The Expert Podcast

Here's a really good example of the kinds of things that could be discovered in an investigation Look most of the time when we start a case whether it's an asset search a fraud case Some type of embezzlement There are a few things that we know we're going to be looking for And a lot of times the client will tell us you should look for these things In most cases though we're going to look at everything because you never know what you're going to find
One of the things we love looking at our real estate documents deeds liens mortgages even if the case has nothing to do with real estate And the reason why is because anytime you're looking at documents Versus data You're going to find things that don't show up in data When you just look at a spreadsheet with numbers on it All you're going to look at is numbers that were typed in by somebody Documents actually have much more rich information Here's a case we had nothing to do with this case but this is the kind of thing that we'd love to find There's a mansion in Los Angeles that recently sold it was called the one And the reason it was called that is because at one point it was the most expensive piece of real estate residential in the country It had a $295 million listing price It ended up going bankrupt Developers couldn't sell it They had 200 plus a hundred or 200 plus million dollars invested in The purchase of the land and the construction and all the fees they couldn't sell it Couldn't get it done So it was auctioned off for 141 million So went into bankruptcy and they auction off Now what's happening is there's all kinds of people fighting over that 141 million the developer the landowner creditors lenders contractors all kinds of people are trying to scramble for that money
A couple of the investors and lenders Are trying to figure out who's first in line who gets the first chunk and who gets a second chunk And what they found is there was a deed and some documents that were forged
And whether or not it's a real document or not it's going to be a hundred million dollar Benefit to somebody So how do you determine if something was forge Let's take a look So without getting into the details there was a deal That one of the investors had approval for a loan that would become senior to their loan Basically say my loan is first You can loan this person money You become first but it has to be done a certain way Right There's a lawsuit that says a signature was forged on that subordination agreement Subordination agreement is when you're subordinating your rights to somebody else And this guy says I never signed that It's a forgery Well how do you prove that
Well what they found was the notary falsely notarized that document And the reason they know that is because the document said It was done in Los Angeles But the person was actually in Montreal
So there's your smoking gun If you just look at real estate data you'd never see this If you look at the document and read where somebody wrote in Los Angeles county on this day and they put their notary stamp You'll find that And also look at the name of the notary You've seen us talk about that in other videos notary's witnesses Stray marks on documents All of these things many times break a case wide open The problem is you don't know which document it's going to be on The you have to look at all of them It's like a needle in a haystack
That's why the most expensive part in investigation Is time
If you have a hundred documents to look at You're not just going to push a button on a Google search and the answer pops up on your screen You have to read through those documents and you find that notary stamp and match it up to something else But that's a perfect example We saw that story and we all talked about dozens of cases that we've had over the years where we discovered that what are the most Famous ones that comes up in our office is we had a person who Had some real estate That they claimed They sold to their cousin And to try to hide their asset And we looked at the document that it was signed and witnessed and had notaries on it Well we looked at the notary And the stamp just seemed a little off So we tracked down the person who was that notary And we looked at prior documents from that same seller And we found that that notary also notarize something For this seller Eight years ago What are the odds that that same notary did it Well I guess you could say maybe they worked in the law firm Maybe they worked somebody in the same office where this person is But we zoomed in a little more on a notary stamp and we found that there was a little Extra piece of ink when they put the stamp on they pushed it to one side and put a little smear Well the same smear was on the prior document So it was a Basically the Photoshop And finding that hidden asset benefited the client to the tune of about $180,000 grant that it wasn't hundreds of millions but for that client the extra 180 It was a big deal So the moral of the story is When you're doing an investigation You don't know where you're going to find the thing that breaks open the case A lot of times clients will say look I just want you to do a bank account search Just find money in the bank account Okay We can do a bank account search Most of the time when we find hidden assets they're hidden somewhere else Even sometimes when we find hidden bank accounts it's not from a direct bank account search it's by finding a receipt from a vehicle transaction finding a check that wrote The fees for taxes or HOA fees We find hidden bank accounts as often as not in other records besides banking records So keep that in mind work with your investigator tell them what you're trying to find And let them come up with a strategic investigative plan to get you the best results to get your case handled