Locating the debtor's assets: what is legal and how it is done in practice
Locating a debtor's assets is a crucial step in debt recovery. Many debts go uncollected not because of a lack of legal justification, but because the creditor doesn't know what assets exist, where they are located, whether they actually belong to the debtor, or if they have sufficient value to justify enforcement action. In Portugal, locating a debtor's assets must be done through legal, proportionate, and documented means. The creditor can gather legitimate information, analyze documents, consult public records when applicable, and, during the enforcement phase, benefit from the efforts made by the enforcement agent. What they cannot do is resort to abusive, invasive, or illegal practices to discover assets. In this article, we explain what is legal in locating a debtor's assets, how it is done in practice, what types of assets can be identified, and when asset searches can increase the likelihood of recovery.