Where the money went. A field guide to finding assets in Washington.
Pick the one that matches your problem.
You won. Now collect.
Collecting a Washington judgment: the order to do things in, the ten years you have, the homestead exemption, supplemental proceedings and garnishment, with the statute for each step.
The first day decides most of it.
What to do in the hours after a wire or crypto scam, who to call and in what order, whether crypto can be traced, and why you should not pay a recovery company.
What was left behind.
How an heir or executor finds property, accounts and unclaimed funds a relative held, and what an heir cannot turn up alone.
The toolkit.
Free searches for Washington property and liens, business filings, court dockets, unclaimed property and people, plus where to report a fraud.
Before the wire.
Checking a founder before you invest: whether the offering was lawful to sell you, what happened to the last company, who has sued, who already holds the collateral, and what no database will tell you.
Before you sign.
Vetting a contractor or business: L&I registration and bond, whether the company is real and who runs it, complaints and lawsuits, and who already has a claim on their assets.
Half of everything.
Hidden assets in a Washington divorce: where a spouse moves money, what the public record shows without a subpoena, and when to bring in an investigator.
Last known address.
Finding a witness, a debtor or an heir from public records, why the people-search sites mislead, what the privacy laws close off, and what a licence lawfully adds.
Winning was the easy part.
No one pays a judgment because the judge said to. They pay because you found the house, the boat or the LLC and put a lien on it before they could move it. That is the whole job, and in Washington it is harder than it looks. There is no state income tax, so there is no return to subpoena. The homestead exemption protects home equity up to the county's median sale price, about $940,000 in King County, which puts a paid-off house in Ballard out of reach of most judgments. The business registry lists "governors," not owners, and a governor can be another company. And a lot of the money around here sits in stock grants and crypto wallets that no county clerk has ever seen.
None of that makes a debtor untouchable. It means the order you do things in matters, and it's easy to get it wrong and spend years waiting for a check that is not coming. The public record in Washington is unusually open. Deeds, liens, business filings, court dockets and unclaimed property are all free to search from your kitchen table. This page walks through how, where the trail usually goes cold, and when it's time to hire a professional.
We came to investigations through a newsroom, where following the money was usually how you found the why of a story, then spent a decade supporting high-stakes litigation and international asset recovery. Since 2016 we have helped more than 100 clients collect on judgments that had sat for years, and we work with bankruptcy trustees and creditors' counsel on concealed assets and fraudulent transfers. These guides are the answers we give on the phone.
What an investigator adds, and what the law allows
If I can do all this myself, why would I pay you?
Sometimes you shouldn't. If the debt is small and the debtor is local and sloppy, an evening with the links in the toolkit will turn up the house and the LLC. Keep your money. People call us when the number is big and the search does not end on page one: the debtor has moved twice, the property sits in an LLC whose governor is another LLC, the court file is not online, or the person has simply become careful. We have done this every day since 2016, in all fifty states and most countries, and that buys two things. We know which of the forty possible next steps is the one that pays. And we can go where you cannot: licensed databases, vehicle records released only for litigation, foreign registries, and the former business partner who will tell an investigator what he would never tell the creditor. What you get is not a list of links. It is a documented chain from name to asset to the deed that proves it, in a form your lawyer can hand a judge. Whether that is worth the fee depends on the size of the judgment, which is why the first look is free and the quote is fixed.
What can a licensed investigator get that I can't?
Three things. First, the commercial data platforms that sell address, phone, property, vehicle and business-affiliation records under the permissible-purpose rules of the Gramm-Leach-Bliley and Driver's Privacy Protection Acts; they credential licensed agencies (chapter 18.165 RCW) and audit every search we run. Second, motor-vehicle and vessel records from the Department of Licensing for litigation purposes, with one catch worth knowing: DOL tells the owner when it releases a record to an investigator or lawyer, so we time that request. Third, time and method: registries in fifty states and abroad, archived filings, and interviews with former employees, partners and neighbors. A license does not let us see bank balances, tax returns, credit files without a Fair Credit Reporting Act purpose, or sealed court records. Those come through process, or not at all.
Have a judgment that has gone unpaid?
Since 2016 we have helped more than 100 clients collect on judgments that had sat for years. Tell us who owes you and roughly how much. We will run a preliminary search, tell you what the record is likely to show, and quote a fixed price. Trustees and creditors' counsel: we also work fraudulent-transfer and concealed-asset matters in the Western District of Washington.
Contact Integra Intelligence