How can I find out if someone is deceased?
 

Long story short I had a customer buy a car at online auction over the winter. I picked the car up here in NJ and he lives in CA. All winter it was back and forth over what to do with the car as he overpaid for a piece of junk. It got to the point where I started charging him storage fees and of course haven't heard from him since.

He's an older guy...in his 70's. Supposedly he was pretty sick this winter to the point where he was joking around about dying and so forth. Well I haven't heard from him in months and I've left several messages about the outstanding balance and about bringing legal action against him and so forth if I don't hear back. Well now I need the car gone and I want to find out if the guy actually passed away or not.

Any help would be great. Thanks.

If you have an address call his town's hall of records.

I do have the address.....would that have that info if it happened in the last month or two?

If they issued a death certificate then I believe so.

if you have the name and address you should be able to get the info from city hall where he lives/lived. check the vital statistics dept.

Dumb question here but did you google "his name, town and obit" see if something comes up.
That worked for me once. What kind of car? Just curious

Does he owe you $$ or is just the car in the way? you have a mechanics lien. just start sending him invoices for storage.

what kind of car is it

It's a wrecked 81 Lancia Zagato and yes he owes me thousands in storage at this point. If he's alive I may go after him for the money as the car is worthless in my opinion. If he's dead I'll either try to sell it or just scrap it.

Tried Googling and found nothing.

The thing looks like a poor man's Porsche 914. I say you build it up for the 24 hours of LeMons next year. LOL.

if you want to get rid of it i know someone that has a few sitting at his shop

I'd need to get atleast a few hundred bucks for it since the scrap yard would give me something or another. I also have a NJ Salvage Title for it...just not in my name.

http://ssdi.rootsweb.ancestry.com/

You can search for the death record here. It helps if you know the date of birth but if you know where they live that will help too.

Thanks Mike....turned up nothing though. I tried calling the county last week but got a machine. Going to try and call again today.