“The debtor has nothing.” It's the phrase that closes most collection cases, and it almost always means something else: we don't know what they have.
Asset tracing is the work of finding out. And it is done with lawful, verifiable sources that hold up in court.
What it's for, in practical terms
It's for making decisions. An asset map answers three questions that change the entire strategy: whether it's worth going to court, what can be requested as security, and which case should be closed because there is nothing to pursue.
And it serves a very specific purpose. Article 351 of the COGEP (General Code of Procedure, Código Orgánico General de Procesos) provides that, in executory proceedings, if the plaintiff attaches the certificates proving the defendant's ownership of assets, precautionary measures over those assets may be ordered together with the order admitting the claim, without the other usual requirements.
In plain terms: without prior asset identification, you reach judgment with nothing to attach. With it, the asset is secured at the start of the proceedings. That is the whole difference between winning a lawsuit and getting paid.
Lawful sources of information
What can legitimately be consulted are public registries and publicly accessible sources. In Ecuador, the ones that matter:
- Property Registry (Registro de la Propiedad) of the relevant canton: real estate in the debtor's name and any liens. This is the core source.
- Commercial Registry (Registro Mercantil) and Superintendency of Companies (Superintendencia de Compañías): equity interests, appointments, and whether the debtor is a shareholder or officer of any company. Much of this information is openly available.
- Internal Revenue Service (Servicio de Rentas Internas, SRI): existence and status of the RUC (taxpayer ID), declared economic activity.
- Judiciary (Función Judicial): proceedings in which the debtor is a party. Reveals other creditors, prior attachments and, sometimes, assets.
- Vehicle and intellectual property registries, as the case requires.
The real work is not accessing these sources: it is cross-referencing them. An active RUC with declared activity, plus an equity interest, plus a property whose mortgage was paid off last year, paint a very different picture than each data point on its own.
What asset tracing most often reveals
After years of doing this work, the findings repeat themselves, and they are rarely what people expect:
- The debtor has no assets in their name, but is a shareholder or officer of a company that is operating.
- There is a property whose mortgage has already been paid off, so it is unencumbered.
- There are other lawsuits under way: other creditors got there first, and that changes the urgency.
- The person listed as unemployed in the file now has a RUC and declared business activity.
- A case with no assets is also a useful result: it lets you close it in time and focus the budget where recovery is possible.
That last point is always underestimated. Knowing that a case is a dead end is worth money, because it frees up the collections budget for the cases that do have a way out.
When to do it
Before going to court, always. Suing without knowing what assets exist is buying a lawsuit with an uncertain outcome and a certain cost.
Before accepting a long-term agreement, if the amount justifies it. Knowing the debtor has real capacity changes what you can demand in the negotiation.
When taking on an old or written-off portfolio. This is when it pays off most, because the original file reflects the debtor's situation from years ago, not today's.
How we approach it at FEXCOB
Our debtor asset investigation works exclusively with public registries and legitimately accessible sources, and delivers a report built for decision-making: what goes to court, what is negotiated and what is closed.
We work with our own team in Ecuador, Colombia and Peru. And we apply a simple rule: if we can't explain where a piece of data came from, it doesn't go in the report.
You may also be interested in: when it makes sense to go to court · recovering written-off portfolios
Legal sources cited: Organic Monetary and Financial Code (Código Orgánico Monetario y Financiero), article 353 (current text, last amended June 4, 2026); General Code of Procedure (Código Orgánico General de Procesos), article 351 (current text, last amended October 7, 2025); Organic Personal Data Protection Law (Ley Orgánica de Protección de Datos Personales), articles 7, 9 and 28.
This article is for informational purposes only and does not constitute legal advice for any specific case.