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Attorneys'
Investigative Consultants |
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| In this
section we publish the responses to questions of general interest that we receive. If you
would like to submit a question, you may click on Ask a
Question and submit it for an answer -- free of charge. We reserve the right to edit
and alter all questions so as to make them suitable for display on this forum. Although
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E-Mail address will appear on this web site. Our responses are for general enlightenment and should never
be construed as professional advise that applies to a specific situation. |
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| How can I find hidden assets? |
What can I do about employee
disloyalty? |
| Do I need a lawyer or
an investigator? |
Has he ever been married? |
| How can locate a birth-parent? |
What will it cost to find bank
accounts? |
| Do I really need a lawyer? |
Can I use an Internet
search to find hidden real-estate? |
| Return
to "Kaplan Responds" main page |
Go
to "Ask a Question" |
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| Question: How
can you find hidden assets in the form of property or
real-estate? Is it do-able? My
ex and his current wife own a business in her name. He runs the business and works there
full time. He brags to people in our religious community of his prosperity. He lies and
tells the court that he hurt his back and cannot work - he is disabled. Since I have a
steady pay, the court continues to ask me for my salary. He is in his early 50's. I am in
my late 40's. My son is 20 and a full time student. |
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| Kaplan
responds: |
I'm going to break your question down into two parts: |
| "How
can you find hidden assets in the form of property or real-estate? Is it do-able?" |
 | In most cases it can be
done. However, don't waste your money on a cut
rate computer database search. Certainly, you will want to access reliable computer
databases for a start. But, that is just the beginning... |
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| Let me digress for a
moment to the phrase reliable computer databases. One of the biggest mistakes lay
investigators make is to assume that the words computerized database = reliable
database or even worse, Internet data = reliable data. |
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| Professional
investigators, work with these things every day and have the benefit of informal exchanges
between colleagues. Some PIs go so far as to maintain a "burn list". Any source,
including computerized databases, that makes it to this list, because they provided bad
information, will never be used again. A PI has too much to lose by dealing casually with
data purveyors and information brokers. Often, PIs will "vet" sources with known
information to test the reliability and accuracy of information that is provided. |
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| No public record database
is 100% reliable. The reason is simple. It takes time to input data into the database. For
example, if I were to sell my house today, it could days or even weeks for the database to
show that event. Until that time, the information pertaining to the ownership of my house,
would be wrong. Most databases do not reveal the age of their data. They want the user to
assume that it is hot off the presses. If you entered a database and a caveat at the top
said, "Caution this
database was last brought up to date 2 years ago.", you might be reluctant to use it, in
fact, you might not use it at all! So they say nothing and use the public perception that
computerized
database = reliable database, to market their sometimes very stale inventory. |
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| Recently a lawyer retained
us to provide investigative support for a case she planned to litigate. As part of her
briefing to us, she provided us with a list of five properties in Clark County, Nevada
that the SUBJECT of our investigation owned. During our preliminary work-up on this case
we searched for Clark County real estate owed by our SUBJECT. We found that there were
currently only two parcels owned by SUBJECT rather than the five she told us about. The
other three had at one time been owned by our SUBJECT, but had been sold more than two
years ago. We compared notes. We knew at we had gotten our data directly from the Clark
County Assessor, with whose database we were "on-line". Our lawyer friend
maintained that she too was on-line with the Clark County Assessor. On closer examination,
she noted that she got "on-line" through a widely used, highly regarded data
gateway called Westlaw. So although she was on-line with Westlaw, she was not really
on-line with the current Clark County Assessor database. Although she believed she was
accessing the best available data, at least a part of what she had accessed was over two
years old! |
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| Even government owned
public computer database records are subject to gross errors. We know of one State of
Nevada database of over one million records that had the "city" spelled wrong
more than 18% of the time! That means that the odds were almost one in five that you would
get a wrong answer if you happened to use the name of the city in your search criteria! |
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| The moral of the story is
to use computerized databases, but use them with caution and try not to put complete
reliance in them. |
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| Getting back to your
search for real estate related assets... Obviously, he can hold real estate in all sorts
of different names and in any county in the country. That equates to a lot of preliminary
searching and screening using computerized databases. |
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| What you really want to
determine is his equity and any beneficial interest that he might have in real estate.
(If
he is named as the Beneficiary on a Deed of Trust or Mortgage, that could be worth real
money, even though he owns no real estate!) |
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| Learning that he owns a
piece of real estate worth $10 million does you no good if that property is mortgaged up
to the hilt and he has no equity in it. |
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| Let's look at one possible
scenario. He owns a piece of real estate in his own name, but he has no equity in it
because it is mortgaged. That could be a legitimate mortgage or it could be a subterfuge
to make the court think that he has no assets. It is the type of investigative problem
that requires a trip to the Recorder's Office or Clerks Office where the property is
located, by a PI who knows and understands real estate documents -- many do not. |
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| Just because your PI is a
retired detective from the local police department is no guarantee that he or she is
qualified to run the search you need. Since real estate records are at the heart of your
search, getting the right PI is critical. For a nominal fee, we will assist you in the
screening process. |
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| You
said something else that has me intrigued: |
"He runs the business and works there full time. He brags to
people in our religious community of his prosperity. He lies and tells the court that he
hurt his back and cannot work - he is disabled." |
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| It seems to me that one
thing that has to be done is to expose his lies about not being able to work. I would give
this top priority over any asset search. I suspect that
you may not have a lawyer, because I find it unimaginable that a competent attorney
would not want to retain a PI and provide the court with proof that your ex is working
full time and making money doing it! If you have a lawyer, talk with him or her about
this. If you have tried to "save money" and represent yourself, you may already
have done irreparable damage, but talk to a lawyer and find out. |
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Question:
I have
been married 37yrs and separated (not legally) about 15yrs. He has hidden assets and a
comment was made "she will never find everything its hidden", I am now
considering divorce and need to find out if this is true. He also has a mistress who uses
his last name in signing checks and business needs, etc. and she was heard as saying in 7
years I'll be his common law wife, could I be divorced and not know it? And is it legal for
her to be using his last name on legal documents if we are not divorced? Sorry, I asked to
many questions, I have so many questions. Thank you for your time and consideration in
reading my questions, it is greatly appreciated. |
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| Kaplan
responds: |
| Thank you for your inquiries. I don't know how much help
we can be, but let me try to address your questions in reverse order, saving the most
important question for last. |
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< And
is it legal for her to be using his last name on legal documents if we are not
divorced?> |
| Sorry, that's a legal question. We are not lawyers and as
a consequence are not qualified to give you an answer. |
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| <He also has a mistress
who uses his last name in signing checks and business needs,etc.and she was heard as
saying in 7 years I'll be his common law wife,could I be divorced and not know it?> |
| I'm not able to comment on the
legality of such things, but I have seen both divorces and annulments that were known only
to one spouse. |
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| <He
has hidden assets and a comment was made "she will never find everything its
hidden", I am now considering divorce and need to find out if this is true.> |
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http://www.lasvegascomputerforensics.com/Asset%20Search.htm |
| Question: Need to find
all current bank accts of an individual and her live in
companion in and around Putnam Co., Carroll Co., Smith Co. and would like to have an est.
cost of such an investigation and how it would be done. |
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http://www.lasvegascomputerforensics.com/Asset%20Search.htm |
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Call us at 702-453-4500
for a FREE Consultation E-Mail - Investigations@LasVegasPI.com |
