Frozen Endowment

MartinAshdown

In 2013 my(our) endowment matured. Since then it has remained with Scottish Widows in their bank account earning no interest. Because I cannot track down my ex wife who’s name is on the Policy I cannot cash in the money or transfer the amount to my outstanding mortgage account.
Are Scottish Widows in their right to freeze this policy preventing it from earning any interest. Until I get my ex wife’s signature the money earns from this policy remains with Scottish Widows.
Has anyone had a similar experience

Brock_and_Roll

OP,

How hard have have you tried to track ex down?

How good are you with technology?

Unless she is living in a yurt in Mongolia I wager that myslef and lots of other could do it is a short period of time. Even then when I was doing family history research and was utterly flummoxed trying to find my father's long lost cousin in Australia (elderly, common name, no idea where lived, no contact for 50 years), a private investigator solved the case in 48 hours and it only cost $100.

dunstonh

Are Scottish Widows in their right to freeze this policy preventing it from earning any interest

The policy is not frozen as it matured. Usually, they put them in a holding account pending payout.

Your ex wife is the legal owner of the policy along with you. For the policy not to have been assigned, it seems like yours and/or her solicitor mucked up. The endowment policy is an asset and on divorce, it should have been listed as an asset and ownership of it assigned to one of you. There are forms to complete an assignment. Very straightforward and would have avoided this issue.

You could employ a tracing company to find your ex-wife. It shouldnt be too hard for them. However, you would have to pay for that and remember that she is going to get half the payout from the endowment (working on the assumption that it wasn't assigned on divorce)