Finding That Darn Public Notice Newspaper

Scott Costello All, Blog, Probate Investing 5 Comments

button_class_noticesI spent the last two days searching around the internet and looking through some of the news papers that I could get my hands on.  I found some helpful websites and may have located the newspaper that publishes the Death Notices, but I’m not sure.  You think it would be easy to find right?

I first went to the two websites that Mr. Mead suggested

Prime Time News Papers, lead me to a paper called the New Jersey Law Journal.  After browsing around for a bit I noticed they had a 30 day free trial, so I signed up for it.  Next I clicked the link for Public Notices (starting to get excited) and the page read…

The New Jersey Law Journal publishes public (or legal) notices required by New Jersey statutes or court rules. To view public notices in this and past issues of the New Jersey Law Journal, click here. For further information on placing notices, contact Lee Marie Serrano, at 973.642.0075, fax 973.642.0920, or e-mail. All public notice advertisers are sent an affidavit of publication. Among the forms of notices are:

Private Foundation Annual Notice

To help prevent any claim that a private foundation’s documents are not open to public inspection, publish an annual foundation notice of availability.

Name Changes

Place the notice of hearing and thereafter, the judgment, and receive prompt affidavits of publication.

Corporate Dissolutions

Prevent future claims against a dissolved corporation by publishing a notice requiring any claims to be presented within 6 months, pursuant to N.J.S.A. 14A: 12-12(1).

Assignments for the Benefit of Creditors

N.J.S.A. 2A:19-8.

Summons on Absent Defendant

Publication pursuant to R. 4:4-5(c).

Sale of a Law Practice

Publication pursuant to RPC 1.17.

Restoration to Active Practice

Notices of petitions for reinstatement filed with the Attorney Disciplinary Review Board, pursuant to R. 1:20-11 (h).

Essex County Sheriff’s Sales

Miscellaneous notices

That “Click Here” link sent me to www.PublicNoticeAds.com…haha, the other link Ron Mead suggested in his course.  So I canceled my trial subscription to NJLJ as I didn’t want to forget to cancel later and be charged $170.

Test Run

I ran a test search on PublicNoticeAds.com/NJ

Notice to Creditors Search

Notice to Creditors Search

and it returned only 3 records which has be perplexed

Notice to Creditors Search Results

Notice to Creditors Search Results

There has to be more of them, or am I missing something?  Look at the Date field, those look off.  Can anyone who has used PublicNoticeAds.com give me some pointers or fill me in on something I’m missing.  I can only draw two conclusions from what I’ve found so far

  1. I haven’t found the right search terms yet
  2. NJ doesn’t require the estate to publish a notice to creditors

If my second assumption is correct, that means I’ll have to be picking my probate leads up at the court house or pay some money to get them another way.   JP Moses and Jason pointed me to a site that Ron Mead had recommended called USProbateLeads.com.  Here is the pricing structure per County

  • Pricing for Exclusivity: $300/mo
  • Pricing for All Leads: $100/mo
  • 25 leads: $50/mo
  • 50 leads: $75/mo
  • test drive: $50

$100 a month is tough to swallow at this very moment, as my monthly advertising budget is only $200, I might go for the $50/mo just to try the service out.  Has anyone else used the service before?  Jason I think you mentioned you signed up?

Other Help Links I Found

Other Information

NJ Probate Rule

3. Pursuant to Rule 4:93-2, The action may be brought in a summary manner in accordance with R. 4:83 on an order to show cause returnable not less than 30 days nor more than three months from the date of the order why judgment should not be entered declaring such person to be dead. Notice of the order shall be published once in a newspaper of general circulation in the county where the absentee was last domiciled and shall be served by mail or otherwise as the court directs.

Notice to Creditors Example

For those that aren’t sure what to look for, here is an example of one of the notices that I found.  They may differ from state to state, or even county to county but the tone of the notice will be the same.

LEGAL NOTICE
MORRIS COUNTY
SURROGATE’S COURT
NOTICE TO CREDITORS <—-
Estate of MIJO BARICEVIC, Deceased
Notice is hereby given this October 9, 2009 date to all persons having claims against the deceased, the Late MIJO BARICEVIC of the County of Morris, who departed this life on August 1, 2009, to present the same, under oath or affirmation to the subscriber on or before May 1, 2010 next being nine months from the date of the death of the Late MIJO BARICEVIC; and any creditors neglecting to bring in and exhibit his, her or their claim, under oath or affirmation within the time so limited, will be forever barred of his, her or their action therefore against the Co-Executors, Marie Morrison and Dr. Lillian Baricevic-Baker.
Dated: October 8, 2009
Notice to be given to:
Eckert-Casha, Debra, Esq.
Casha & Casha, LLC
115 Horseneck Road, Suite 2
Montville, NJ 07045
(973) 263-1114
Fax: (973) 263-1830
($17.28) 039732

Looks like I’ll be contacting either the probate office or calling a probate lawyer to get some official word on where I can find the Notice to Creditors. Thought I was onto something a few times, though.   Anyone else have any luck?

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Comments 5

  1. Scott,
    I would call the probate offices if I were you.

    I am trying out US probate leads and I will let you know. Colorado charges $5 per file pulled and only allows 3 files pulled per day. Its costing me $8 per lead atm. I am trying them out at $200/mo. Very tough to swallow as well. I need to see how useful they are. I should start getting leads within 3 weeks.

    I also found by searching my local papers for “notice to creditors” I came up with desired info. I may not need the courthouse since the PR name and address is listed on the paper notices.

    I am curious how you find the leads that are not posted in the paper? I'm going to have to take a day off and go to the records office myself and ask a ton of questions.

    Jason

    Reply

  2. I may try to jump out of work early today and stop by the surrogate's office on the way home.

    I would be very interested to see a comparison between the leads you get from US Probate Leads and what you could find in the court house. Could be a good blog post 🙂

    Reply

  3. US lead list has a killer list of called “the inherited list”. $1.25/lead, but they are based on title/deed transfers rather than just a case where someone died and you're guessing whether or not there is property in the estate.

    I pay a college student $10/hr to pull probates @ the courthouse and he can climb through the records and determine those with property and those without. It takes a human, looking @ the records to determine that info and it costs some dough to get it done. college student ends up costing .50 cents per lead.

    Probate is a list that you can repeatedly mail so your list will grow and grow over time. Keep mailing until they ask to be taken off the list or call to let you know they sold it retail.

    Let me know if you need any more tips. I've been pursuing probates for 3 years now.

    Best of luck!
    -Taylor

    Reply

  4. Taylor,

    Thanks for the information and tips. Do you get the lead list from US Lead List as well as have someone pull leads from the courthouse? Or do you find one is sufficient?

    -Scott

    Reply

  5. Taylor,

    Thanks for the information and tips. Do you get the lead list from US Lead List as well as have someone pull leads from the courthouse? Or do you find one is sufficient?

    -Scott

    Reply

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