The Expert Podcast

So a question comes up quite a bit about hidden assets when is it appropriate to search for assets in a court case whether it's a divorce a probate civil litigation when do you search for assets well you can search for assets before and after and in some cases there may even be an opportunity to search for hidden assets after a case has been settled and even decided based on the assets for example with a divorce many times maintenance child support distribution of assets is done and if later it's discovered that assets were hidden that case can be reopened so let's take a look at those scenarios when to search for hidden assets in an investigation and how that might be done remember we're not attorneys we're not giving you legal advice these are just observations from the investigative point of view that might help you or your attorney come up with a legal theory or strategy that might help your case so let's talk about civil litigation first then we'll talk about uh divorce cases and probate cases.

In civil litigation there are a few reasons to run an asset search at different times during the case one is even prior to filing litigation a plaintiff might want to check the assets of the potential defendant to see first do they have assets to satisfy the judgment if you win your case is it even worthwhile because does the person have any money to pay right hidden assets too the other thing you might want to check pre-litigation is do they have too many assets so if you're filing a lawsuit let's say you know 30 40 50 000 worth of damage and your defendant has 20 million dollars in the bank you might not want to fight that case because they might just outspend you legally and just run you into the ground so you want to find that sweet spot of personal financial statement equity current net worth of the defendant before you go ahead with litigation.

What if you're a defendant well if somebody sues you you might want to check their assets to see what you're up against also to see is it worth doing a counter suit a counter claim if they're suing you for something there's obviously some controversy or conflict which means you may have some claim against them so you might want to run that asset search once the case is filed you may want to run an asset search then if you haven't already or even if you did to see are these assets changing are the parties in the case moving assets to try to conceal them many times a defendant in a case once they're sued will start moving assets around trying to hide them so in case they lose the plaintiff can't get at their assets for example they may have a piece of real estate and they may quit claim the deed to somebody so it gets it out of their name they may take money out of their bank account so finding that out early on in the case can help you first of all to get a snapshot of what the assets are initially so if later on they're moved you know what they were second of all if you can show bad faith or what's called a fraudulent conveyance you and your attorney can possibly use that in the court to show that there may be legal remedies you want to ask for maybe freezing of assets maybe additional legal fees because the person made you have a higher expense maybe it shows bad faith and that'll help your underlying case again we're not attorneys get good legal advice on this.

What about at the end of the case well certainly now is the time to find out where the assets are that the defendant holds if you've received the judgment against them so you can start garnishing them if they have a bank account you take your rid of garnishment to the bank slap it on the counter take the money out of the bank if they have real estate you put a lien on it if they have a vehicle you go through the legal process of recovering that asset and on and on there's 12 different types of assets each one has a different method of recovery what if you have an old judgment you won a lawsuit five or six years ago and you've maybe collected some money maybe you haven't but now you want to look at collection now you want to see what assets there are at that point in time many times a defendant in a case who has lost a judgment will be very cautious about holding assets in their name for some period of time two three four five years after the dust settles a little bit sometimes they think now i'm in the clear so i don't have to hide assets anymore and they start being less cautious now is the time to find those assets.

Second kind of case is divorce same thing with divorce you want to do the searches at various intervals but also if you have already had a completed divorce settlement spousal maintenance child support settlement agreement distribution of assets and then later on you find or suspect that the other party withheld disclosure of assets throughout the process and you find them later there is a process where you can request that it's opened back up and you bring those assets back in for distribution it's not uncommon for a party in a divorce once the case is over in their minds to now start to let those assets come back in so for example if somebody at the end of the divorce had you know 150 000 in the bank and no house and you know the everything was distributed and now three years later they have a two million dollar house and a half a million in the bank well where did that come from were they hiding it and now they brought it back in did they earn it in three years those are things you want to know because if there were assets that were concealed it's not like game over that they won you can reopen the case and bring those back in with proper legal advice so you want to add that additional consideration for an asset search into the litigation process.

Last probate case many times when there's a death in a family the parties in the family sometimes have different opinions about where the assets of that deceased person should go there's usually a will or some type of final wishes and an executor of the state will distribute the assets but sometimes one or more parties will maybe do something to compromise that will maybe if the will says all the money in the bank goes to this person maybe they'll take money out of the bank before it gets distributed maybe real estate gets encumbered with mortgages maybe real estate gets transferred to somebody maybe vehicles go away probate is a very specific process the executor has to distribute the assets exactly how it's described in the will but if that document doesn't prescribe in detail the nature and extent of assets sometimes it can be misconstrued or a person especially one who's very close in proximity to that estate can do things a lot of the cases we get one party is living halfway across the country the other party in the family is living right next door to where the person died they find a way to squirrel away a lot of assets so the person that lives for our way never knows anything about them a good asset search will uncover this.

So those are three examples of different types of cases when you should run asset searches and how you should document the flow of funds not just what the snapshot is today but how they changed over time so you know what assets are properly within the estate or judgment or litigation and which ones have been improperly removed from the claims of third parties.