Miami-Dade Lawsuit Search: Civil, Criminal, and Foreclosure Cases

A Miami-Dade lawsuit search starts at the Clerk of the Court and Comptroller’s free online portals. For most civil lawsuits, divorces, and probate matters, use the Civil, Family, and Probate Courts Online System. For felony and misdemeanor cases, use the Criminal Justice Online Case Search (COIN). Both let you look up cases by case number, party name, or scheduled hearing without paying a fee.¹²

Which Portal To Use

The Clerk splits records by case type, so picking the right portal saves time.

Civil lawsuits, family law (divorce, child support, domestic violence), and probate go through the Civil, Family, and Probate Courts Online System.¹
Felony and misdemeanor cases go through COIN, which also carries judge hearing calendars and first-appearance calendars. COIN accepts case number, state case number, citation or police number, defendant name, or jail number.²
Recorded property documents (deeds, mortgages, lis pendens) are in the County Recorder’s Official Records portal, searchable by name, document type, Clerk’s file number, book and page, or legal description.³
Traffic citations, civil infractions (boating, parks, wildlife), code enforcement, parking, and marriage license records each have their own portals accessible from the Clerk’s records page.⁴

How To Search for a Civil Lawsuit

Open the Civil, Family, and Probate Courts Online System. In the left sidebar, choose your search method: Single Case Search if you have the case number, Party Name if you only know who is involved, or Hearings to find an upcoming court date. Fields marked with an asterisk are required. Results appear as record cards; click a card to see the docket and document details.¹

If you plan to run more than a search or two, create a free account on the Clerk’s website. Signing in removes CAPTCHA prompts and lifts search-frequency limits.¹

How To Search for a Criminal Case

In COIN, pick a search type from the navigation menu, enter the required information, and review the results. To pull up a specific filing, open the case, go to the Dockets section, expand the entry you want, and click the image icon to view the document.⁵

What Costs Money

Basic online searches through the public portals are free. Advanced access to civil, family, and probate court records is also free under the Florida Supreme Court’s Standards for Access to Electronic Court Records. Advanced searches of the recorded official records (deeds, mortgages, and similar filings) require search units at $1.00 per unit, drawn from a prepaid balance.⁴

If you need a certified copy of a court document, order online, by mail, or in person. Copies are $1.00 per page and certification is $2.00 per document. If you don’t have the case number or year, a search fee of $2.00 per name per year applies. Online orders take Visa, Mastercard, Discover, and American Express. Mail orders require a cashier’s check or money order payable to “Clerk of the Court and Comptroller.” Personal checks are not accepted. Certified copies are available for civil, family, probate, criminal, traffic, marriage license, and official records cases. Juvenile records, because of their confidential status, can only be ordered by mail or in person.⁶

What You Won’t Find Online

Florida’s public-records access is broad, but several categories of court records are held back from remote viewing. Under the Florida Supreme Court’s Access Security Matrix, the general public cannot view document images online in cases governed by the Florida Family Law Rules of Procedure, the Florida Rules of Juvenile Procedure, or the Florida Probate Rules. You can view those records at the Clerk’s office in person after staff review and redact any confidential information.⁷

Expunged records, sealed records, and material designated confidential under Florida Rule of Judicial Administration 2.420 don’t appear in search results at all. That rule automatically shields Social Security numbers, bank and credit card account numbers, certain juvenile records, and the identities of sexual abuse and child abuse victims.⁸

Crime victim information gets additional protection under Florida’s Marsy’s Law amendment and Rule 2.423. When a filing contains information that could identify or locate a victim, the filer must submit a notice to the Clerk flagging the confidential material, and the Clerk then restricts it from public view. Without that notice, the information can stay visible in search results until someone flags it.⁹

Searching for Foreclosure Cases

Foreclosures have their own tools. The Clerk’s Lis Pendens Search Tool covers the public notices filed when a foreclosure lawsuit is initiated against a property. Properties that have moved to auction appear on the Official Foreclosure and Tax Deed Sales portal at miamidade.realforeclose.com. Mortgages recorded from 1974 to the present are searchable through the County Recorder’s Official Records portal; anything recorded before 1974 sits on microfilm at the County Records Library in the Osvaldo N. Soto Miami-Dade Justice Center.¹⁰

Cases on Appeal

Appeals from Miami-Dade trial courts go to Florida’s Third District Court of Appeal, and those records live in a separate statewide system called the Florida Appellate Case Information System (ACIS). ACIS lets you search by case number, case title, party name, filing date, or the originating trial court case number, which is handy for tracking a Miami-Dade case through the appeals process. Public access to dockets and available documents doesn’t require registration, though attorneys and self-represented litigants must register to reach certain case documents.¹¹¹²

Treat the Online Record as a Starting Point

The Clerk’s office is direct about the limits of what you’re seeing. Its site states that the office “makes no warranties or representations whatsoever regarding the completeness, accuracy, or timeliness” of the data, and that the online information is not the official court record. If you need a verified, authoritative version of a document, contact the Clerk’s office and request a certified copy. The online data is intended for personal and non-commercial educational use; reproducing or redistributing it without written permission is prohibited.¹

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Miami-Dade Clerk of the Court. Civil, Family and Probate Courts Online System
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Miami-Dade Clerk of the Court. Criminal Justice Online Case Search
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Miami-Dade Clerk of the Court. County Recorder’s Official Records Online System
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Miami-Dade Clerk of the Court. Records Search
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Miami-Dade Clerk of the Court. Criminal Justice Online Case Search
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Miami-Dade Clerk of the Court. Request Certified Copies
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Florida Courts. Standards for Access to Electronic Court Records
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Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press. Open Courts Compendium – Florida
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Miami-Dade Clerk of the Court. Notice of Confidential Crime Victim Information within Court Filing
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Miami-Dade Clerk of the Court. Mortgage Foreclosures
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Florida Courts. ACIS Case Search
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Florida Courts. Florida Appellate Case Information System