On Jun 6, 7:05 am, "Sam" <n...@none.com> wrote:
> My friend's husband passed away a few months ago and although she is quite
> sure about knowing of all his financial accounts, she wants to make sure
> there aren't ones she has missed. Is there any way to find out through a
> person's social security number what bank accounts, trading accounts,
> investment accounts, etc he had?
There's no one _easy_ way to do it. There's too many different places to look. Suppose she went to one of those online asset-checkers which, for a minimal fee, will return a report with a list of a person's assets. Suppose it uncovers one or two accounts your friend didn't know about. How can she then be sure that those are _all_ there are, or whether there may be other, even more significant assets not yet discovered? She can't.
Her best bet, if she is serious about this, is to hire a private investigator experienced in running assset checks. They have access to databases that are not open to the public, and they have the know-how to filter the info they receive and follow up on leads to get to the bottom of what very likely might be a nested network of shell corporations and straw man owners to show what he really owns. If friend's late husband was the kind of guy who had assets to hide, that's what such foax usually do.
She should be able to find one who will charge her only for a successful search (i.e. one that turns up assets she didn't tell him about at the outset) and I would recommend she negotiate a flat fate fee up front rather than pay a percentage of whatever he recovers or an hourly rate (both of which are better for the PI and worse for your friend).
Of course, I assume your friend has already taken steps to be appointed Personal Representative (executor or administrator) of her late husband's estate and thus has the legal power to marshal his assets wherever they may be found, for inclusion in his probate estate. She could hire the PI on behalf of the estate and then his bill would be an expense of the estate, not a personal debt for her alone That would (in effect) spread the cost among the residual beneficiaries, if she is not the sole beneficiary.
And as PR, she is legally the recipient of new incoming mail addressed to him and over the course of several months, she should be receiving statements, bills, etc. from any open accounts (deposit or credit) the decedent held. Of course, if she suspects he was leading a double life and had them sent to a different address, that's where she especially needs the PI.
If hubby was a computer user, she could have the PI go over his computer with forensic tools to find any data he had stored there about his assets, sometimes even if it had been erased. As a first step, of course, she could poke around in there herself, but the "did I find everything?" dilemma would still not go away without professional help.
Good luck,
--
This posting is for discussion purposes, not professional advice.
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Mike Jacobs
LAW OFFICE OF W. MICHAEL JACOBS
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