If you have worked on person locate investigations and use proprietary data aggregators, you no doubt have come across address history information with overlapping dates. As investigators, it’s important for us to analyze and investigate the addresses listed in a comp report in order to determine what may be a good investigative lead for locating the target.
The easiest case is the one where the data aggregator indicates that the target currently owns the residence. From there, an investigator can verify the data through the assessor’s office, county recorder, country treasurer, MVD, etc.
But what happens when an investigator comes across a variety of addresses listed that are not owned residences or apartment addresses? One needs to look at the addresses and determine what the connection is. The two most common scenarios are that the target’s family owns the address, or the target is/was renting the home.
When I see that the target may be renting a home, I immediately investigate who owns the residence being reported on the comp report. In most jurisdictions, this is easy. The address can be searched directly through the county assessor, county recorder, and county treasurer (in addition to database searches). When I do this research, I specifically look to see where the tax bill is being sent and the assessor/recorder mailing address for the individual/entity who owns the property. If the tax bill and assessor mailing address is different from the address being searched, there is a good chance that the residence is a rental property. If the residence is owned by an LLC, there is a good chance that the address is a rental property. If the mortgage, assessor records, or county recorder records indicates that the home is not a primary residence, it’s a good lead indicating that the home is a rental property.
If the address coming up for the target appears to be a rental home, I next search the address in question through several popular real estate listing websites. Many times, homes are listed for rent on these sites, and the MLS information provides the date that the home was listed on the MLS and the date the home was removed from the MLS. Using these MLS dates, an investigator can cross reference them against the dates listed in the comp report. If they are relatively close, then you can formulate a working theory that your target is the one who rented the property, or at least may have lived at the property, during that time frame. Most home rental agreements are 12 months, so you can do the math and determine if the target may still be present at the location.
Obviously, rental leads need to be further researched and verified, but this process can all be done quickly if the investigator is familiar with the various resources at their disposal.