Locating Assets
| Real Estate | Automobiles | Planes | Boats |
| UCC Filings | Liens/Judgments | Stocks | Unclaimed Funds |
General Hints:
- Check recent divorce filings.
- Typically easier on a for-fee database that will allow searching across counties and across states, such as Lexis, Westlaw, Accurint, others.
- Portico: state-by-state links for real estate; links for aircraft and boats
- Lexis - Public Records>Find Assets
Real Property
Check the County Recorders office for deeds (sale price), mortgages and liens and the County Auditor’s office for current property ownership, taxable value and property description. 
Nationally:
Portico for county recorders, Property Assessment Databases for auditors.
Zillow - A national database of real estate sales listings. Search by address, street, city, etc.
For Ohio:
- Butler County Clerk Statewide Property Search – Links to recorder's office for each county in Ohio.
- Statewide Real Estate Tax Search – From Butler County Clerk's office, links to county auditors' offices.
Cuyahoga County:
- Foreclosure Sales – Cuyahoga county.
- Neo Cando – Property, tax and transfer information for properties in Northeast Ohio.
- Cuyahoga Enterprise Geographic Information System (CEGIS)
-detailed information on houses and businesses in the county. Type in an address or owner's name. The system combines information from the Cuyahoga County Auditor's Office and Recorder's Office. It will show the property owner, liens, how much was paid for the house, whether taxes have been paid and a detailed deed transfer history. A map which shows information about the property's neighborhood - census information, nearby sex offenders, nearby foreclosures and more. The site is free, with registration.
Lexis Law School Account- Public Records>Find Assets>Real Property: Mortgages, deeds and tax assessor records.
Westlaw Law School Account- Directory>Public Information, Records and Filings>Asset Locator>Real Property, Tax Assessor and Transaction Records - Individual states. (most states). Pre-foreclosure records included for some states.
Airplanes
- Landings
- Portico
- Lexis - Public Records>Find Assets>FAA Aircraft (also see the bluebook and valuation databases)
- Westlaw - Aircraft Records
Boats
- Portico
- Ohio Department of Public Safety Online Vehicle/Watercraft Title Inquiry: Search for an owner of a watercraft by title number or VIN number.
- Lexis Public Records>Find Assets - bluebook and valuation databases
- Westlaw - Watercraft Records
Automobiles
- Ohio Department of Public Safety Online Vehicle/Watercraft Title Inquiry: Search by title number or VIN number.
- Carfax.com: Free search will tell you the year and make a vehicle, when a VIN number is entered. There are free searches for manufacturers buy backs under lemon laws, and for recalls. For a fee, you can find out how many people owned the vehicle and for how long, whether there are title problems, odometer problems and whether the car was in an accident or stolen. Carfax reports DO NOT provide the names of the former owners.
- Lexis, Westlaw and OPENonline also have motor vehicle searches for a fee. One can search for a person's name, unlike the BMV site above, to see what vehicles they own. The OPENonline site requires knowledge of the person's social security number. Lexis and Westlaw law school accounts do not have this database.
- Also see Lexis Public Records>Find Assets>Valuations>Vehicle Price Digest
Stocks
Owned by corporate insiders – officers, directors and shareholders owning more than 10% of a single class of stock.
- Lexis Public Records>Find Assets>Stock Information - Data from insider trading and restricted shares forms required to be filed with the SEC.
- Edgar - Forms 4 and 144 for same information Lexis provides. Form 3 and 5 also.
- Westlaw - Insider Stock Transactions
UCC Filings
- UCC filings – Ohio Secretary of State
- National Association of Secretaries of State – Links to Secretary of State offices in all fifty states.
- Searchsystems.net for UCC filings.
- UCC Article 9 filings may be with county recorder.
- Lexis - Public Records>Find a Business> Uniform Commercial Code Filings - all states
- Westlaw - Public Information, Records & Filings>Litigation & Court Records>UCC Filings by State
- Westlaw - Combined UCC, Liens and Civil Judgment Records - All States (individual state databases too)
Judgements and Lien Filings
- County Recorders' office will show liens on property (see real estate section, above)
- Lexis- Public Records>Find Filings>Judgments & Liens - covers 6 states. More states outside of law school plan.
- Westlaw - Combined Liens and Civil Judgments - All States (individual state databases too)
Unclaimed Funds
- National Association of Unclaimed Property Administrators - free search for unclaimed funds
- Check the County Auditor's office or County Treasurer's office. For Cuyahoga County, check the Treasurer's office. The Cuyahoga County Treasurer has a nice article about unclaimed funds.
- Ohio Department of Commerce Online Treasure Hunt - funds held by county and local governments are transferred to the Ohio Dept of Commerce after five years. Ohio Revised Code 9.39.
- For more info, see the Ohio Department of Commerce, Division of Unclaimed Funds
- U.S Treasury Department page: Unclaimed Money and Assets
- FDIC Unclaimed Funds - If you had money in a failed financial institution
- Westlaw has an unclaimed funds database, but it is not in the law school plan.
Links Checked, SA, 5-7-2009