Have you ever tried to recover money from a tenant who has left your property and is nowhere to be found, writes David Larwenson.

It can be tough.

Looking in the Yellow Pages the main entry for people who do this work is under "Debt Collectors" and "Detective Agencies", there being no entry for "Tracing agents."

I phoned three detective agencies to see what services they offer to try to trace someone owing money.

The costs varied depending upon what information you have. As a minimum you should have the debtor's full name and date of birth. It also helps if you have information on previous addresses, parents or next of kin addresses and an idea of where they may have moved to. Their mobile phone number is also useful. Even information on their national insurance number can be useful.