You found a business on Acquire.com / Flippa / BizBuySell. Before you wire diligence money, run a distress + hidden-liability scan: bankruptcy & lawsuit dockets, product-recall exposure sitting in inventory, federal exclusions/sanctions, WARN-Act layoffs, and existing liens — each with its source and date.
Counts + a one-line verdict. Full sourced brief is paid.
Federal dockets incl. bankruptcy courts (CourtListener/PACER). Active bankruptcy is the loudest distress signal — and sometimes a §363 buying window.
CPSC product recalls tied to the firm. Unsold/returned recalled units = a contingent liability sellers rarely disclose — and possibly a recoverable claim.
OFAC SDN + OIG LEIE. Buying an excluded/sanctioned entity can transfer the bar.
State layoff notices — operational distress & workforce instability the listing won't mention.
Existing secured debt you'd inherit. (State portals are anti-bot; seeded/flagged honestly.)
Good-standing lookup pointers for the target's state SOS.
Real public data, no mocks. Google/Yelp review velocity and most state UCC portals are anti-bot walled — we skip them and say so rather than fake a number. Absence of a signal is not proof of safety.
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