A Standard Skip Trace with Dynamic Commercial Collections costs $500 + GST. That covers searches across company and director records, the electoral roll, property and tenancy records, paid people-search databases and open-source intelligence, along with a written report on what we find.
Some matters cost more depending on the complexity involved. If the trail has gone cold, the debtor is behind a failed company, or you need the result urgently, the work takes longer and third-party search fees can come into it. Below, we explain what goes into a skip trace, why it’s priced the way it is, and what you can do to keep the cost down.
What Is Skip Tracing?
Skip tracing is the process of finding someone who has moved, stopped responding, or deliberately disappeared. The name comes from the idea of a debtor “skipping” town to avoid paying.
In debt recovery and legal work, a skip trace usually locates a debtor, a defendant who needs to be served, a guarantor, or the director of a company that has stopped trading. A skip tracer pulls together records from a range of sources, cross-checks them and confirms where the person is now.
Plenty of credit teams and law firms do some of this work themselves, but a professional skip trace is what you turn to once the free searches have run out.
What a Professional Skip Trace Involves
Our Standard Skip Trace includes:
- ABN and business enquiries for companies and individuals
- ASIC company and director information
- Australian Electoral Commission (AEC) search
- Social media and photo analysis
- Open-source intelligence (OSINT) searches
- Name and reverse searches in paid databases
- Property ownership details
- Residential tenancy records
Running the skip trace search itself is the quick part. Most of the time goes into determining which results are current and belong to the right person. A common name can return dozens of addresses across several states, and old records sit alongside new ones. We cross-check every lead before it goes into the report, so you’re working from verified details rather than a list of possibilities.
You receive a written report with the subject’s confirmed current address, contact details and any other information we’ve been able to verify, usually within 7 to 10 business days.
How Much Does Skip Tracing Cost?
Our Standard Skip Trace is $500 + GST.
Additional costs may apply depending on the complexity and urgency of the matter, or where third-party search fees are incurred. If extra costs come up, we confirm them with you in writing before we go ahead, so you won’t be billed for anything you haven’t approved.
If you’re not sure your matter is worth tracing, send us what you have. We’ll tell you whether it’s viable before you commit to our skip trace services.
Why Skip Tracing Costs What It Does
From the outside, a skip trace looks simple, but there’s plenty of work involved in the time between you giving us a name and us giving you an address.
Database access
The paid databases used in professional skip tracing charge for each search. Running one person through several of them, plus property and tenancy searches, adds up.
Verification
An address that was right two years ago won’t help you serve a claim today. Checking that a lead is current, and that it belongs to the person you’re after, takes more time than any other part of the job.
Report depth
Many skip tracing providers hand over a one-page printout of search results. Our reports set out what we found and how we confirmed it, and our team includes in-house legal support to make sure the report is prepared with a legal file in mind. For solicitors, that means a document you can rely on when instructing a process server or preparing for enforcement, without having to check the findings again yourself.
The cost of getting it wrong
Serving a claim at a stale address means paying for a failed service attempt. It can also give a defendant grounds to apply to have a default judgment set aside on the basis they were never properly served. Compared with that, confirming the address first is the cheaper step.
What Can Affect the Price
- A cold trail: The longer it’s been since the debtor moved, the fewer current records there are to work with.
- Limited starting information: A name on its own, especially a common one, takes far more work to trace than a name with a date of birth and a last known address.
- Corporate debtors: When a company has been deregistered, placed into liquidation or restarted under a new entity, the person worth pursuing is often the director, shadow director or personal guarantor. Tracing them means working back through ASIC and ABN histories, associates and property records.
- Urgency: If you need a result faster than our usual turnaround, more resources go into the file.
- Third-party fees: Some records carry their own search fees. We pass these on only with your approval.
What No Skip Tracer Can Legally Access
Phone records, bank records, medical records and government-held data such as Centrelink, Medicare, tax and motor vehicle registration are protected under privacy legislation. Only authorised agencies can access them, and no skip tracer operating lawfully in Australia can get them for you.
If a provider offers this kind of information, treat it as a warning sign. Information obtained that way can expose you and your client to serious legal risk. More information won’t help if you can’t use it.
How to Keep Your Skip Trace Cost Down
Send us everything you have
At a minimum, we need the subject’s full name and one solid identifier, such as a date of birth, last known address, previous phone number or email, or an ABN or ACN. Previous addresses, employer details, vehicle registration, known associates, social media profiles and your correspondence history all help narrow the search.
Instruct early
The sooner we start after the debtor drops out of contact, the more current the records we’re working with.
Check viability first
If the debt is small or the information is thin, ask us before you instruct. We’ll give you a straight answer on whether a trace is likely to pay off.
Skip Tracing Services From Dynamic Commercial Collections
We’re a debt recovery firm, so finding the debtor is usually where our work starts rather than where it ends. Once we have a confirmed address, our field services team can attend in person, we can arrange service of your legal documents, and we can run the collection from demand through to payment. Where a debtor won’t engage, our in-house legal team will work with you on the next step.
As a skip tracing agency working with law firms, credit managers, insolvency practitioners, lenders and property managers, we know what a usable report looks like.
To talk through a skip trace, call us on 1300 375 067 or book a free consultation.