Shares after fathers death

maglo

hi guys/intelagencia

After my dad’s passing I have a problem,

We are still awaiting the cause of death through the coroners office but have a interim death certificate as he had a few quid even though he had a will and left all to me and my sister ( both get on fine and are happy to go halves) it seems like it needs to go to probate????
anyway that’s by the by, we keep getting letters about share dividends with checks from several companies maybe £50, or £90 so he obvs has shares with these companies but how do I find out how much HE had with them and how do I go about returning them???
thank you in advance, experts

Cheers Mike

gm0

Share certificates are ancient and largely obsolete. Registration of shares via a nominee account has been the mainstream approach for some years. Cheques for dividends suggest archaic and very old holdings - possibly never registered in a normal for now account.

Attempt to find the share certificates "kept safe" among posesssions and papers. This will help

Or an "old" stockbroking account - used to register them but with "cheque" still used for payments - no linked bank account. Depending on what is coming and from who.

You may need to contract share registry admin company for the relevant company as executor. This will go better with the certificates and proof but dividend cheques may be all you have. Expect slow admin and high fees relative to share qty. Ignoring can be an option.

Cost to deal with registration, sale and payout can be high relative to small holdings. The time of the migration and easy low cost deals was long long ago. People opting out and staying on paper have chosen their fate.

wmb194

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/6657350/shares-after-fathers-death

Sounds like he probably owned the shares in certificated form; do the letters have the name of a share registrar on them? E.g., Equiniti, Link or Computershare. If so, this is who you/the executor need to contact.

otb666

The shares we dealt with were a right pain. BT ones with Equiniti. Initially phoned them and they said just email probate. But in reality wanted 2 sets of forms completed by executors and hefty charge if no share certificate.One to change name to executors and another set of forms to sell Luckily we found share certificate in paperwork Make sure you send everything recorded delivery and prepare for a long wait but do chase them up every other week because they wont tell you next step.required. Took over 4 months. We had to send copy of will original death certificate and original Probate

p00hsticks

Sorry for your loss.

Stocks and shares are generally one of the things that require probate to gain access to - if they are for a small amount I think the share registrar can override this (or you can opt to donate them to charity if the cost of probate exceeds the value of the shares). If you're receiving multiple cheques for relatively large amounts it sounds as if he had a substantial holding, but as others said you need to hunt our the share certificates.

Any paperwork arriving with the cheques should give an indication if the size of the holding, the comany it is with and the relevant share registrars.

wmb194

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/81904633#Comment_81904633

Good point; OP you can estimate the size of the holding from the dividend. Find the relevant dividend per share and divide by the total dividend received.

https://www.dividenddata.co.uk/

p00hsticks

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/81904814#Comment_81904814

It might even state the holding in the letter accompanying the cheque - e.g.

Holding X shares

Dividend per share: Y

Cheque Amount for X times Y

rnem170

If they are held with equiniti, good luck. With my mums shares, they issued cheques which couldn't be cashed and then took 25% (might have been higher) of each cheque as fees for converting them to a BACS transfer.