Closing A Shares/Investment Account

crashedandcool

Being an executor for my late fathers estate I've been pretty on it, but finding it difficult to close a share account I discovered.

10 year old documents indicates he had a share account with Standard Life and at some point sold them all leaving a zero balance. So I call them and they say it went to a company called Aberdeen.

I call Aberdeen's bereavement team and it's like I speak a foreign language trying to request this account is closed. "It's got a zero balance so it's essentially closed." They then say they cannot access the account because my dad has passed away and I need to send the death certificate to a company called Equiniti who I can make inquiries with.

So I call Equiniti who say I don't need to send the death certificate in as they will mark on the account he's passed which will prevent any activity. So when I ask how we get this account closed again it's avoidance around words like "open", "closed". It was clearly open as I asked if my dad was alive and rocked up could he put shares into it. "Yes." Then they say it needs to remain on record and maybe years from now it will be reduced as completely inactive.

I don't invest or have shares. Do these accounts need to remain forever?

Keep_pedalling

I would simply forget it, it is not worth worrying about a dormant account with nothing in, it will be closed at some point without you needing to take action.