Contacted By Heir Hunter

Bostonerimus1

I almost went through the same situation recently with Estate Research Ltd. Even without a will or next of kin it's possible for friends or in-laws to organize a funeral and for money to come out of the estate with a death certificate and an invoice from a funeral director.

The heir hunter firms generally don't bother with low value estates and will take something like 25% of it in fees if they find next of kin and sign them up, Estate Research and Fraser and Fraser are examples. It's also extremely rare for an estate to be actually bona vacantia as even without a will some next of kin can often be found. If you are contacted by such a firm maybe have a think about who might have died and ask family before signing anything as employing your own solicitor to get probate might be less expensive.

The bona vacantia list is currently not available on the Government website because of fraud and privacy issues.

WillowLeaf

Bostonerimus1 said:

...If you are contacted by such a firm maybe have a think about who might have died and ask family before signing anything as employing your own solicitor to get probate might be less expensive.

Agreed, contact by them should be the initiator to have those family conversations, and checking the online lists with surname and location fields searchable should narrow things down.

The FreeBMD website is a good place to find Births, Deaths and Marriage details. (not all dates are there but older entries, which we are probably talking about, are)

MyRealNameToo

Silvertabby said:

A heir hunter won't be interested in just a £s in a bank account.  More likely that there is property involved - perhaps originally bought with an ex partner?

Bostonerimus1 said:

The heir hunter firms generally don't bother with low value estates 

 The list only states the person has died without known heirs or will, it doesnt state the value of the estate but the list should only contain those with an estate over £500. As such the company doesnt know from the list alone if the person had £501 in their account or owned a string of properties in Knightsbridge. 

You'd assume one of the first steps they take is to try and find anything they can about the deceased to try and decide if it's a case worth pursuing or not. Certainly on the TV show of the same name there were a few cases where they put a load of work in only to find it was a sub £1k estate

Bostonerimus1

MyRealNameToo said:

Silvertabby said:

A heir hunter won't be interested in just a £s in a bank account.  More likely that there is property involved - perhaps originally bought with an ex partner?

Bostonerimus1 said:

The heir hunter firms generally don't bother with low value estates 

 The list only states the person has died without known heirs or will, it doesnt state the value of the estate but the list should only contain those with an estate over £500. As such the company doesnt know from the list alone if the person had £501 in their account or owned a string of properties in Knightsbridge. 

You'd assume one of the first steps they take is to try and find anything they can about the deceased to try and decide if it's a case worth pursuing or not. Certainly on the TV show of the same name there were a few cases where they put a load of work in only to find it was a sub £1k estate

I think those low value cases might be done just for the show because they have some interesting story or history. I've watched a few on the "Heir Hunters" shows now and they are interesting, but gloss over the fairly hefty fees that the companies charge once they sign up next of kin. I recently managed to find some next of kin of my sister-in-law that were totally unknown to me before I went through some of her family photos and they should be able to get the estate through probate for far less than the "Heir Hunters" would charge.

Robin9

Their fees may be high but isn't paying, say 25% on perhaps £10k good news when if wasn't for the HH you wouldn't get anything.  

Bostonerimus1

Robin9 said:

Their fees may be high but isn't paying, say 25% on perhaps £10k good news when if wasn't for the HH you wouldn't get anything.  

Sure, many people will feel that it's the easiest path and the heir hunters do need to be remunerated, but if you can figure out which relative has passed employing your own solicitor will probably be a less expensive way to inherit.