Family deaths - handed a bundle of share certificates - what to do with it?

RedMonty

Hiya,

Due to the sad death of a couple of family members, after a several years long process, I have been handed a folder 3 inches thick full of share certificates. It isn't all share certificates - there is various other paperwork there, tax certificates, dividend cheques etc, but I guess at least a couple of dozen grand.

It's a lovely present, and I'm not complaining, but I have no idea what to do with it. The certificates have been put in my name, a couple of mis-spellings here and there. I have attempted to bone up on dealing with shares but it is just too much info for me to take on to clean up the folder, deal with tax refunds, get the foreign currency shares (there are one or 2) sold off and so on.

I am fairly competent with finances, I have power of attorney for my father who is in a care home and two disabled kids, and I deal with the various paperwork for them, but I think I am better at helping others than myself, and this folder of shares keeps getting shoved to the bottom of my to-do list.

I have read practically the entirety of https://www.boringmoney.co.uk which seems aimed at people like me, and it strongly advises to put them on a trading platform. I love the idea of having it all online with the dividends, tax etc sorted out automatically, or at least in easy to see format. (I already do all my banking online.) The thing is I have no idea how to get from where I am now to that vision.

Should I just find a local accountant or solicitor, throw the folder at them and tell them to sort it all out as a one-off and let me take over once it is all tidy and moved to an online platform?

Thanks in advance for your comments.

Reaper

A shares platform is your best bet for the easy life. I use X-O as it was the best at the time when I researched it but there may be better ones by now. It is bare bones compared to the others but does the job.

Whichever one you choose after opening the account you will need to send your certificates along with a Crest form for each to the platform. For X-O the instructions and link to download a Crest form are under "5. How do I transfer in stock that I hold in the form of certificates?"
http://www.x-o.co.uk/how_to_use.htm#5

Having done that you can buy and sell online, get annual tax certificates etc.

I don't think X-O support foreign shares though many others do. As it sounds like you are after the easy life I suggest selling the foreign ones as they add expense and complications.

P.S. I don't know how much money you are talking but consider a stocks and shares ISA if you are within the thresholds and have not already used up your annual allowance. Then you don't have to worry about tax at all.

xylophone

http://www.hl.co.uk/investment-services/vantage-service/transferring-your-existing-investments/frequently-asked-questions

You might wish to consider discussing the matter with HL who were efficient when a family member wished to transfer in certificated shares.

You might wish to consider insured special delivery or courier delivery.

MarkFromCornwall

Consider carefully whether you want to have your wealth in the form of shares. In very general terms they offer a good return over the long term but they are high risk (ie. the value of an individual company share could fall a lot or the company could go bust and the shares become worthless) and volatile, ie. their value can go up and down a lot. Consider whether you would be better off selling the shares (the market is quite high at present) and putting the money into savings accounts or less risky investments.

bigadaj

OP you seem to have something like £25k in a mixture of shares, a common way of looking at this would be if you had that as cash would you buy those shares; the answer is probably not, so may be worth considering selling them and buying one or more funds which are easier to manage and spread risk to a greater extent.

antrobus

RedMonty wrote: »

...I love the idea of having it all online with the dividends, tax etc sorted out automatically, or at least in easy to see format. (I already do all my banking online.) The thing is I have no idea how to get from where I am now to that vision.....

From 6 April 2016, there is no tax to pay on the first £5,000 of dividends that you get in the tax year. So there likely won't be any tax to sort out. Not on a £25k portfolio anyway.

You just get the dividends credited directly to the bank account of your choice, and then you can spend it.

Depends on what you believe is 'easy to see'.

jimjames

MarkFromCornwall wrote: »

Consider carefully whether you want to have your wealth in the form of shares. Consider whether you would be better off selling the shares (the market is quite high at present) and putting the money into savings accounts or less risky investments.

I agree it's worth considering if you want to hold individual shares/ I definitely don't agree that putting the money into savings accounts is a good idea - it really depends on the OP's circumstances. Moving into funds that spread the risk might be an idea if the OP is comfortable with investments and doesn't have an immediate need for the money which presumably as these have been sitting for a few years is the case.

RedMonty

Thanks for all the comments so far, and for clarifying that moving them into an online platform is relatively easy / I don't need to pay an accountant to do it.

The portfolio seems quite widely diversified, as the family members who it belonged to built it up looking at long term investing with professional advice back in the 80's and 70's so it is mainly large well established companies.

Looking at the platform tables on Boring Money, HL seemed one of the best ones - easy to use, and covering a wide range of shares. I also have a couple of small ISAs I can move in and I need to start a personal pension (probably a SIPP) so if I can do all that on HL, that will be a single platform to get used to.

I am a bit concerned that once in HL (or any other platform), it will be hard / expensive to get out. The other concern is it may be putting all my eggs in one basket. But maybe better one well looked after basket than a scattered few eggs going rotten through lack of care.

(Yes the foreign companies need to go. Also once the portfolio is on the platform and I have a clear grasp of the overall picture I can start looking at winnnowing out some stuff to put into funds / pension etc. At the moment, the paperwork and the 3" thick folder is overwhelming - I don't really have a clue what the spread is or how much of any one company I have, due to it all being scattered around various certificates. It's also possible that there is stuff that isn't in the folder due to old addresses - I am getting letters from organisations like ProSearch telling me I have unclaimed shared / dividends. )

richyg

RedMonty wrote: »

I am a bit concerned that once in HL (or any other platform), it will be hard / expensive to get out. The other concern is it may be putting all my eggs in one basket. But maybe better one well looked after basket than a scattered few eggs going rotten through lack of care.

I wouldn't worry about this in the first instance. You can resolve this in a couple of bites of the cherry and at least HL answer the phone on the first ring are very helpful and call you back when they say they will.

I think a spreadsheet with one worksheet per company to annotate and keep progress notes in and some physical plastic A4 sleeves to put paperwork etc for things from the same company in is a start.

You should then see a pattern of "like" things eg Dividend reinvestments which may be new share certificates for a small number of shares in lieu of dividend cheques etc which may have been chosen for some companies etc, they dont all do this.

You may find also that some companies have merged etc so you have certificates that have been reissued under new names and now some certificates are obsolete etc.

Keep all the foreign stuff together as a separate "thing" to dealt with.

Like any big project the only realistic way to approach eating an elephant, is piece by piece. Also a packet of postit notes are needed.


Best of luck.