North Dakota Asset Search Services

Records Searched

1. County recorders, all 53 counties: Deeds, mortgages, notices of levy, lis pendens and county-filed UCC records, searched under the subject, the spouse and every known entity. Cass County alone holds about a quarter of the state’s residents.
2. Clerks of district court: In North Dakota the docket is the lien: a money judgment attaches in each county where the clerk dockets it or where a transcript of the docket is filed (N.D.C.C. 28-20-13), so every county’s judgment docket is read.
3. Secretary of State: Corporations, LLCs and partnerships, with their officers, members, managers and registered agents. An ordinary UCC financing statement may be filed with the Secretary of State or with any county recorder (41-09-72), so both are checked.
4. Motor vehicle records: Titles and registrations, requested under a DPPA permissible purpose.
5. Federal court and bankruptcy: The state is one federal judicial district, with court held at Bismarck, Fargo, Grand Forks and Minot (28 U.S.C. 114). PACER shows federal suits, bankruptcies and federal judgments.
6. Coast Guard and FAA registries: Documented vessels and registered aircraft, which no county index shows.
7. Nationwide cross-reference: Property, entities and judgments in other states under the same names.

Divorce and Marital Property

North Dakota is an equitable-distribution state, not a community property state. On divorce the court distributes all property and debts of either spouse, whenever acquired, weighing the Ruff-Fischer factors (N.D.C.C. 14-05-24).

Because the court reaches property titled to either spouse, the search runs the spouse’s name and every entity either spouse controls, and dates each acquisition from its recording. How an asset is divided is for counsel to argue and the court to decide; the report supplies the record.

Voidable Transfers

North Dakota adopted the Uniform Voidable Transactions Act, N.D.C.C. ch. 13-02.1. A transfer is voidable if made with actual intent to hinder, delay or defraud any creditor, or without reasonably equivalent value while the debtor was left with unreasonably small assets or could not pay debts as they came due (13-02.1-04).

• Time limits (13-02.1-09): An actual-intent claim must be brought within 4 years of the transfer or, if later, 1 year after it was or could reasonably have been discovered. A constructive-fraud claim has 4 years; an insider-preference claim under 13-02.1-05(2), 1 year.
• Intent factors (13-02.1-04(2)): The court may weigh, among other factors, whether the transfer went to an insider and whether the debtor kept possession or control of the property. A transfer to an insider is a factor, not a presumption.
• Insiders (13-02.1-01): For an individual debtor, insiders include relatives, a term that covers a spouse, and any company the debtor directs, manages or controls.
• Transferees (13-02.1-08): Judgment may run against the first transferee or a later one, but not against a good-faith transferee who gave value.
• In bankruptcy: A trustee can avoid transfers made within 2 years before the petition under 11 U.S.C. 548.
• What the search adds: The recording date of every deed and entity change, so counsel can see which transfers fall inside those limits.

How the Search Runs

Every county recorder index and every clerk of district court docket is searched under the subject’s name, known aliases, the spouse and each entity the Secretary of State connects to them, then the same names are run nationwide with federal court, Coast Guard and FAA records added.

An analyst reviews the results and writes the report, listing the record behind each finding: the recorder’s document number, the entity ID, the title record or the PACER case number, so every item can be pulled and certified.