Skip Tracing

Is skip tracing legal? Yes. Finding a person who moved is lawful work, and attorneys, collectors, and process servers do it every day. But “legal” comes with conditions. Your role, your sources, and your methods decide whether you run a lawful locate or hand someone a lawsuit. Here’s where the lines sit in California. Is Skip Tracing Legal? Yes, but the Rules Depend on Who’s Searching Skip tracing means finding someone’s current address. No law bans it. Several laws regulate it, and which ones apply depends on your role: Picture a defendant who left Escondido for Riverside County. Your mail comes back undeliverable. In most general civil cases, you have 60 days from filing to serve and file proof of service (Cal. Rules of Court, rule 3.110). That’s an ordinary, lawful reason to run a skip trace. Skip Tracing Laws, Organized by Task What Attorneys and Collectors Can Do Legal skip tracing runs on lawful sources and clean contact. Work in the right order. Search databases first and call third parties last. Every call is a risk. Attorneys have one more reason to document. Service by publication requires a sworn showing that the party can’t be served with reasonable diligence another way (Code Civ. Proc. § 415.50). A documented search can help establish that diligence. It won’t decide the motion alone, but it beats a vague declaration. Courts also can’t require searches of databases closed to registered process servers, like DMV and voter rolls (§ 415.50(e)). What You Can’t Do These moves turn a routine locate into a complaint: Rookie Mistakes That Get Firms Sued Picture a firm that serves a stale address from a cheap people-search site. The defendant never sees the summons. Months later, the court sets aside the default for lack of actual notice (Code Civ. Proc. § 473.5). The firm pays to start over. Skip Tracing Compliance: How to Vet a Vendor Ask for these in writing: Why ask? A clean paper trail protects you in court and in a complaint. Licensing deserves its own warning. California’s Private Investigator Act can reach paid work to investigate a person’s whereabouts (Bus. & Prof. Code § 7521), unless an exemption in § 7522 applies. Those exemptions are tied to specific roles and activities. A registered process server’s exemption covers serving process, for example, and an attorney’s covers the attorney’s duties as an attorney. Whether a particular search falls inside the Act or inside an exemption depends on the facts, so don’t guess. Ask the vendor to name its license or its exemption, and ask your own counsel if the answer is unclear. Knowingly engaging a nonexempt, unlicensed person for PI work is a misdemeanor (§ 7523). If you’re searching for the best skip tracing service, don’t start with price. Start with sourcing, documentation, and licensing. For a benchmark, Ranworks charges $50 to $175, from a basic locate to a full service strategy for evasive defendants. Frequently Asked Questions Don’t Wait for the Demand Letter Can’t find a defendant, or not sure your current process would survive a challenge? Tell us who you’re looking for. We’ll tell you straight which level of search fits and what a clean, documented trail looks like. Contact Us today, and get the address and the paper trail before your deadline beats you to it.