A judgment is worthless against a defendant whose assets have vanished — and assets vanish deliberately: into companies, trusts, family names, offshore accounts and crypto. Connaught Law's asset tracing solicitors find what's been hidden, freeze it before it moves again, and turn paper judgments into recovered money — and we act with equal skill for those on the receiving end of a freezing order.
· Regulated by the Solicitors Regulation Authority · Legal 500 · Lexcel
How We Can Help
When Asset Tracing Is Needed
The recurring situations: a judgment debtor who suddenly owns nothing, fraud victims watching proceeds disappear through layers of accounts, businesses stripped by a departing director or partner, and spouses whose wealth develops amnesia when divorce begins — a scenario our financial disclosure guide knows well. In each, speed decides outcomes: money moves in hours, court orders take days, and the gap between them is where recovery is won or lost.
How Assets Are Traced
Tracing combines public-record forensics — Companies House structures, Land Registry holdings, charge registers — with the court's compulsory tools: disclosure orders against banks and third parties who handled the money, Norwich Pharmacal orders compelling those mixed up in wrongdoing to reveal what they know, and examination of debtors under oath. Licensed investigators extend the reach where lawful; the law then converts intelligence into evidence a court can act on.
Freezing Orders
The freezing injunction is the sharpest tool in civil law: made urgently and without notice where there's a real risk of dissipation, it prohibits dealing with assets up to the claim's value — worldwide where justified — with disclosure of assets compelled alongside, under the framework in the Civil Procedure Rules. Obtained properly it preserves everything; obtained sloppily it collapses expensively. We prepare these applications to the exacting standard without-notice relief demands.
From Tracing to Recovery
Finding assets is half the job; taking them lawfully is the other. We enforce through charging orders over property, third-party debt orders over accounts, orders for sale, insolvency proceedings where pressure serves, and claims against those who knowingly received or assisted in moving the money. The strategy is sequenced from the start — trace, freeze, enforce — with our commercial litigation team running the underlying claim where liability is still to be established.
International & Crypto Assets
Modern concealment is borderless: offshore structures, foreign accounts, and cryptoassets moved through exchanges and wallets. English courts have kept pace — worldwide freezing relief, disclosure orders against exchanges, and recognition that crypto is property that can be traced and frozen like any other. We coordinate with foreign counsel where enforcement crosses borders, and with our financial services disputes team where institutions hold the answers.
Defending Asset Tracing & Freezing Claims
Freezing orders are powerful precisely because they bite before you're heard — and they are regularly obtained on thin evidence, drawn too widely, or used as commercial pressure. We act for respondents: urgent applications to discharge or vary orders, carve-outs for living expenses and legal costs, challenges to non-disclosure by the applicant, and damages under the cross-undertaking where an order should never have been made. Being frozen is not being found liable; the reply matters, fast.
How We Work
Asset cases run on candour and speed: tell us everything — what's owed, what you suspect, what evidence exists — and we'll tell you honestly whether tracing is likely to pay, because pursuing a genuinely empty defendant wastes money on principle. Where the case is there, we move at asset speed: intelligence gathered discreetly, applications prepared for urgent hearings, and enforcement sequenced so the defendant's options narrow with every step.
Recovery economics are discussed openly at the outset — including funding options for strong claims — so the costs always make sense against what's realistically recoverable.
Why Connaught Law
01Speed as doctrineAssets move in hours. Urgent without-notice applications are how this practice works, not an exception to it.
02Recovery-first economicsWe assess what's actually recoverable before you spend — and say so when tracing won't pay.
03Senior attention throughoutYour case is run by our experienced litigation team, not passed down — with direct access to the person handling it.
04Both sides of the orderActing for claimants and respondents means we know exactly where freezing orders are strong — and where they crack.
Fee structures and funding options are set out on our fees page — we discuss costs openly before you commit to anything.
Frequently Asked Questions
Can hidden assets really be found?
Usually, yes — concealment leaves trails: transfers have counterparties, companies have filings, property has registers, and even crypto moves through exchanges that courts can compel to disclose. The genuine question is rarely whether assets can be found but whether what's found justifies the pursuit — which is exactly the honest assessment we give first.
What is a freezing order?
A court injunction preventing someone dealing with their assets up to the value of a claim — granted urgently, often before they know it's coming, where there's good evidence of a claim and a real risk assets will be dissipated. Breach is contempt of court. It preserves the position; the underlying claim then decides who the assets belong to.
Can cryptocurrency be traced and frozen?
Yes — blockchain analysis makes movement more visible than cash ever was, English courts treat cryptoassets as property capable of being frozen, and disclosure orders against exchanges convert wallet addresses into names. Crypto concealment defeats casual creditors, not prepared ones; speed matters even more than usual.
A freezing order has been made against me — what should I do?
Comply immediately — breach is contempt — but don't accept it as final: take advice the same day on discharge or variation, living and legal expense carve-outs, and whether the applicant gave the court the full picture, because failures of disclosure can bring the whole order down. Frozen is not guilty; the worst response is paralysis.
Assets vanishing — or frozen?
Either way, the clock is the enemy. Tell us the position today and we'll tell you what can be found, frozen or freed — and whether the recovery justifies the chase.
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