Last week, a Tennessee judge fined Oprah Winfrey’s father, Vernon Winfrey, $70,000 in legal fees as punishment for bad behavior during his divorce.  According to the judge’s decision, Mr. Winfrey used some fairly complicated maneuvers to avoid splitting the value of a barbershop he owned with his soon-to-be ex-wife while at the same time

PROBLEM:

The debtor has a passion for historic architecture, and you remember him once mentioning a beautiful old house that he was thinking about buying years ago.  You suspect that he may have secretly purchased the house and has failed to disclose it.

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SOLUTIONS:

Real estate protected by historic designations can be

PROBLEM:

You think that your debtor owns property, but you cannot find any evidence that he owns any real estate in his own name.  You suspect that he purchased property through a corporation so that you would not be able to find it.

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SOLUTIONS:

If you do not know the name of

PROBLEM:

Debtors know that a few clever tricks can make it difficult to trace a real estate purchase back to them.

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SOLUTION:

The biggest challenge in tracking down real estate is knowing where to look. In the United States, property transfers are recorded at the county level, so we start by checking the county