So, I became friends with my next door neighbor and sort of fell into this, because I enjoy unraveling mysteries ;-). I’ll be giving lots of info, so maybe more than you want to read. I like the challenge of figuring this out.
She’s been in the middle of a divorce for 7 years. She says that her husband had a lot of income during their 17 years of marriage and they were very, very well off. her husband filed for bankruptcy and claimed no property ownership. But my neighbor has several addresses and knew that he owned. Her attorney didn’t believe her and didn’t do much about following up on her suggestions. She knows that he used all kinds of entities, not his name, but even did identity fraud by using her name to get mortgages and then transfered deed into his name. When she caught him and transfered it back into her name to cover her butt, he had her thrown into jail. it’s been really ugly.
So, here I come and started having fun picking things apart by being used to looking at property records and probate paperwork etc. and found stuff:
One of the addresses she knew he owns part of, is a big commercial building in Manhattan, across from the Empire State building. A joint venture of various investors bought it in the 50’s and her father-in-was part of it. No details in the F-I-L will, but her mother in law’s will states that my neighbor’s husband gets his mother’s share of this particular building. I also found documents where my neighbor’s brother-in-law’s share of this building is being transferred by his executor. Supposedly owning 2% of this building and the share being worth $ 19 million in 2007.
Then there was a deposition of the company that manages the building, that states that the husband owns 3% of that building. But the lawyer never followed up on that. (I wonder if he was paid off. He also never gave any of that info to the husband’s bankruptcy trustee)
Then there’s another commercial building in the prime of Manhattan, where 1 of the documents has an attachment that mentions all the investors and their share. It mentions the brother-in-law owning 3% of that building (but I never see a transfer by the executor) and another 3% right below that is owned by Suntrust as trustee (I sort of assume that this may be the husband’s share when he was still a child at the time in the 50’s).
The joint ventures are named 'spelled out addresses of the buildings 'associates and refer to an agreement from June 21, 1954.
I know they are obviously trying to protect their assets, but I wonder if there is anywhere where that agreement would have been recorded? Or would that only stay between the joint venture partners?
Any of you that are more familiar with asset protection and commercial properties - what steps would you take to get more backup, if you didn’t have a lot of money to spend?