How do I go about finding the cars and the land and house so that I can get what is legally entitled to me?

First, regarding anything in Ecuador, you are going to have to talk to a lawyer licensed to practice law there. If your father died in 2009, why are you just getting around to this now? I'm not judging you but a lot of time has passed. Your brother has had the chance to possibly dispose of assets and dissipate the proceeds. And there are time limits for acting and suing. You may or may not be too late. If your father lived in Philadelphia, have you contacted the Orphans' Court to see if an estate was ever probated for your father? If so, there should be a copy of the will, if any, petition for letters, an inventory and an accounting. The inventory and accounting will indicate what your father owned and how it was distributed. The will would indicate whether you were to inherit anything at all. If there was no will, then you, your brother and any other surviving spouse and siblings would have inherited your father's property. In addition, you should check the recorder of deeds' office. How is the home titled? Is it still owned by your father? Is the home paid for? What about the property taxes? Even if the home is still in your father's name somebody is paying the taxes on it. If not the property would have been sold at a tax sale. Same for the mortgage. Either way, if the property was sold - either by outright sale or at a foreclosure or tax sale this will all be evidenced by a recording in the deeds' office. If an estate was probated and you were to receive a share of the estate by will or intestacy, where is your share? If persons cannot be located, the funds are either held by the court or turned over to the state treasurer. In such case, you would have to get your share from whichever authority has the funds. If no estate was ever probated, then you are going to have a problem on your hands and its going to be an expensive one. Litigation is very costly. You are going to have to know what your father owned and owed and determine whether it is worthwhile to proceed. You should still check the land, tax and dmv records to get as much information as possible about the property. I would then suggest that you meet with a probate litigation lawyer to see if an estate can still be probated for your father or if even needs to be probated. If so, you can be appointed as personal representative and you can then locate your brother and compel him to disclose what happened. If there is no point in probating an estate, you may still be able to go after your brother if you were to receive a portion of assets that he controls. The problem, as I indicated at the outset, is why you did not act sooner as you may be running into a statute of limitations problem for any action against your brother if you can locate him. Even if you do succeed in this, the chances that he still has the cars is very slim. If he sold the cars and spent the money, then you may have a hard time collecting from him at all. It makes no sense to me that your brother took the car titles and vanished. He could not do anything with the cars legally unless he was the personal representative of the estate. Of course, nothing would stop him from acting illegally. However, if he did this and tried to sell the cars and forge your father's name on the titles, he would have had to have other documents indicating that he was your father and/or the notary might be involved as these documents have to be notarized if the cars were to be sold. Have you checked the DMV? Car titles have to be registered there. This would give you an indication as to whether the cars were sold and when.