Inheritance out of the blue

Not much actually. I was living abroad at the time so I had to do most of it online. I asked him a few basic questions at the beginning but the rest I did myself. It’s not that difficult once you get your head around it. I’m just pointing out what my experience has been so that op has a balance of opinions/experiences.

I have a contact who works in the legal profession specializing in estate management and wills and probate

I'm assuming this contact helped you with your claim? That's a very different position to many who will have absolutely no idea where to start with researching the family tree, or the potential legal situation should you miss a beneficiary.

I disagree. I have a contact who works in the legal profession specializing in estate management and wills and probate and they told me that this is a common tactic of such companies to get you to sign up. They tell you it’s a smallish amount so you think it’s not worth bothering doing it yourself but inevitably it turns out to be much more so their cut is huge. Apparently it happens all the time.

The indemnity insurance is a really good point. I think people are misunderstanding what they would potentially be taking on. It's not just about proving your own link to the deceased using BMD certificates and drawing up a family tree linking you up. It's about constructing a properly referenced family tree for the deceased, obtaining all the certificates and researching all the stems to prove that you have found all of the other beneficiaries too. Proving people didn't marry or never had children as well as proving they did.

If you have substantial experience in family history or genealogy you might be able to take it all on. With no experience, it's a huge undertaking. And yes, if you do miss that great uncle Alfred was married twice and had a child from his first marriage who is a beneficiary, and that beneficiary pops up at a later date, it's you who must pay them the cash.

I also don't think that an initial estimate of £12k which later turns out to be much more is indicative of a scam or that the companies don't know what they're doing. From dealing with my dad's estate I know that the amount my sister and I estimates initially was way out, once we started the process we discovered loads of savings and things we had no idea about.

Agreed but surely worth giving it a shot yourself and get the heir hunters involved later if it appears to be overly complicated?

I'd just mention that if you decide to do the leg work yourself, you need to make sure you cover yourself. These 'heir hunter' companies can be incredibly useful - they'll be able to find all relatives, even those you don't know about. They'll be able to provide a full family tree and indemnity insurance in the event a missed relative pops up in the future.

If you take on the role as Administrator and conduct the research yourself, you will be responsible if someone gets missed and might have to cough up their share if you distributed the funds.

I've known of two intestacies where there were around 50 beneficiaries! No one would have anticipated it, most didn't know who the deceased was. It can be a hell of a lot of work.

PS they also appear to take a huge cut and for not doing very much work / being particularly thorough.

We had exactly the same situation a few years ago. We thanked them and pursued it ourselves. They told us the estate was only worth about 12k but ended up being closer to 100k so I wouldn’t trust them to do the job properly even if you do go with them. I remember we had to prove the connection to the deceased (by applying for various birth/marriage certificates etc) and then we had to apply for probate (as this particular person died intestate hence the heir hunters involvement). Good luck, if you have the time it’s definitely worth pursuing it yourself and cutting out the middle man

I think this would be my reaction. But I'm happy to be corrected by someone who's had a different experience!

If you're in contact with cousins or 2nd cousins ask around the family and see if anyone else has had the same letter, that might help you narrow down which side of the family it is.

To answer your actual question, I would sign up with the heir hunter as doing it yourself could be difficult and a lengthy process. Anything you receive is a bonus as you weren't expecting it but don't expect much if you have a lot of cousins and 2nd cousins.

You may not have a choice about the company's fees. I was contacted by one of these companies, because they had been engaged by the executors to trace all the possible beneficiaries, so the executors had already accepted that the fees would come out of the estate.

Because if someone dies without having made a will, their estate is divided among their relatives. There is a pecking order - children first, then siblings etc. But if you have a single man/woman, never married, no children, only child and their parents are also dead, the next in line are cousins. Many many people don't know their cousins.

Are you familiar with the genealogical proof standard? Would you know what steps to take to make sure you are researching your family correctly and ensuring you are not mixed up with another family of a similar name? And which documents to provide to the government to back your claim?

Yes heir hunting companies take a fee but the benefit of using them is that they know what they are doing, and will process the claim quickly and with no hassle to you.

An old neighbour of ours once left me and my siblings some money in her will, which we found out about from her disgruntled son. He was very unhappy.

We received cheques for £25 each.

Mind you, that money would probably be worth about £27.50 now, so you can see why the fella would be upset.

My siblings and I inherited in these circumstances and were informed via one of the Heir Hunter companies. In fact, the story featured on one of the BBC programmes and I was filmed as part of this. It all took over three years of work. Until the estate was wound up, we did not know what relation the deceased person was or on which side of the family, and we couldn't work it out ourselves. We did all sign up, which I believe was a condition for the estate to be claimed: we couldn't check the Bona Vacantia list as we didn't have a name or date.

We now have the full family tree going back five generations, as well as all the information from the television film plus, of course, the inheritance itself. I think there were about sixteen beneficiaries (from both family sides), so not an enormous amount but still worth receiving. From recollection, the fee was 20% after legal fees (which included emptying and selling properties and sorting out complex financial affairs, as well as probate).

Rules of intestacy.

This might sound dense of me but how would you be given money from someone that you didn’t know existed? Like how did they know you existed aswell? How can you be left money if you or they didn’t know of eachother? Sound super interesting and I wish you well! I’m just totally baffled that this is a thing and wonder if it’ll ever happen to me 😆

This happened to my mum when I was a teenager. A distant relative on her fathers side had passed away with no will etc . Her father had passed away when she was 2 and therefore it went to her and one other beneficiary. The company had tracked them down. They got a HUGE amount of money that changed her life. I would go with the company.

A friend did this, expected nothing and ended up with a cheque for £20.00

I have not missed any zero's off.

Have a look at
www.bonvacantialist.co.uk
They have some info on Heir Hunters and ways you can deal with accessing the inheritance.

This is fascinating. I do wonder, though, how upsetting it is to be notified of the death of a relative you didn't even know existed.

My sister and I were contacted through one of those companies. It was completely legit.
We were happy to sign up for their fees as we had no clue who the family member might be, as we have a tiny family on that side. Even when we were told the name we had no clue who they were, so I don't know how we could have tried to go it alone.
We got just over £1k each and the whole process took about 18 months. It was a nice bonus to have but frankly wouldn't have been worth my time for the work involved over that period of time, so worth the (I think) 10% fee.
It's very hard as it goes on though not to let your imagination run away with you and assume that millions are coming your way!

@MissAmbrosia did you find out why she killed him? -as in heat of the moment during a row v he’d inflicted DV on her for years- and did she go to prison? It must have been fascinating to discover all this.

This actually reminded me DM was contacted several months ago about 2 deceased relatives, through marriage to DGM cousins or something, definitely not info we’d be able to find out, and there will be a fair few to possibly claim so we reckoned she’d be lucky to get a fiver, but we are all keen to hear more info about who & their lives. It’s obviously a long process because it was way before Christmas.

A distant cousin of mine got a similar letter and assumed it was a scam - it wasn’t
He ended up with about 60k after fees and also discovered some relatives he was unaware of who got 20k each as they were siblings and their share was split 3 ways, the solicitors took over 50% and there were bills for other things to settle first before they split what was left