Bank & Brokerage Searches
We identify where a judgment debtor or counterparty banks and holds securities, so your writ of garnishment goes to an institution likely to be holding money. We use lawful sources only and document a permissible purpose before we start.
What a bank and brokerage search is
A bank and brokerage search identifies the financial institutions a person or entity has a relationship with: deposit accounts, securities and retirement holdings, and merchant processing. With that, a creditor knows which institution should receive the garnishment, levy, or subpoena. For a lot of judgments, this is the step that leads to actual collection.
What you receive
- Identified depository institutions and branch locations
- Brokerage, custodial, and retirement account relationships
- Merchant processing and payment-services relationships
- Business operating and payroll account indicators
- Institution addresses and registered agents for service
- The source and date basis for each identified relationship
- An assessment of the subject's overall financial health and posture
- Recommended service targets for a writ or subpoena
- A written statement of what was searched and not found
Account balances are not part of the search
We identify relationships: which institution, which type of account, and the basis for saying so. We also assess the subject's overall financial health and posture. We do not search active account balances, and no legitimate investigator can. Balance and transaction data comes from the institution in response to lawful process: a garnishment, a subpoena, or a debtor's examination. Our job is to tell you where to send it, and whether it is worth sending.
The financial health assessment
Attorneys usually ask for the balance. What we can lawfully provide is the subject's financial posture, and it is often more useful. That covers how many institutions the subject deals with, whether accounts appear active or dormant, whether there are business operating and payroll relationships, what is encumbered, whether a lender has perfected against them, and whether the overall pattern looks like solvency or like someone winding down.
That picture tells you whether a garnishment is worth serving before you spend the filing fee on it. A single balance figure on a single day would tell you less than you think, and would be stale by the time the writ issued.
Where the information comes from
Banking relationships leave a lawful public trail. UCC-1 financing statements name the secured lender. Deeds of trust name the beneficiary. Court filings, bankruptcy schedules, and prior discovery productions name institutions directly. Judgment and lien records, business registrations, litigation exhibits, and payment records developed in the matter all contribute. Where a lawful, permissible-purpose data source is available to a licensed investigator, we use it, and we document which one produced each finding.
We do not pretext financial institutions
The Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act makes it unlawful to obtain a customer's information from a financial institution through false, fictitious, or fraudulent statements. It is equally unlawful to ask someone else to do it on your behalf. Calling a bank and pretending to be the account holder is a federal crime.
Some vendors do it anyway, and price accordingly. The exposure lands on the client and on the attorney who retained them, and the resulting information can compromise the matter it was obtained for. We don't do it and we won't subcontract it. If pretexting is the only way to answer a question, we will tell you that judicial process is the route.
Permissible purpose is confirmed first
Before we open a bank or brokerage search, we document the matter and the lawful basis for it: the judgment and case number, the pending litigation, the fiduciary or receivership appointment, or the fraud investigation that supports the request. If a request doesn't have one, we decline it. Documenting this protects your file as well as ours.
Situations where counsel orders a bank search
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Post-judgment garnishment
You have a judgment and need somewhere to serve the writ before the debtor moves funds.
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Pre-suit collectibility
Your client wants to know whether a defendant has liquid assets before funding a case.
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Receiverships and fiduciary matters
A receiver or trustee must inventory and secure accounts across entities.
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Fraud and asset dissipation
Funds appear to have moved to a new institution, entity, or related party.
Have a judgment and nowhere to serve it?
Bank searches from $325 with no-hit pricing. Open an account and we'll take it from there.