Tag Archive for: hidden real estate
Asset Investigations and Due Diligence: Your Lawyer Helps Maintain Secrecy
In the past month, two divorcing clients contacted us and wanted asset searches performed without signing up us through their divorce lawyers. Here is the advice we gave them, as we give all our clients:
“Sign us up through your lawyer. If…
The Offshore Assets Play Book
Clients come to us all the time with the suspicion that their spouse has stashed assets offshore. The problem is that they are not sure where.
If there is one thing that is as difficult as getting money returned from an overseas location, it…
The Difference Between Fact Checking and Asset Searching
A fascinating interview with the chief fact checker for The New Yorker in the Columbia Journalism Review here got us thinking about the distinction between checking the veracity of facts and finding new ones.
Our firm does both, dealing mostly…
GPS Trackers: Powerful but Often Illegal
GPS trackers are among the hottest topics in ethics discussions today. At least, that is my impression after a series of ethics lectures I’ve given around the country based on my book, The Art of Fact Investigation.
We wrote three years…
Surprise! The Super-Rich Adjust Their Behavior as Government Pays More Attention
The New York Times was half right and half wrong when it reported that the boom in “trophy homes in the sky” is over. The right part: It turns out that there is not an inexhaustible supply of people willing to spend $50 million or more…
How Investigation Helps Forensic Accountants
What’s wrong with using a forensic accountant in your hunt for a spouse’s hidden assets? Nothing, provided you hand that accountant all the pertinent information you can. We’ve mentioned the need for these professionals frequently on our…
Finding Hidden Foreign Property
PROBLEM:
The debtor, whose family lives in Brazil, claims to have no foreign investments. He mentioned years ago that his family had some rental properties in Sao Palo, but you have never seen them, and you don’t know exactly where they…
Oprah Helps Father Hide Assets in Messy Divorce
Last week, a Tennessee judge fined Oprah Winfrey’s father, Vernon Winfrey, $70,000 in legal fees as punishment for bad behavior during his divorce. According to the judge’s decision, Mr. Winfrey used some fairly complicated maneuvers to…
Finding Real Estate Bought Through a Secret Company
PROBLEM:
You think that your debtor owns property, but you cannot find any evidence that he owns any real estate in his own name. You suspect that he purchased property through a corporation so that you would not be able to find it.
[light]
SOLUTIONS:
If…
