Dormant accounts many years after probate.

A couple of years back my wife had a bit of an unexpected windfall after Lloyd’s bank found a dormant account 7 years after probate was completed for her uncle’s estate.

This weekend I had a letter from the Coop bank regards a Britannia BS account that was apparently not picked up when winding up my FILs estate 16 years ago. I was his executor and dealt with Britannia in branch so this account should have been sorted then, but according to the lady I spoke with in the bereavement department this morning it appears there are lots of dormant Britannia accounts that branches failed to identify when informed of the holders death.

Luckily I am still breathing after all this time and at the same address so they had no problem tracking down the executor, but there have got to be lots of executors who have moved on in one way or another after all these years so the money in those accounts may never reach the beneficiaries. The other risk is that people throw the letters away unopened as they think It is junk mail.