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Where Do Our Online Probate Leads Come From?

When purchasing probate leads online, it’s always a good idea to ask where they come from. Well, it‘s not a secret that ours come directly from court documents. But how exactly does the precise information from those official case files full of court terminology make its way into our software?

For the sake of full transparency, we’d like to share with you the entire process of data harvesting.

First of all, let us specify all the steps of the process that a real estate agent would normally have to go through when looking for probate leads online. Yes, you might say, the Internet is full of tips and instructions. Which only proves how complicated and time-consuming it actually is.

If you‘ve ever tried to follow those instructions, you would see that the websites providing advice actually reveal just the tip of the iceberg. The process is complicated, time-consuming, and, well, involves quite a lot of physical effort. Because wherever you may look, there’s no "easy" online place to find searchable California probate information delivered in a user-friendly manner. It just doesn‘t exist.

Anyone who has ever purchased probate leads will tell you that it‘s one hell of a job. Just imagine: if you want to get them on your own, it involves driving to each court, where parking alone is $18 or so. And it means spending long hours at the court computers, which, as many already know, aren’t exactly brand new or user friendly. Pretty exhausting, isn‘t it? Plus, if you need any of the documents printed – which you most probably will, as copying by hand would take ages – be prepared to shell out at least $1 per page, depending on a court.

In other words, if you are really ready to do that, be prepared to spend many long and boring hours at the government institutions alone. And mind the fact that while you are processing the information to get a single probate lead, at the same time, new ones keep appearing.

Isn‘t it great to know that there is someone out there to do that time-consuming work for you?

We send a team of experienced data harvesters to each court every single day. During the COVID-19 restrictions, some courts like Los Angeles allow purchasing documents online—for $1/per page. For which, you need to go through a lengthy registration process and shell out $1 per downloaded page, which averages to $3-$8 per case.

Either way, the result is a scanned PDF file, which is neither searchable nor user-friendly by any means. You know what an enormous amount of bureaucratic details those documents involve. Half of your enthusiasm can fade away just at a single look at them.

Our data processors are sitting those long hours at their computers for you. What they actually do is comb through multiple PDF files – and that’s just one case. Some cases are 20+ pages long.

Our eagle-eyed data specialists carefully copy essential case information into an Excel spreadsheet, which is then imported into the Probate Money application.

When the Excel spreadsheets are ready, our proprietary technology converts the spreadsheets into searchable cases. Namely, the application does what’s called the "data normalization" process and... voilà... you get up-to-date probate leads online. The probate case is now neat and tidy, readable, easy to understand, and downloadable – which means, highly user-friendly.

Going back to those pesky PDFs. Some of the files do not contain the petitioner’s phone number or email. Our data processors use skip tracing tools (which, also, cost money) to find that precious contact information for you. Whatever kind of information is missing in those cases, what you finally get is those fresh probate leads delivered to you by the most user-friendly interface.

If you’ve used Google before, using our system should be easy. Once you sign up, you will be directed to the search page. Choose the county where you want to prospect. Then choose your date range – how far back the cases should go? Select at least one zip code or city or do an open search for your selected county. Click search and view the results. This is the basic search.

You can use a variety of advanced search filters to further narrow down your search. For instance, you can search for probate cases by zip and/or city and even by attorney name, petitioner address, whether the petitioner is out of state, and many, many other advanced options.

We hope now you can really see that our monthly subscription plans are priced fairly. Just think of the amount of time, effort, money, and patience that you can save by using Probate Money. If you still have any questions on the way it works, feel free to ask. We love to share even more detailed information with our customers!