Dudley and Smith, P.A.
Information is the oxygen of the modern age.
Ronald Reagan (b. 1911), former U.S. president. (London, June 14, 1989).
The following is not an exhaustive discussion on access and research into Minnesota’s public records. It does discuss a few valuable resources for locating debtors’ assets and how to obtain that information via computer, telephone, mail or the good old “going down to the courthouse.” It is written as a primer for finding public record information.
Information Available
Businesses are generally required to maintain some records with the Minnesota Secretary of State’s office in order to enjoy the legal benefits of being a corporation or for an out of state company to lawfully conduct business in Minnesota. Sole proprietors’ also commonly file assumed names or “doing business as” information with the Secretary of State’s office. Secured creditors also file various secured interest documents, which may provide information regarding any liens or other secured interests in a debtors’ property.
As is true for all public record information, business-filing records are only as accurate and up to date as what was provided to the government. That being said, a great deal of identification, location and ownership information may be obtained from the Secretary of State’s records.
Access to Business Registration Information
The Minnesota Secretary of State’s office is located at:
Minnesota Secretary of State
180 State Office Building
St. Paul, MN 55155
And may be contacted by the following means for business registration information:
Phone: (651) 296-2803, Toll Free: 1-877-551-6767
Office Hours: 8 A.M. to 4:30 P.M.
A simple phone call or visit to their website will obtain information about a registered business. Information available includes proper entity name, registered addresses for service of process (if provided), persons registered to accept service of process (if provided), business location, type of entity, good standing status, year of formation, filing numbers, etc. All of this information may provide valuable information in locating debtors’ and their assets. It is also helpful for properly effecting post judgment remedies.
UCC filings and tax lien filings may provide a wealth of information about particular debtors’ location and assets. Those records are maintained by the Secretary of State’s office and are accessible in person, by mail or on the Internet. All manners of access have a minimal processing fee associated with the documents’ retrieval, photocopying and mailing.
The Minnesota Central Filing System is a combination of the Secretary of State’s office and 80 individual county satellite offices. Certified searches and inquiry searches (UCC-11 requests form available at http://www.sos.state.mn.us/uccd/ucc11.pdf) can be requested from any county filing office or the Secretary of State’s office. The results provided are inclusive of all county offices.
In order to do a fully comprehensive search, it is recommended creditors’ counsel does not only rely on what is provided by the State. A much better practice is for creditors’ or their representatives to conduct their own search of the State’s records. The main point is to run differing name variations searches on the same company. Of course, this may be done by driving to the Secretary of State’s office, or via its website for a yearly access fee of $50.00 and a per document charge. More information is available at: www.sos.state.mn.us.
C. County Property Records
Information Available
County property records may contain information on the existence, location and value of debtors’ assets. A creditor may also obtain copies of recorded documents through paper documents and microfilm imaging. Commonly found nuggets of information include the owners’ name and mailing address, date deed was recorded, last sale price, tax value, property use, tax amount, mortgage and other secured interests, etc. Understandably, this can be precious information for a creditor.
Currently, there is not a “one stop” website to obtain this information (Westlaw and Lexis do provide subscription based nationwide computer databases). Accordingly, searches of public records must be done in each county where a debtor may own real estate.
One web site that bills itself as a “portal” or directory, provides nationwide contact information for property records. The address for the web site is www.netronline.com and you just click on the state and you’ll get a full listing of contact information for each state’s county. There are also links to official state web sites, and those Tax Assessors' and Recorders' offices that provide retrieval services of public records over the internet.
Access to Minnesota County Records
Many Minnesota counties are providing Internet access to their property records. Each county individually designs and provides this service so each county’s website has varying information at varying costs. Currently Anoka, Becker, Beltrami, Blue Earth, Carver, Cass, Clay, Dakota, Goodhue, Hennepin, Otter Trail, Ramsey, Rice, Scott, Saint Louis, Sterns, Washington and Wright counties have on-line access. Please visit www.netronline.com for a comprehensive listing on each county’s contact information.
· Hennepin County Public Records Division Contact Information
Hennepin County Public Records Division
A803 Government Center
300 6th Street South
Minneapolis, MN 55487
|
Assessor Recorder Tax Services |
612-348-3046 |
www2.co.hennepin.mn.us/pins
· Olmsted County Property Records and Licensing Department
Olmsted County Government Center
151 4th Street SE
Rochester, MN 55904-3710
Government Center 1st Floor - (507) 285-8195; http://egov.co.olmsted.mn.us/olmstedtax/parcelsearch.aspx
D. MOTOR VEHICLE AND DRIVERS LICENSE RECORDS
Information Available
Drivers License information, full name, past and last known addresses, physical description, date of birth, etc. Motor Vehicle registration information provides year, make, model, liens on vehicles, number of vehicles owned. Obviously, all of this information can be extremely valuable for levying on a debtors’ property. However, some savvy debtors will not keep that information current or place assets in other people’s names. Nonetheless, it may be quite valuable in locating a debtor or debtors’ assets.
Access to Information
Motor vehicle and drivers license records are maintained and may be accessed (subject to the following restrictions) from the Minnesota Department of Public Safety’s Driver and Vehicle Services Division:
Driver and Vehicle Services
445 Minnesota Street
St. Paul, MN 55101
651-296-6911 (8:00 a.m. - 4:30 p.m.)
Restrictions on access
· Record Request and Explanation of Intended Use form.
Record requests may be made by applying in person at the Driver and Vehicle Services office in Saint Paul (address above), or by mail. Access to computer records is also provided by remote, private computer connections (i.e., not on the ‘Net) for businesses that have authorized access. Upon receipt of a Record Request and Explanation of Intended Use form (see www.dps.state.mn.us/dvs/PDFForms/DVSFormFrame.htm) the division will determine if the applicant is authorized to receive the requested information.
· Applicable Law
Permitted uses pursuant to the
governing privacy laws that are directly applicable to motor vehicle and drivers
license information is THE DRIVERS PRIVACY PROTECTION ACT (18 U.S.C.S. 2721) ("DPPA")
and Minnesota Statutes, Sections 168.346, 171.12 subd 7 , and 171.12 subd. 7a.
Fortunately for debt collectors, there are two exceptions to the privacy laws
which apply. They may be summarized briefly as follows:
You may access and use the information in connection with any proceeding (including arbitration) in any court or government agency, or before any self-regulatory body, including investigation in anticipation of litigation.
and
You may access and use the information to verify the accuracy of information about a person who provided the information to you (or to your client) but only if the information is used to recover on a debt against the person or to pursue legal remedies against the person for fraud.
Both exceptions are valid under the Minnesota statute and the DPPA. Both exceptions may be successfully argued to access the information by debt collectors, creditors’ counsel or an individual/corporate entity collecting a debt on its own behalf.
E. BANKRUPTCY RECORDS
Information Available
Bankruptcy court filings probably contain more financial information on a debtor than any other source. Of course, they are only available if a debtor has previously filed for bankruptcy protection with one of the U.S. District Courts.
Commonly disclosed information on bankruptcy filings includes the following nonexclusive items: social security numbers (new rule effective 12-1-2003 requires counsel to redact ssn information and only provide the last four digits of the ssn), addresses, real estate locations and values, bank account location and information, motor vehicle information, general value of assets owned, specific information about other debts (secured or unsecured), personal property and its claimed value, etc.
Access to Information
As always, a trip to the courthouse can provide a creditor access to the court’s records. In Minnesota, there are four courthouses were a debtors’ bankruptcy records may be found, based on the county in which they reside. Following is the contact information for each courthouse’s clerk of court’s office:
Duluth Office
416 U.S. Courthouse
515 West First Street
Duluth, Minnesota 55802
(218) 529-3600
Fergus Falls Office
204 U.S. Courthouse
118 South Mill Street
Fergus Falls, Minnesota 56537
(218) 739-4671
Minneapolis Office
301 U.S. Courthouse
300 South Fourth Street
Minneapolis, Minnesota 55415
(612)-664-5200
|
200 U.S. Courthouse |
Even more convenient is to access the records in Minnesota via the bankruptcy court’s web site at www.mnb.uscourts.gov. Minnesota’s bankruptcy courts were one of the first in the nation to provide online access to its records. Better yet, it is still free (changing this year to a fee based system through Public Access to Court’s Electronic Records-PACER- see http://pacer.psc.uscourts.gov/).
Nonetheless, it is a fairly easy to navigate site, but you will need Adobe Acrobat Reader and Paperport Viewer (both available for free downloads with a link from the Court’s website). You may search by case number, social security number or the debtors’ name. Since it’s free, everyone should check it out and see what they can find about a corporate or individual debtor who has previously filed for bankruptcy protection (or neighbor or family member).
FORMAL DISCOVERY METHODS
A. INTRODUCTION
Once a creditor has obtained a judgment against a debtor, a few effective procedural tools are available to creditors’ counsel to gather information directly from the debtor. Because of a multitude of reasons, these measures may vary in their effectiveness. Commonly, a debtor with a judgment against him has already ignored the court’s process and authority and will not voluntarily comply with post judgment requests/demands for information. Enforcing the creditors’ rights in those situations is beyond the scope of this writing and will not be addressed. However, a couple post judgment information-gathering devices will be briefly discussed.
B. ORDERS FOR DISCLOSURE
Orders for Disclosures are permitted by Minnesota Statute, Section 550.011 and permit a judgment creditor to apply to the district court for an order requiring the debtor to make a financial/asset disclosure. It is a simple and inexpensive process that may be effective in particular instances. Its effectiveness comes from the document being an actual Order and sent by the Court to the debtor, rather than from the creditors’ counsel. This may have an in terrum effect and provide a disclosure from the debtor.
The statute provides in full:
Unless the parties have otherwise agreed, if a judgment has been docketed in district court for at least 30 days, and the judgment is not satisfied, the district court in the county in which the judgment originated shall, upon request of the judgment creditor, order the judgment debtor to mail by certified mail to the judgment creditor information as to the nature, amount, identity, and locations of all the debtor's assets, liabilities, and personal earnings. The information must be provided on a form prescribed by the supreme court, and the information shall be sufficiently detailed to enable the judgment creditor to obtain satisfaction of the judgment by way of execution on nonexempt assets and earnings of the judgment debtor. The order must contain a notice that failure to complete the form and mail it to the judgment creditor within ten days after service of the order may result in a citation for civil contempt of court. Cash bail posted as a result of being cited for civil contempt of court order under this section may be ordered payable to the creditor to satisfy the judgment, either partially or fully.
Minn. Stat. 550.011. The other obvious benefit is if a debtor fails to comply, counsel may set up proceedings to hold the debtor in contempt. Forms are available through the Minnesota State Bar Associations website: www.mnbar.org and its partner www.practicelaw.org and Hennepin County’s website at www.courts.state.mn.us/districts/fourth/General/onlineforms.htm.
C. POST JUDGMENT INTERROGATORIES
Rules 33 and 69 of the Minnesota Rules of Civil Procedure govern post judgment interrogatories in aid of execution and a judgment debtor must answer them under oath within 30 days of serving them on the debtor. Commonly requested information is identification of assets, financial institutions, real property, personal property, etc. Just as is true for Orders for Disclosure, failure to answer the post judgment interrogatories can result in creditors’ counsel setting up contempt proceedings.
Counsel for a creditor may notice a post judgment deposition via Rule 69 of the Minnesota Rules of Civil Procedure. The debtor should generally be subpoenaed in order to later compel an uncooperative debtor to testify under oath. A subpoena duces tecum is wisely served upon debtors, thus compelling the debtor to bring specified financial documents to the deposition. Finally, all of the same remedies discussed above for a non-complying debtor may be subsequently pursued.
Planning ahead and researching debtors’ assets prior to contacting the debtor may have substantial benefits and assist creditors in getting a debt paid off. Spending a little time and money locating assets usually will have a greater benefit than the cost. After all, if you know where the money is it is usually easier to get your hands on it. Happy researching!
Mark K. Thompson
DUDLEY AND SMITH, P.A.
2602 US Bank Center
101 East Fifth Street
Saint Paul, Minnesota 55101
Voice: 651-291-1717
Fax: 651-223-5055