Sometimes a situation arises in life when you need to find out the home address of a person; this could be for a variety of personal, commercial or legal purposes.
It could be emotions such as love or anger that are driving the need in you to find out where someone lives; it could be that you wish to protect someone you care about or ensure their safety and wellbeing; it could be that you have financial or business interests at risk and need to determine the address of someone to investigate or pursue this further; it could be that a court case or legal action requires the address of a respondent to proceed.
Whatever the reason behind your need to ascertain someone’s home address, its important that you think clearly about the motivation for this and whether it is reasonable and legitimate, as well as the methods that you use to obtain this as you could inadvertently commit a crime or illegal act if you aren’t fully informed and apply caution.
Often, the best and safest option for a situation like this is to contact a professional; a private investigator or professional tracing agent will have the skills, knowledge and access to resources and information that private individuals, members of the public or non-professional agencies just don’t have or cannot access.
This means they are significantly more likely to achieve the desired end result. They are also fully informed on the legal frameworks around tracing people and the behaviours and actions you can and cannot undertake so will always work in a legally compliant and ethical manner and can also provide you with advice, information and guidance around this to ensure that you don’t unintentionally commit an offence!
It’s helpful to have a general oversight of the things you can and can’t do when trying to trace someone if you don’t want to go straight to a professional to get the specifics and are happy taking the risk of trying to find someone’s address yourself initially; it is illegal for members of the public to intercept a person’s post or mail, to place a listening device on their phone, to place a tracking device on their vehicle, to enter private property or to access certain government or information records or databases that are not openly available in the public domain.
Not all of these things are illegal for a professional to undertake so you may want to rethink your decision not to hire one if you genuinely want to find out someone’s address in the quickest and most accurate manner.
Harassing behaviour is subject to The Protection from Harassment Act 1997 and in some situations, harassment can also be classified as a hate crime; a person can take action against you through the civil courts if they deem your behaviour to be harassment and you can also be prosecuted for this in the criminal courts.
Acts considered to be harassment can include unwanted communications such as texts or telephone calls, unwanted visits, verbal abuse, online abuse and stalking amongst others. Its important to consider if your intended behaviour or actions constitutes any of these before pursuing your trace of a person.
A really obvious and healthy way to find out where someone lives is to just ask them! If they want you to know, they will tell you and if they don’t tell you maybe they don’t want you to know or be in their lives and you should just leave things there?!
This is possibly the best advice in matters of the heart! However, as discussed above, not every situation is this straight forward and there may be occasions when you genuinely and legitimately (and not for stalking or intimidation purposes as this is not good!) need to know someone’s address and asking them just isn’t possible, is not going to get the results you require and, quite possibly, is going to make them even more evasive and therefore the task of actually finding out their address even harder.
If asking someone their address is not possible or just isn’t going to cut it in your specific situation, there are other methods you can try to obtain this information:
You can ask around; contact people who know the person’s who address you are seeking (perhaps family members, friends, business associates or colleagues) to find out if they know the person’s address or at least a general location where they live as this will provide a helpful start to your investigation.
Social media is a very helpful tool for finding out lots of different information about a person. If you have access to a person’s social media account or if they have no or little privacy settings you can look at their posts, pictures and network to get an idea of where they go, what they are into, the activities they take part in and who they spend time with and this can provide with an idea of their daily routines and insight into where they will be at a certain time or what area they are located in.
Some people may even directly provide their home address through photos or other clues if they are not particularly savvy about this. You can also look up some of their contacts and get in touch with them to gain further information possibly. However, if you can’t access someone’s account as they haven’t accepted you and use privacy settings this method won’t be fruitful.
You can look online at sites providing directory enquiries, census data and the electoral roll information; this can give you home address details as well as information about other people making up the household from just typing in a full name.
However, much of this information is reliant on self-report and updating and is often not current or not correct. People can also choose to opt out of providing this information or not having it made publicly available so it’s not always the most reliable or useful of methods and if someone actively does not want to be found its unlikely to yield the results you seek.
You could try contacting the employer or place of work of the person if you know this information; it’s pretty unlikely that an employer would provide the home address of an employee but in certain situations and with certain grounds this is possible and worth a try.
You can try a google search for the person by name, or any other search engine search. It’s a long shot but its surprising what information actually comes up when you type someone’s name into a search engine and they, or someone they are somehow linked to, may have done something at some point that meant this information was released onto the internet so give it a go and see what transpires!
You could go to their last known address or place of residence and see if they are still there or speak to the current residents to see if they have any forwarding address information, are still in contact with the person or have any idea where they may have moved onto. If the property is rented, then the new tenants may be willing to provide you with the details of the letting agency or landlord connected to the property. You can contact them and see if they have any further information of use to you.
If you have tried all the legitimate methods of trying to obtain someone’s home address without success and you genuinely require this information, it may well be time to contact a professional tracing agent or private detective; these are the experts in this field and will acquire a current and up to date address for you in a quick and legal manner.
