Equini** - dividend cheques issued with unusable payee - warning to others

rnem170

30 months after my mother passed away, I'm still trying to conclude items.  The latest which I've been helping my co-executor with is Equini** whose latest escapade is this...

We completed their incomprehensible transfer forms, requesting they pay in any monies due into our probate/joint account.  Instead, they issued 8 dividend cheques issued to "The personal representatives of Mrs ....." (name removed).  When my brother attempted to pay them in, he was told that due to the payee, they would need not clear and would to be re-issued.  They were returned to Equiniti and after taking an eye-watering 30% in fees, paid them by BACS as initially requested.  (only six out of eight were paid in).  The other two were returned - still waiting for this to get back to us.

After a complaint, they have returned £190 as a 'good will' gesture, but we've still lost £190 in fees that we feel we would not have had if they have issued them in the right name.

They have told us we can take it to the ombudsman, but only in respect to one of the shareholdings.  Is it worth the effort doing this?

DippySkippy

Strange - I've just dealt with Equiniti for some shares. After sending the grant of probate I rang them up and gave them the exec account details and the outstanding dividends were paid direct.

fwor

rnem170 said:

Instead, they issued 8 dividend cheques issued to "The personal representatives of Mrs ....." (name removed).  When my brother attempted to pay them in, he was told that due to the payee, they would need not clear and would to be re-issued.

From my personal experience, this will work OK if you have an executor's account - so it seems likely that whoever dealt with the case at Equiniti simply assumed that you would have access to one of these. When my father passed away, that is how we dealt with all incoming funds for the estate.

jem16

rnem170 said:

30 months after my mother passed away, I'm still trying to conclude items.  The latest which I've been helping my co-executor with is Equini** whose latest escapade is this...

We completed their incomprehensible transfer forms, requesting they pay in any monies due into our probate/joint account.  Instead, they issued 8 dividend cheques issued to "The personal representatives of Mrs ....." (name removed).  When my brother attempted to pay them in, he was told that due to the payee, they would need not clear and would to be re-issued.  They were returned to Equiniti and after taking an eye-watering 30% in fees, paid them by BACS as initially requested.  (only six out of eight were paid in).  The other two were returned - still waiting for this to get back to us.

After a complaint, they have returned £190 as a 'good will' gesture, but we've still lost £190 in fees that we feel we would not have had if they have issued them in the right name.

They have told us we can take it to the ombudsman, but only in respect to one of the shareholdings.  Is it worth the effort doing this?

We had cheques exactly like that sent to our lawyer who was handling the estate. I was asked to sign the back of the cheque so that they could then pay it into the solicitor’s account. One company wanted to pay by bank transfer and we had to complete a mandate form. A later dividend appeared and I had to phone up their Bereavement team to give bank details for the divider to be paid into. 

They certainly don’t make it easy. 

GenX0212

They happily paid by cheque when we asked for the shares to be sold, never offered payment by bank even though we would have preferred it. When outstanding dividends became due they wrote to us saying they cannot pay by cheque and directing us to register via shareview.co.uk - only you can't register this way if you are dealing with a deceased's estate.

Their forms and processes are absolutely useless but I have found their online chat to be very good at getting things sorted. Just ask to be transferred to the bereavement web chat when you start the online conversation. You can also download the chat when finished as a record of the conversation.