Consistency in the investigation and discovery of hidden assets.

Last February, I was asked by a French law firm to locate a document that proved their client was right.

This client's paternal grandparents had died many years before, in 1967 and 1974, and after years of family disputes they had decided to divide the inheritance through the courts.

His father had always told him that part of the grandparents' inheritance belonged to the seven children and part to only five. Among them was the family business. The plaintiff, who was only litigating for the inheritance of the seven children, argued in the lawsuit that all of the grandparents' property belonged to the seven children on the grounds that the property belonged to all seven children.

We had less than a month to prove that my client's father was right.?After digging through numerous files, three days before the deadline for submission of documents, I found a report, signed by all seven children, which supported this theory. My client sighed.

But what was my surprise, in the course of the investigation to find the proof, that I found another document stating the existence of 35,000 square metres, pending claim by the heirs of the paternal grandparents and of which none of the heirs knew anything. It is a legacy that, according to initial estimates, exceeds three million euros in sale value and which will have to be divided between the seven heirs... and the commission agent.