Posting for traffic - Lawyers, paralegals, anyone who knows about scams relating to inheritance?

[isthereausernamewhichisnttaken]

Especially anyone with knowledge of Scottish legal system with regard to this? I've name changed by the way. Bear with me whilst I explain this.

Monday of this week my DS's ex father in law phoned me to say a Private Investigator had been trying to track me down with regard to someone on my deceased DM's side having died. PI has managed to trace my DS as having lived at his ex FIL's address (which he did).
DS's exFIL phoned me to let me know rather than give my phone number to some random stranger.

So I phoned this guy up. He gave his name as X and told me a distant relative of my DM had died last year and left an estate which they are trying to distribute according to her wishes; gave me names and details of relatives I didn't know my DM had, but also those which I do know about (including my DM, her DM, my DM's siblings etc) and he said he had been tasked by X legal firm in Dunoon to track down the generations until he found living relatives on my DM's side who can inherit a share each, of the estate. He had almost run out of people to find and I was the first he'd found I think he said. To give a picture this woman had died aged 99 so that's why we're looking at my generation and I'm 59.

He gave the name of a paralegal and the law firm in Dunoon which I won't name but I have checked both out to the best of my ability (on Google and Linkedin) and they do exist. I phoned the law firm yesterday but this paralegal is not at work til Monday as the PI said that's what I need to do next. I checked him out as well and he seems legit too, both checking his name and his phone number.

The PI said he did not know the details of the estate to be shared between whoever they track down but he was able to tell me some things about the person's life ie her profession and other details. I've tried to trace her by entering her name in the Gov.uk website but I can't find anyone matching exactly as tbh all the time he was talking to me I'm thinking "scam scam scam" .

What else do I need to do to proceed with caution as I'm still not convinced about this, I don't know how to contact any cousins I can remember having as they're spread out and the family was never close.
If you got this far, thank you for reading and if you have any advice that would be so helpful. The PI has not asked for any share of the inheritance by the way, I've discovered there are 'professional' inheritance chasers who do this for a living and charge a percentage of the inheritance.

Sounds legit actually. As long as you do stuff through an actual firm of solictors who you’ve checked on the Law Society (Scottish version) website and you ring them directly you should be fine.

I thought this would grab the interest of the MN massive but apparently not

Anyway that was a helpful reply Find as I've checked both the firm and the paralegal out on the Scottish Law Society website and it's legit.
So I guess I'll just wait and see what's in store.....

Sounds legit to me too.

Haven't you ever seen "Heir Hunters" on BBC? this is exactly what they do, hunt down heirs to estates. Give them a call on Monday.

I'm possibly swayed by watching too much daytime telly but his approach sounds consistent with the pi,a who appeared in the series about tracing beneficiaries.

So far he hasn't asked for you to pay anything, sounds legit.

(Heir Hunters the series is called)

Lol x post with Siline

Oh and it's not your job to contact cousins, they'll just be looking for you to confirm that your Auntie Jeanie did have three boys, and yes, they're all older than you. Any clues you can give along the lines of "I think cousin Jimmy moved to Australia" might be helpful to them. They're looking for you to confirm what they already know.

Yes, so DS's exFIL watches that Heir Hunters programme and he's more excited about this than I am because I'm not really expecting anything life changing to happen would be lovely and very timely if it did though.

Thank you @Silene, I can give some direction to them re the DF of one of my cousins. We aren't a family who stayed in touch and some family did emigrate to the US decades ago. I'll give them what I know on Monday.

My mum has this a few years ago.
An old family member who she never even knew existed (her dad’s estranged sisters’ daughter or something) had died and there were no other living relatives.
It took months for all the checks to be made, forms to be signed etc.
When my mum did finally get a cheque it was for a grand total of.....
£23.46
I honestly don’t know why they bothered going to all the trouble tbh!

My MIL was approached like this - we checked the solicitors were legitimate before sending them her ID and eventually a few £k landed in her bank account, so it can be real. It’s when someone has died with no will/living beneficiaries and no obvious next of kin contact.

If you go through someone like heir hunters you will lose a good portion of your share
I’m sure there’s an inheritance site where you can check to see if you are a beneficiary

Poptart
I read £23 k at first ☹️😂

PopTart, that's kind of sum I'm imagining I'll receive, tbh

I know I'm a beneficiary because the P.I. told me how the person had willed, or whatever the correct terminology is. It's just that I'm not expecting anything wonderful because things like that happen to other people!! Rest assured though, if there's a fabulously exciting outcome I shall be back to tell it!

I can beat that PopTart 😂 18 months of back and forth with paperwork incl birth certificates etc until one day in the post a cheque for ....£7.20 😂

They're not likely to give you enough information for you to work out exactly who it is until you sign something which gives them a finders fee out of your/your DS's share.

Ehlana is right. This happened to my Mum and they wouldn't tell her the deceased person's name or detail until she signed an agreement with their company.

IIRC she ended up with about a grand after all the funeral, flat clearance etc. was completed. She seemed to think the heir hunter company arranged and paid for these? But that doesn't sound right to me.

So I'm confused then because I was given the name of the person who died and gave it to the paralegal's secretary when I phoned the Solicitor.

The guy wasn't an Heir Hunter, he was a P.I. AFAIK. But I guess I can ask all these questions when I speak to the paralegal next week.

The firm has probably been appointed as executornpf the will. When I had beneficiaries I couldn’t trace unused to use a PI to find them - on a fixed fee, paid from the estate. So the pi would tell you name etc in that case.

‘Heir hunters’ like the tv series usually deal with cases where there is no will or executor and the property would pass to the government (bona vacantia) if no one claims it. The lists of such estates are published every Thursday and it a race to find someone with a valid claim - the heir hunters charge a fee of the estate (usually in the region of 1/3) and won’t tell you a name etc until after you sign the agreement to prevent you going straight to the government treasury solicitor to claim direct and cut then out. I’m not a huge fan of heir hunter type firms - we used to nickname them bounty hunters!

That makes sense, @FrenchFancie, he also told me what she'd done as a profession and that she'd owned a house and never married or had any children.