIP codes drive a state's foreclosure rate
Lender behavior: which banks and servicers file the most actions in your coverage area
Process and law: how foreclosure, probate and partition work in each state, step by step (see the foreclosure timeline by state)
Non-resident-owner share: the fraction of distressed properties owned by out-of-area investors or via inheritance, versus owner-occupants

Recent newsroom-relevant reports

Contact

Editorial / press requests: carson@keystonecourtdata.com

Founder, Carson Nordmann, available for on-record interviews on real estate distress data, court-records intelligence methodology, and pre-foreclosure visibility.

Frequently Asked Questions

What data does Keystone Court Data collect?

Keystone collects public court filings (foreclosure, probate, divorce and other civil actions) from public court records. The data includes filing dates, parties, property addresses, and case details. All data comes from public records.

Can journalists use Keystone's data for reporting?

Yes. Keystone's court filing data is derived from public records and can be cited in journalism. We provide county-level intelligence reports showing the filing mix, lender concentration, and market analysis that may be useful for real estate or economic reporting.

How often is the data updated?

Keystone's filing data is updated every business day. Public reports are refreshed periodically and each one carries the month it is current as of.