Is Enforcement Impossible Without Knowing the Assets: Property Disclosure and Property Inquiry

Abstract

This volume asks what routes exist when a valid monetary claim stalls because the assets to be enforced against are unknown. Property disclosure, property inquiry, and the register of defaulters differ in purpose and requirements, and none of them guarantees the existence or recovery of assets. The path to relief opens where the creditor holds a monetary title on which property disclosure may be applied for, satisfies the requirements for commencement, and specifies the grounds for inquiry and the institutions to be inquired of, and closes where the creditor holds only a title with a declaration of provisional execution, which is excluded from property disclosure, or where no additional statutory ground for inquiry exists, so that the relevant information procedure cannot be used. The six sections address, in turn, the entry to property disclosure, the distinction between non-compliance and insolvency, inquiry after the property list, the scope and cost of inquiry, the meaning of registration on the register, and the conclusion when assets are not found. The strongest counterargument is as follows. Protecting the debtor's information may help conceal assets and shift the cost of searching onto the creditor. Reconstruction of fund flows and the choice of preservative measures are not addressed in this volume.