Debt recovery guide · Tricky situations
How to find someone who owes you money
A debtor who disappears is betting you'll give up. It's usually a bad bet: people leave data trails — credit activity, electoral registration, utilities, employment — and professional tracing finds most UK debtors quickly, often on no-trace-no-fee terms. The debt survives the disappearance; you just need an address to serve it on.
What you can legitimately do yourself
Companies: Companies House shows registered offices, directors' service addresses and new appointments — a dissolved company's director often surfaces at a new one. Individuals: mutual contacts, public social profiles, the last known landlord or employer. Keep it to locating, not pressuring — contacting family to embarrass a debtor, doorstepping or misrepresenting yourself crosses lines that can damage your own claim.
How professional tracing works
Licensed tracing draws on credit-file activity, electoral roll and account data that individuals can't lawfully access directly, and it's cheap relative to the debt — with no-trace-no-fee the norm. Agencies bundle it with recovery: locate, verify residency, then demand and escalate at the confirmed address.
Once found, move promptly: a fresh address is a perishable asset. Formal demand, then claim and enforcement if needed — the standard path in our complete debt recovery guide. If you're within six years (five in Scotland), a vanished debtor is an inconvenience, not an ending.
Where this fits in the bigger picture
This is one step of a well-trodden path — demands, statutory add-ons, professional recovery, court, enforcement. The complete debt recovery guide walks the whole process, and the late payment calculator works out what you can add to a commercial debt today.
Related situations
General information, not legal advice.