Beneficiary to intestate estate?

barbiedoll

TonyMMM wrote: »

Are you sure that 4-6% is the full fee for the heir hunting companies to administer the estate and includes their cut of the estate value .... that is way below what most charge. 25-30% +vat would be the norm.

Intestacy law defines who inherits very specifically, - any children adopted out of the family cannot inherit , so it won't be them.

Sorry, I probably wasn't clear...the children were adopted into the family by my dad's cousin and his wife (she then died a few years later)

The fees state that they will be taken from any share of the money due to us after the estate has been wound up. Of course, it will only be due to us after solicitors fees, EA fees etc etc, have been paid first. But that will be taken out of the estate anyway, then the heir hunters will put their fee on top!

We're going to gather our knowledge together and see if we can't track down any of the other beneficiaries, before we make any decisions.

Thanks again for all replies, it's been very helpful!

getmore4less

barbiedoll wrote: »

Sorry, I probably wasn't clear...the children were adopted into the family by my dad's cousin and his wife (she then died a few years later)

The fees state that they will be taken from any share of the money due to us after the estate has been wound up. Of course, it will only be due to us after solicitors fees, EA fees etc etc, have been paid first. But that will be taken out of the estate anyway, then the heir hunters will put their fee on top!

We're going to gather our knowledge together and see if we can't track down any of the other beneficiaries, before we make any decisions.

Thanks again for all replies, it's been very helpful!

if the finances were complex the administration by a professional could get quite expensive.

often there are tasks that can be done by lay people because they are simple and don't need £250ph solicitors.

it will definitely be worth preliminary investigations to see if between you there is either someone with time/skills to do everything and if there are any obvious complexities.

it might be that the beneficiaries can mitigate te costs by doing some of the work if not able or have the time to do it all.

Things like dealing with a property are jobs that many have done before with their own properties and the extra complexities of a probate property are not that hard as long as the property is registered or if not the deeds have been found.

Yorkshireman99

Who are the three companies? You may be able to track down a few beneficiaries but to make a successful claim you need to produce a full family tree with all the birth, marriage and death certificates of alll beneficiaries. That is not an easy job even for a professional with lots of resources and money. I hold no brief for the heir hunters but despite many years of researching my only family tree I would not attempt it. Anyone who tells you that I is a job to DIY clearly has no idea of how difficult the task is or the likely cost involved just to gather all the certificates together at £9.25 each assuming you can find all the potential heirs. Good luck anyway.

Marmaduke123

And remember you wouldn't have known a thing about it if it wasn't for these companies!

By all means do your research into which one is offering the best deal, but I think you would find it difficult to put together the necessary proof yourself, unless you are very experiences with constructing family trees to the present day, as well as back to the common ancestor.

Tuesday_Tenor

Remember it's not just your own family line and entitlement you'll have to prove, using birth, marriage and death certificates, but all 6 beneficiaries.

And that entitlement also means accounting for any other family line that has died out, i.e. that the six are the only survivors.
As the deceased was your father's cousin, then you're going to have to account for all the families of all your grandparent's siblings.
If you knew the family well, you'd have an idea whether this was a manageable task, but you say you've been estranged.

My grandfather was the eldest of 8 siblings and moved from the South Coast to the Midlands as a young man in the 1920s. I know the names of the other 7 siblings and who they married. They all had families of their own. Some stayed on the south coast, and I met some of them back in the 1960s; others emigrated to faraway places.
I've done a lot of family history going backwards from my grandfather.

My grandfathers generation are now all deceased, and many of the next generation too. If I faced the situation that you're in, I know I'd struggle to identify all the children of the cousins, especially those abroad. If other 'cousins-once-removed' (the children of my mother's cousins) know who everybody is then it might be possible. But if many of these families have 'died out' and I was having to work alone, I know I'd be grateful for the heir-hunter firm!

Yorkshireman99

getmore4less wrote: »

if the finances were complex the administration by a professional could get quite expensive.

often there are tasks that can be done by lay people because they are simple and don't need £250ph solicitors.

it will definitely be worth preliminary investigations to see if between you there is either someone with time/skills to do everything and if there are any obvious complexities.

it might be that the beneficiaries can mitigate te costs by doing some of the work if not able or have the time to do it all.

Things like dealing with a property are jobs that many have done before with their own properties and the extra complexities of a probate property are not that hard as long as the property is registered or if not the deeds have been found.

Dealing with the administration of the estate is the easy part. Before the OP even gets to that they would need to establish proof by certificates of birth, marriage and death all the potential heirs and provide a detailed family tree showing who all the beneficiaries are. That is not an easy task even for a professional. Anyone who thinks otherwise is sadly naive.

getmore4less

This will give you the start you need and far better than random strangers on the internet.

https://www.gov.uk/guidance/make-a-claim-to-a-deceased-persons-estate

There is a good chance this never got as far as BVD admin
so that section will be relevant.

..........................
clear in that that you don't need to have the full tree just your lineage to make the claim

if you admin then it is up to the other beneficiaries to prove their claim to you.

..............

This is why heir hunters are keen to get a beneficiary signed up as they can kick start the claim with just one while they search for everyone.

barbiedoll

My mum was showing me her wedding photos today, and naming all of the relatives. She can remember who was who and how many children there were (and their names!)

We're pretty sure that we know who the remaining six beneficiaries are, two of them still live locally but it's the adopted ones that we don't have much info on, although we know their names.

I do agree with the poster that commented that if it wasn't for the heir hunter firm, I wouldn't have known anything about this. To be fair, I've read the contracts very carefully and the fees do seem very reasonable, I don't begrudge paying them for their work. I've been scouring the web for bad reviews, complaints and so on and I can't anything especially negative. The agent who spoke to me was very upfront with the information that he had, he also, after I asked, informed me (very sensitively) that my father is now dead, something which I didn't know until last night.

The family tree that links me to the deceased won't be huge, we're not a particularly fecund family it seems! But having to obtain birth, death and marriage certificates will take time, some of the names are quite common, and trying to find exact dates may well be very time-consuming.

Once again, thanks for all replies. This has come as a bit of a shock, albeit a rather nice one (late parent notwithstanding )
but it takes a bit of getting used to. I am leaning towards letting someone just get on with it on my behalf, then I can just sign the forms, sit back and forget about it for a year or so, and hopefully get some good news sooner or later. Fingers crossed!

Yorkshireman99

getmore4less wrote: »

This will give you the start you need and far better than random strangers on the internet.

https://www.gov.uk/guidance/make-a-claim-to-a-deceased-persons-estate

There is a good chance this never got as far as BVD admin
so that section will be relevant.

..........................
clear in that that you don't need to have the full tree just your lineage to make the claim

if you admin then it is up to the other beneficiaries to prove their claim to you.

..............

This is why heir hunters are keen to get a beneficiary signed up as they can kick start the claim with just one while they search for everyone.

Sadly it is not as easy as your glib reply suggests. In order to prove a claim the applicant needs to prove who all the beneficiaries are so that the amount due to each is known.That is, as I have said before, time consuming, costly and difficult as anyone who has done any genealogical research will confirm. If it was as easy as you imply then there would be no professional heir hunters. It is a very competitive market and is not the way to easy riches that people often think.

getmore4less

Yorkshireman99 wrote: »

Sadly it is not as easy as your glib reply suggests. In order to prove a claim the applicant needs to prove who all the beneficiaries are so that the amount due to each is known.That is, as I have said before, time consuming, costly and difficult as anyone who has done any genealogical research will confirm. If it was as easy as you imply then there would be no professional heir hunters. It is a very competitive market and is not the way to easy riches that people often think.

that is not what is said on the link.
I suspect you have not even read it.

the claim just needs to have your lineage

If you believe you are entitled to claim an estate which has been dealt with by BVD, please send a family tree which shows how you are related to the person who has died, and include the dates of birth, marriage and death of all those on the tree

no requirement to provide a full set for all beneficiaries and the heir hunters rely on this to start claims with the first they get to sign up.

if you really believe a claim needs a full tree you need to provide some evidence to support that claim as a government site says different.

if a claimant decides to administer the responsibility then passes to that administrator to meet the statutory requirements of identification of the beneficiaries as with any other estate.

Admission of claims

BVD will deal with, and admit, the first fully documented claim they receive which is supported by sufficient evidence.

Once a claim is accepted BVD do not need claims from other relatives, as their claim is protected by law and should be made direct to the successful claimant or their representative, as it is their legal duty to deal with the estate appropriately


the known beneficiaries might consider accepting the hunter fees to get the full tree but administer or do some of it.

no one says it is easy but to get to the level needed to do a distribution, holding onto the unknown branches is possible.

that's effectively what a BVD administered estate is with them holding all the assets waiting for a claim.