Probate genealogists - anyone met one please?

Middlestitch

My father has been approached by a company describing themselves as probate genealogists. They say he is a distant blood relative of someone who has died intestate and whose estate has been declared bona vacantia ('ownerless'). If my father agrees to their getting what seems to us to be quite a hefty %age of any payout from the estate they'll tell him who it is and provide a family tree to satisfy the relevant authorities.

Please does anyone have any experience of this sort of thing, in particular the %age charged as a fee?

Many thanks.

coolbreezes

when a person in the uk dies intestate it falls to the crown who in turn advertise for possible heirs. There is a website http://www.bonavacantia.gov.uk/ where you can seek help and conduct searches. Hopefully you can trace the deceased on your own and avoid paying a huge fee to the genealogists. Its worth a shot

Allexie

Middlestitch wrote:

My father has been approached by a company describing themselves as probate genealogists. They say he is a distant blood relative of someone who has died intestate and whose estate has been declared bona vacantia ('ownerless'). If my father agrees to their getting what seems to us to be quite a hefty %age of any payout from the estate they'll tell him who it is and provide a family tree to satisfy the relevant authorities.

Please does anyone have any experience of this sort of thing, in particular the %age charged as a fee?

Many thanks.

Hi

I was approached a couple of years ago by a company called 'Title Research' and told I had a claim on a the estate of a cousin who had died intestate. I was, however, given the name. At first I was just going to bin the letter as I expected it to be some sort of con but I did some research and it turned out to be genuine and there was no question of a % of the estate being required. They did charge a hefty fee though for tracing all the relatives with a claim!

Don't know how I would have reacted if it had been a similar case to yours...its a difficult one. Something a bit distasteful I think about being told that a relative has died and for a fee you will be told who it is.

Whatever you decide to do...be prepared for a long, long wait...these things take forever to sort out!!

Middlestitch

Many thanks - comments most helpful. Can you remember the basis of the 'hefty fee' - whether it was a %age of your share, or based on fees for time spent?

Allexie

Middlestitch wrote:

Many thanks - comments most helpful. Can you remember the basis of the 'hefty fee' - whether it was a %age of your share, or based on fees for time spent?

The 'hefty fee' was for time spent plus expenses but it did involve tracking people down all over the world. In this case it came to about 15% of the estate in the end but that was just because of the amount of work done. I can only speak highly of the people working for us in this instance....we are a very fractured family who don't usually keep in touch much and the investigators gave us all a copy of the family tree and information about the long lost, deceased cousin who had had a very interesting and unusual life.

By the way, I was told that rarely are those 'heirs wanted' adverts placed in newspapers these days...largely due to the facilities provided by the internet now!

Hope all goes well for your father whatever he decides to do.

BFG_2

Be very careful it's not a scam.

Possibly check them out with TSO.

Good luck

I would also say that if they are genuine, I would definitely take up the offer no matter what their % was (within reason)- it's money you never had in the first place and money you won't get without them.

greenwich

Whatever you do, don't pay them a fee in advance. Wait till you get the money first. This offer may totally genuine but, but it may also be one of the Nigerian '419' scams that come round by email.

rizla01

For my tuppenyworth.

I had never heard of this. I can see that there must be a roaring trade in doing what they do, however distastefull it sounds but good luck to them.

My thought is, though: couldn't you play them at their own game?

There must be other companies that do this and perhaps if one or two were to be contacted and told that you are prepared to pay a 'Finders Fee' for the discovery of who it is that has passed on then perhaps they may do some research and find out who it is.

Then you could play one against the other for the best fee.

I suspect though, that it is probable that it operates the other way round - that is that they get a deceased intestate and look to see what relatives there are around at the time of the death.

You won't know if you don't try!

homersimpson_3

don't pay them a fee unless absolutely sure. i recently had a letter from the 'bank of nigeria' claiming this & asking for hefty fee. one for the bin!

wobbley

Sounds very weird this one doesn't it? At first it appears to be a scam. But thinking about it, with the internet making geneology so easy it would be a lucrative and interesting job for someone to perfom legitimately. Is there a list or something of people who have died intestate in the public domain ? If so then I imagine it could be genuine. I would echo the advice of 'greenwich' and 'homersimpson' and not pay an upfront fee. Bear in mind though that if they are genuine they will have to protect their investment of time by maybe asking you to sign a contract or something so that they will have some legal rights if you decide to shaft them. Very interesting though, if it's not a new scam - please let us know the outcome.

ukric

Instead of paying these hefty fees.......you trace it back yourself? The best people to do this are retired or other similar people who have the time or are willing to devote their spare time to it.

With the internet the way it is these days there are invaluable sources of info on the subject, telling you where to go and what to do.

A good way of finding out whether it's worth the effort would be to ask the company that has contacted you "what is the total estate worth" (lets face it they're not gonna do all that work for a % of £5.00 are they). If it's a lot and you don't particularly need the money right then, why not trace back your family tree (when I did mine I got back to 1800 without much hassle) From there it's just a case of "did they leave a will?"

You might even enjoy learning about possible twisted family secrets haha