How to Start a Divorce Asset Search
Clients usually ask me three questions about a divorce asset search:
- “What do you need from me to get started?”
- “What can you find?” This is often followed with, “I really want bank and brokerage accounts.”
- “How long does it take?”
Here is what I tell them:
- What do I need? Give me as much information as you have, but if all you have is a name and address, then that can be enough too.
How can this be? Very simply, most public records don’t list your date of birth or social security number, so I don’t tend to need those if looking for real estate or companies. But dates of birth, SSN’s and middle initials are highly useful if I’m sorting one Juan Garcia, John Smith or Young Kim from another.
The reason I like as much information as you can give me is that if you’ve been married to the person, you will know a lot more about your spouse than I will, at least at first. You may have seen his tax return, and I haven’t. You may know what he likes to name his companies and who is partners in a secret company could be.
- What can I find? I dig through every piece of public information I can find on your subject. Court records in which he’s sued can include co-defendants such as companies you didn’t know he had, not to mention former associates who can be good to interview.
One easy way to hide assets is to put them in the name of a company. We spend a lot of time finding names of those companies by looking at public records, including Secretary of State filings. We can also find companies by searching backward on known addresses and phone numbers or looking at lists of companies formed by the agent who formed the companies we already know about.
As for bank and brokerage accounts, it’s illegal to get information on those without a court order or a subpoena. However, with thousands of banks in the U.S., you can’t subpoena them all. If I find a company you didn’t know about and that company leased equipment with financing from a particular bank you have never seen in your marital records, you will want to subpoena that bank for all holdings beneficially owned by the asset-hiding spouse.
- How long does it take? Once I have your information, a good solid public records asset search can be done in two weeks. At the end, you won’t be able to account for every penny. You may have a useful list of companies your lawyer can ask about in discovery. Or you may be able to catch your spouse in a lie on his asset disclosure form.
In most cases, you will be in a stronger position than you would have been in without the asset search. And it’s efficient.
Remember, if you pay me $4,000 and can claim half the assets I find, all I need to do is find $8,000 of property, company assets or other assets for you to break even on an asset search. Most of the time, we can clear that hurdle with ease.
If I find an extra $150,000 of assets (an extra apartment owned by his company, for instance), you make $75,000 on a $4,000 investment.
Small risk, potentially large reward.
