🔍 How to Find Hidden Assets

You won your judgment. The debtor claims they’re broke. They have “no assets.” Their interrogatory responses paint a picture of desperate poverty. But something doesn’t add up—they’re still living in a nice house, driving a late-model car, dining at expensive restaurants, and posting vacation photos on Instagram. The truth is that the vast majority of debtors who claim to be judgment-proof are not actually broke at all. They’re deliberately hiding assets from you and from the court. And finding those hidden assets is the key to turning your judgment from a worthless piece of paper into actual money recovered and deposited in your account. 🔍

Asset concealment takes many forms and ranges in sophistication from simple omissions on discovery responses to elaborate multi-entity schemes involving trusts, LLCs, nominee ownership, offshore accounts, and complex corporate structures. But every scheme, no matter how sophisticated, leaves a trail of evidence. Property transfers create public records at the county recorder’s office. Business formations leave corporate filings with the Secretary of State. Bank transactions create paper trails that can be subpoenaed. Lifestyle spending creates social media evidence that contradicts claims of poverty. And relationships with family members and associates who are suddenly acquiring assets create patterns that professional investigators recognize immediately. The question isn’t whether hidden assets can be found—it’s whether you know where to look and have the tools and expertise to uncover them.

This guide covers every major method for finding hidden assets, from DIY public records searches that anyone can perform to professional investigation services that access proprietary databases, to formal legal discovery tools that compel disclosure under penalty of perjury. The most effective approach combines all three methodologies: use professional searches to map the asset landscape quickly, use legal discovery to compel verification and fill in gaps that public records don’t cover, and use social media and lifestyle investigation to catch lies and identify inconsistencies between what the debtor claims and how they actually live. If the debtor is showing signs of hiding assets, these are the tools and techniques that will expose the truth and put you in position to collect.

Public records are the essential starting point and foundation for any comprehensive asset investigation. These records exist because the government requires registration of property ownership, business formation, court proceedings, and certain financial transactions. While a determined debtor can make assets harder to find, they can rarely eliminate the public record trail entirely: 📋

The challenge with DIY public records searches is that they require searching across multiple jurisdictions, databases, and record types. A debtor who owns property in three counties across two states, has business entities registered in a third state, and has vehicles registered in yet another state requires dozens of separate searches to build a complete picture. Each jurisdiction has different search interfaces, different record formats, and different levels of online accessibility. Some county property records are easily searchable online, while others require in-person visits or written requests. Vehicle records require DMV searches that may not be publicly available in every state.

This is where professional investigation services provide enormous value—they search across all jurisdictions simultaneously using aggregated databases that individual creditors cannot access, cross-reference data automatically to identify connections between entities and assets, and present the results in a comprehensive report that forms the foundation for your collection strategy. For a fraction of the cost of a single failed levy attempt, a professional asset search tells you exactly where to aim your enforcement efforts.

Professional asset search services like ours go far beyond what you can accomplish through basic public records searches on your own. With over 20 years of experience locating hidden assets for judgment creditors, attorneys, and collection professionals, we access proprietary databases, cross-reference multiple data sources simultaneously, and apply deep investigative expertise that identifies assets others consistently miss: 🔍

🏠 Real Property Asset Search

Our real property search examines property records across all 50 states, identifying every parcel of real estate connected to the debtor. This includes property owned directly in the debtor’s name, property owned through LLCs and trusts that the debtor controls, property recently transferred via quitclaim deed (a major red flag for fraudulent transfers), and property owned by the debtor’s spouse or family members at the debtor’s known addresses. We also identify historical transfers that may constitute fraudulent conveyances—property the debtor moved out of their name to avoid your judgment.

🚗 Vehicle Asset Search

Our vehicle search reveals every vehicle currently registered to the debtor plus recent title transfers. We identify cars, trucks, motorcycles, boats, RVs, and other titled vehicles. When the debtor claims they don’t own a vehicle but is clearly driving one, our search often reveals the vehicle was recently retitled to a family member or entity—while the debtor continues to use it. This evidence supports both fraudulent transfer claims and contempt proceedings when the debtor has lied under oath about vehicle ownership.

🏢 Business Entity Search

Our business entity search identifies every LLC, corporation, partnership, and other business entity connected to the debtor across all 50 states. We reveal entities where the debtor serves as an officer, director, member, registered agent, or authorized person. We cross-reference entity addresses with the debtor’s known addresses, identify related entities that may be holding the debtor’s assets, and flag recently formed entities that may have been created to shelter assets from your judgment. For businesses that may be alter egos of the debtor, our search provides the foundation for veil-piercing claims.

💼 Comprehensive Asset Search

Our comprehensive asset search combines all of the above individual searches into a single, integrated investigation that delivers a complete financial profile of the judgment debtor. This is the most popular option for judgment creditors because it covers all asset categories in one comprehensive report and, more importantly, identifies connections between assets, entities, relationships, and individuals that individual standalone searches might miss entirely. The comprehensive approach is also more cost-effective than ordering individual searches separately because the cross-referencing of data across categories often reveals assets that no single category search would find on its own. All results delivered in 24 hours or less, giving you the intelligence you need to begin enforcement immediately.

Social media has become one of the most powerful and effective tools available today for uncovering hidden assets, because debtors who carefully and meticulously hide their finances from public records and formal discovery often simply cannot resist showing off their lifestyle online. A thorough social media investigation reveals the gap between what the debtor claims and how they actually live: 📱

• 🏖️ Travel and vacations: Photos from luxury resorts, international travel, and cruise ships posted on Instagram, Facebook, or TikTok directly contradict claims of financial hardship. Geotagged posts reveal specific locations and travel dates that can be cross-referenced with the debtor’s claimed financial situation during those same periods.
• 🚗 Vehicles and purchases: Photos with new cars, boats, or recreational vehicles—especially when the debtor claims to own none in their interrogatory responses. Social media posts celebrating new purchases provide timestamped evidence of undisclosed assets that the debtor conveniently omitted from their sworn financial disclosures.
• 🏠 Property and lifestyle: Home renovation photos, posts from addresses the debtor hasn’t disclosed, and pictures showing expensive furnishings, pools, or landscaping improvements reveal real estate the debtor may be concealing or spending that’s inconsistent with claimed poverty. Posts from a “friend’s lake house” may actually be the debtor’s own property held through an entity or a family member’s name.
• 💼 Business activities: LinkedIn profiles, Facebook business pages, Instagram business accounts, and posts about professional activities reveal employment and income the debtor hasn’t disclosed. A debtor who claims to earn $35,000 as a part-time worker but has a LinkedIn profile showing “CEO” and “Founder” of a consulting firm is clearly hiding substantial income. LinkedIn endorsements and recommendations from clients also reveal the scope of undisclosed business activities.
• 🎁 Spending patterns: Check-ins at expensive restaurants, posts about concerts and sporting events, photos of designer purchases, and other lifestyle content that’s inconsistent with claimed poverty.
• 👥 Associate identification: Social media reveals relationships with people who may be holding the debtor’s assets as nominees—family members, close friends, and business partners who appear in photos and posts with the debtor.

Business entities are one of the most common and most sophisticated tools debtors use to hide personal assets behind the shield of limited liability. A debtor who titles their property, vehicles, and bank accounts in the name of an LLC appears to own nothing personally—even though they control everything through the entity. Understanding how to investigate and penetrate these entity structures is essential for uncovering concealed wealth and building the evidence needed for alter ego and veil-piercing claims: 🏢

• 🆕 Newly formed entities: LLCs or corporations created after your judgment likely exist to shelter assets. Our business search identifies formation dates so you can flag suspicious timing. An LLC formed two months after judgment at the debtor’s home address is almost certainly an asset-hiding vehicle.
• 👥 Nominee ownership: Entities owned by the debtor’s spouse, children, or friends but controlled by the debtor. Cross-referencing entity addresses with the debtor’s known addresses and examining who actually operates the business reveals these arrangements.
• 🔄 Multi-entity structures: Complex webs of related LLCs, holding companies, and trusts designed to obscure who owns what. Tracing asset flows between related entities requires professional investigation and formal discovery tools.
• 💼 Income routing: The debtor performs services through a business entity rather than as an individual employee, making wage garnishment impossible. Identifying the entity that pays the debtor allows you to pursue business collection strategies or alter ego claims.
• 📋 Dissolved entities with missing assets: Businesses that were recently dissolved, suspended, or administratively revoked may have had their assets distributed to the debtor personally or transferred to newly formed successor entities. Investigating dissolved entities through Secretary of State records and final tax returns reveals exactly where those business assets went—and supports successor liability claims against any replacement entities doing the same business under a different name.

The goal of business investigation isn’t just identifying entities—it’s mapping the flow of assets and income. When you can trace how money moves from customers to the business entity, from the entity to related entities, and ultimately to the debtor or the debtor’s family, you’ve built a roadmap for collection that exposes the entire concealment scheme.

Modern debtors increasingly use digital platforms and alternative financial vehicles to hold and hide wealth outside of traditional banking systems. These assets can be significantly harder to find through traditional property and vehicle searches, but they are not invisible to determined investigators who know where to look and what questions to ask during discovery: 💻

• 🪙 Cryptocurrency: Bitcoin, Ethereum, and other digital currencies stored in wallets that don’t appear in bank records. While individual wallet contents are hard to identify without discovery, interrogatories can require disclosure, and debtor examination questions about digital assets are increasingly standard. Exchange accounts at Coinbase, Kraken, and similar platforms can be subpoenaed.
• 📱 Payment apps: Venmo, Cash App, PayPal, and Zelle accounts that hold balances and receive payments. These platforms can be subpoenaed, and transaction records reveal income routing and transfers to associates who may be holding the debtor’s money.
• 🛒 Online marketplace income: Revenue from eBay, Amazon, Etsy, Shopify stores, and other e-commerce platforms that the debtor hasn’t disclosed. These platforms issue 1099 forms, making the income traceable through tax records obtained via discovery.
• 💼 Freelance platform earnings: Income from Upwork, Fiverr, and other gig economy platforms. These earnings may flow to accounts the debtor hasn’t disclosed in interrogatory responses.
• 🎮 Digital property: Domain names, websites, app store accounts, gaming accounts with valuable items, NFTs, and other digital assets with real monetary value that are rarely disclosed voluntarily.
• 📊 Investment apps: Robinhood, Webull, Acorns, and other investment platforms that hold stocks, ETFs, and other securities outside traditional brokerage accounts.

While professional searches and social media investigation reveal publicly available information, post-judgment discovery gives you court-backed authority to compel disclosure of private financial information that no public database can access: ⚖️

• 📋 Interrogatories: Written questions requiring the debtor to disclose all assets under oath. Comprehensive interrogatories covering every asset category—real property, vehicles, bank accounts, business interests, digital assets, debts owed to the debtor, and recent transfers—create a sworn baseline you can verify against your independent investigation. Always include questions about cryptocurrency, payment apps, online marketplace accounts, and freelance income, as these are commonly omitted from standard interrogatory templates.
• 📄 Document requests: Require the debtor to produce bank statements, tax returns, title documents, business financial statements, credit card statements, and other records that reveal hidden wealth. Documents are significantly harder to falsify than narrative interrogatory answers, and they often reveal accounts, transactions, and assets that the debtor failed to mention in their written responses.
• 🏦 Third-party subpoenas: Go directly to banks, employers, brokerage firms, payment platforms, and other institutions. The debtor can lie on interrogatories, but their bank cannot fabricate account records. Third-party subpoenas are your most reliable verification tool because the third party has no incentive to help the debtor conceal information. Subpoena every financial institution identified in your asset search.
• 👨‍⚖️ Debtor examination: Live questioning under oath where you can confront the debtor with evidence from your investigation. The debtor examination is where everything comes together—your asset search results, your social media evidence, your bank records from subpoenas, all used to test the debtor’s honesty in real time and follow up immediately when answers don’t match the evidence.

The most effective approach is to run your professional asset search first, then use formal discovery to verify and expand on what you’ve found. When the debtor’s sworn interrogatory answers contradict your asset search results, you have evidence for fraudulent transfer claims and contempt proceedings that dramatically strengthen your collection position.

Assets held by family members and close associates are among the most common hiding places for debtor wealth. When a debtor claims to own nothing, the question becomes: who in their life suddenly acquired assets around the same time the debtor lost theirs? Investigating the debtor’s inner circle—spouse, parents, children, siblings, business partners, and close friends—often reveals the missing pieces of the financial puzzle and provides the evidence needed to unravel fraudulent transfer schemes: 👥

• 💍 Spouses and domestic partners: Property held solely in a spouse’s name may actually be community property or may have been transferred from the debtor to avoid collection. A property search on the spouse often reveals real estate the debtor failed to disclose. In community property states, spousal assets may be reachable for the debtor’s individual debts depending on state law.
• 👨‍👩‍👧 Parents and children: Debtors frequently transfer property to parents (who “hold” it for safekeeping) or adult children (who nominally own it but let the debtor use it). When the debtor’s mother suddenly acquires a vacation home three months after your judgment—at the same time the debtor “sold” their vacation home—the connection is obvious. Cross-reference family members’ property records with the debtor’s timeline of known transfers.
• 🤝 Business partners and friends: Close friends and business associates may hold bank accounts, vehicles, or other assets on the debtor’s behalf. Social media investigation often reveals these relationships, and discovery can compel the debtor to identify anyone holding property for their benefit.
• 📋 Trusts: The debtor may have created a trust naming a family member as trustee but retaining effective control over the trust assets and the ability to revoke or amend the trust at will. Trust documents obtained through discovery reveal whether the debtor is a beneficiary, whether they can revoke the trust, whether the trust was funded with assets that previously belonged to the debtor, and whether the trust was created as a fraudulent transfer mechanism to shield assets from your judgment. Revocable trusts in particular offer little protection from creditors because the debtor retains effective ownership and control of the trust property.

Our skip tracing and investigation services can identify the debtor’s family members and known associates, their addresses, and their property holdings. This associate analysis frequently reveals patterns—such as multiple family members suddenly acquiring property around the same time the debtor supposedly “lost everything”—that strongly indicate coordinated asset concealment.

The timing of your asset investigation significantly impacts both what you find and how useful the results are for actual enforcement and collection. Search too early and you may miss assets the debtor acquires later. Search too late and the debtor may have already moved everything beyond your reach. Here’s when to conduct each type of investigation for maximum effectiveness: ⏱️

• ⚡ Immediately after judgment: Run your first asset search as soon as the judgment is entered. Assets are most visible before the debtor has time to implement concealment strategies. Record judgment liens on all identified property immediately.
• 📋 Before discovery: Search before sending interrogatories or scheduling a debtor examination. Knowing what the debtor owns lets you craft targeted questions and catch lies in real time during the examination.
• 🔄 Periodically (every 6-12 months): The debtor’s financial situation changes constantly. New jobs, new property acquisitions, business formations, inheritances, divorce settlements, and other life events create new collection opportunities. Regular searches ensure you don’t miss these windows.
• 📅 At judgment renewal: When renewing your judgment, always run a fresh asset search. The debtor’s circumstances may have improved dramatically since your last search—someone who was judgment-proof five years ago may now own substantial assets.
• 🚩 When you spot red flags: If you notice signs of asset concealment—lifestyle inconsistencies, property transfers, new entity formations—investigate immediately. Speed is critical because the debtor may be in the process of moving assets, and every day of delay gives them more time to complete the concealment.

💡 Practical Scenario: The Power of Persistence

Consider this common scenario. You obtain a $75,000 judgment against a debtor who immediately claims poverty. Your initial asset search confirms limited personal assets—a modest home with a large mortgage and one older vehicle. You record a lien on the home and continue monitoring.

Six months later, a follow-up asset search reveals the debtor has formed a new LLC and transferred their vehicle to it. A social media investigation shows the debtor posting about their “new business venture” and tagging an office location you didn’t know about. Your business entity search reveals the LLC has a commercial lease and appears to be generating revenue from consulting services.

One year after judgment, another search reveals the debtor’s home has been refinanced—pulling out $60,000 in cash that they claimed was for “home improvements” but which doesn’t appear to have been spent on the property. The LLC now has a business bank account with regular deposits. The debtor’s social media shows a new luxury SUV (titled to the LLC) and a vacation to Europe.

Armed with 18 months of accumulated evidence, you schedule a debtor examination. You confront the debtor with evidence of undisclosed LLC income, the suspicious refinance, the vehicle retitling, and lifestyle spending that contradicts their poverty claims. Facing contempt sanctions and fraudulent transfer liability, the debtor agrees to a structured settlement of $55,000—a strong recovery on a $75,000 judgment against a debtor who initially appeared to have nothing.

The lesson: persistence and regular investigation are the keys to finding hidden assets. Debtors who successfully hide assets immediately after judgment often become overconfident over time and start spending more visibly, forming businesses, acquiring property through entities and associates, and leaving a growing trail of evidence that patient, systematic investigation will eventually find. The cost of giving up is the entire judgment amount plus all accumulated interest. The cost of continued investigation is modest by comparison—a few hundred dollars per year for periodic asset searches. The math overwhelmingly favors persistence, patience, and professional investigation over giving up and writing off the debt.

Finding hidden assets is only valuable if you take swift and decisive enforcement action. Every day you wait after identifying assets gives the debtor another opportunity to move them. Here’s the comprehensive action plan once you’ve identified what the debtor is hiding: 🎯

• 🏠 Record liens immediately. For any discovered real property—in any county, in any state—record a judgment lien before the debtor has a chance to transfer it. Liens attach to property and survive future transfers and even the debtor’s death, securing your position for the long term. If the property is in another state, domesticate your judgment there first.
• 🏦 Levy bank accounts. If you’ve identified the debtor’s bank through investigation or third-party subpoenas, levy immediately. Time your levy to coincide with payroll deposits for maximum recovery—bank records from subpoenas reveal deposit patterns. File the writ of execution and serve the bank on the same day if possible to capture funds before the debtor can transfer them out.
• 💼 Garnish wages. If you’ve identified the debtor’s employer through your investigation, initiate wage garnishment immediately. This creates an ongoing stream of payments until your judgment is satisfied and is one of the most reliable collection mechanisms because the employer handles the withholding automatically.
• 🔄 Challenge fraudulent transfers. If your investigation reveals property transferred to insiders for below-market value—or transferred after the judgment was entered with no legitimate business purpose—file a fraudulent conveyance action to reverse the transfer, place a lien on the transferred property, or obtain a money judgment against the transferee.
• ⚖️ Pursue contempt. If the debtor lied about assets in sworn discovery responses or during a debtor examination, file a motion for contempt of court. Present your investigation evidence showing the assets the debtor failed to disclose alongside their sworn statements denying those assets. Courts take perjury in post-judgment discovery very seriously—sanctions include fines, monetary penalties payable to you, and incarceration.
• 🏢 Pierce the corporate veil. If the debtor is using LLCs or corporations as an alter ego to shield personal assets, file a motion to pierce the veil. Evidence of commingling, failure to maintain corporate formalities, and undercapitalization—all revealed through your business entity investigation and discovery—supports veil-piercing claims that break through entity protection.
• 💰 Negotiate from strength. Armed with comprehensive knowledge of the debtor’s true financial picture—their hidden property, undisclosed income, fraudulent transfers, and lifestyle spending—you’re in a powerfully advantageous position to negotiate a settlement. The debtor knows you’ve found their hidden assets, knows that continued resistance will only result in more aggressive enforcement plus contempt sanctions, and often decides that negotiating a settlement is far preferable to the alternative. Settlement discussions that follow a thorough asset investigation typically produce much better results than negotiations conducted in the dark.

Speed matters enormously during the enforcement phase. Once the debtor discovers you’ve found their hidden assets—through discovery requests, lien recordings, or levy attempts—they will almost certainly try to move assets again. Act on all fronts simultaneously when possible—file the levy and the lien and the garnishment at the same time to prevent the debtor from moving assets between your sequential enforcement actions. Keep your judgment renewed and interest accruing while you execute your collection plan, and continue monitoring through periodic asset searches because debtors who hide assets once will almost certainly try the same tactics again as they acquire new assets in the future.

Whether you pursue enforcement through DIY methods or engage our professional judgment recovery services, the critical first step is always the same: find the assets. You can’t collect what you can’t find. And with the right investigative tools and professional expertise, virtually no asset remains truly hidden for long. The debtor may win the battle temporarily by concealing assets, but persistent, professional investigation wins the war.