Letter about unclaimed estate - intriguing!

[Cantdecidewhich]

Dp received a letter from France yesterday from a man who says he is a private geanealogist, he said he is not looking for any financial gains it is a pastime.
Anyway the letter goes into great detail about his relatives and places they lived etc. and says that he had a great aunt who died in 1993 with no will and he is entitled to claim her estate in his Mother's name (deceased) and he asks if DP to pursue it with his assistance or appoint a solicitor or do it himself.
Has this happened to anyone else on here?

[RaspberryCoulis]

@oakleaffy

Scam. An executor of a will would surely instruct solicitors to try to find genuine relatives.
99.999% scam, If you want to be put on a mugs list, go ahead.. these scammers sell emails of gullible people, sadly.

Please read the thread, it stops people posting replies which just make them look a bit daft.

[diddl]

"An executor of a will would surely instruct solicitors to try to find genuine relatives."

What will?

[mandarinpink]

@oakleaffy

Scam. An executor of a will would surely instruct solicitors to try to find genuine relatives.
99.999% scam, If you want to be put on a mugs list, go ahead.. these scammers sell emails of gullible people, sadly.

Not everyone leaves a will, you know.
Read the thread. Lots of experts on there with information. You just sound ill educated.

[WiddlinDiddlin]

Oooh exciting.

I do despair of the people who read something they don't understand and IMMEDIATELY scream 'scam' with zero evidence of how it could be a scam and actual evidence of how it is not...

[MostlyAmbridgeandcoffee]

I would be on ultra high alert sounds very suspect

[oakleaffy]

Anyone with any common sense or the most modest of estates leaves a will.
Otherwise it goes to the government.
Outstanding money in U.K. from 1993 sounds very suspicious.
So many graspers out there after” Free money “
Make sure you have a will, if you own property otherwise it will go to government.

[RaspberryCoulis]

@WiddlinDiddlin

Oooh exciting.

I do despair of the people who read something they don't understand and IMMEDIATELY scream 'scam' with zero evidence of how it could be a scam and actual evidence of how it is not...

I also think people are pretty freaked out when they realise that things like their DOB or who they married are matters of public record, and that anyone can order a copy of anyone's birth/marriage/death certificate online. You don't have to give a reason.

They don't understand it, have heard all the stuff about GDPR and privacy, and think that sort of thing is private so anyone who has worked out your mother's maiden name or address is most definitely a nefarious type out to access your bank account.

Not so.

I follow a woman on social media who buys up albums of antique photos (pre WW2) at car boot sales and tracks down living relatives to try to get them back into the family. This is exactly the same sort of hobby.

[WitchesSpelleas]

I do despair of the people who read something they don't understand and IMMEDIATELY scream 'scam' with zero evidence of how it could be a scam and actual evidence of how it is not...

I despair of people who receive communications appearing to offer something for nothing and don't immediately think it's most likely to be a scam.

At the moment, there's no 'evidence' either way on this one. But there are plenty of ways this tactic could be used as a scam - most obviously by asking for administrative fees, legal fees etc. to release money that doesn't exist; but also as a means of harvesting data or phishing for info to use in a future scam.

It may be genuine but anything like this should be treated with the utmost caution.

[PerkingFaintly]

@ivykaty44

es! Unless you've ticked the box to opt out of the "open" register.

for a while 5 years ago there was a free copy of the entire ER online (which was illegal and caused much problems) it was eventually put behind a paywall - but as far as I know it was the entire list and included people who had ticked not to be shown

Oh!

Tell me more, ivykaty, because I'm one of them. I'm not on the open list, and yet a few years ago I popped up on 192.com, described as from electoral roll.

This is likely to cause me some inconvenience. I was not impressed, but got nowhere asking my council (who'd filled me on the electoral roll) what had happened and whether they'd breached the then DPA.

IIUC, I would have had to make the complaint within X period of learning of the breach and show actual loss, so I haven't been able to do anything about it.

I hope someone's head rolled somewhere.

[TatianaBis]

Heir hunters definitely exist. My DH inherited around 100k from black sheep relative via one. But did know vaguely of the relative’s existence, just nothing of his death, circumstances, his entitlement etc.

But he was tracked down fairly soon after the man had died. I’m not sure how this money has been hanging around since 1993?

[Bluntness100]

I think as he’s given the reference number it’s worth exploring op. He’s given the facility to do it yourself so you can both make an initial claim without help.

[PutThemInTheIronMaiden]

I didn't sleep well last night and have been on the go all day - I'm SO tired!

Which is probably why I read the first line as Dp received a letter from France yesterday from a man who says he is a private GYNAECOLOGIST, he said he is not looking for any financial gains it is a pastime.

I was prepared for all kinds of weirdness.

[TatianaBis]

@oakleaffy

Anyone with any common sense or the most modest of estates leaves a will.
Otherwise it goes to the government.
Outstanding money in U.K. from 1993 sounds very suspicious.
So many graspers out there after” Free money “
Make sure you have a will, if you own property otherwise it will go to government.

Wills are expensive. If you don’t want pay a solicitor and do it DIY it’s very complicated. That’s why some people don’t bother. Particularly if they have no-one to leave money to, or they’re youngish and don’t think they’re going to die.

[MorrisZapp]

@oakleaffy

Scam. An executor of a will would surely instruct solicitors to try to find genuine relatives.
99.999% scam, If you want to be put on a mugs list, go ahead.. these scammers sell emails of gullible people, sadly.

I've been a professional heir hunter for nearly 25 years now. It's paid my bills since I was a youngster. I'm honestly not making it up! A quick Google will show you that heir locator firms with decades of establishment behind them have been working on these cases for nearly a century. They absolutely are legitimate and file annual accounts like any other firm.

[MaelyssQ]

I don't think it's a scam either.

[RaspberryCoulis]

But he was tracked down fairly soon after the man had died. I’m not sure how this money has been hanging around since 1993?

Well the person might have died in 1993 but who knows how long it took to wind up the estate? The sum is probably small, uneconomical to trace for larger firms. Or maybe it's a really common surname which strikes horror into the heart of any genealogist - Thomas, Williams, Smith, Jones, Brown. And the aunt was Mary. There are thousands of Mary Browns, you'd have to order all the certificates to disprove.... not worth it, move onto an easier target.

Until some retired expat sitting in his gite in the Dordogne decides he needs a wee hobby to sustain himself through lockdown.

[oakleaffy]

Wills are only about £300 and there are solicitors who do them cheaply for charity.
Even if one has no children, leave it to a chosen charity. In the scheme of the most modest of estates, £300 is nothing...to ensure it goes to deserving recipients.

[RaspberryCoulis]

@oakleaffy

Wills are only about £300 and there are solicitors who do them cheaply for charity.
Even if one has no children, leave it to a chosen charity. In the scheme of the most modest of estates, £300 is nothing...to ensure it goes to deserving recipients.

Completely agree. But something like 55% of UK adults don't have a will. They have nothing worth leaving, their family know their wishes, they'll be dead so don't care, they haven't time, they don't trust solicitors... all manner of excuses but mostly it boils down to not wanting to face up to their own mortality.

[MorrisZapp]

Quite a few professional heir hunters of my acquaintance don't have wills!

It's important to stress that a will must be valid, not just in existence. If you've divorced since you made it, if your beneficiary has pre deceased, if you failed to sign it correctly etc can result in invalidation.

I feel like a doctor on a coronavirus thread :)

[MorrisZapp]

Worth mentioning that solicitors will need to see two valid forms of ID before taking instructions from anyone. So it's not just the money, the admin required is beyond the energy/ ability/ motivation of many, many people.

[RaspberryCoulis]

Agree, @MorrisZapp. I'm always really concerned when people say they've downloaded something or other off the internet and filled it in. A smart lawyer can write wills to adapt for changing situations - we made our will when we had one child, told the lawyer more were planned, so she wrote in a clause about "any further children of our marriage" so we didn't need to go and make new ones.

Is it just English estates you pursue or do you work overseas or in Scotland too?

(You should do a AMA)!

[Cygne]

We had something like this happen. Apparently there was a will trust set up by my father's great uncle that had to be wound up and distributed to all surviving members of the family as the immediate line had died out, and the solicitors dealing with it employed a tracing agency to trace all the family members. I opened the letter as I had power of attorney and my immediate instinct was to chuck it because I assumed it was either junk mail or a scam - however, the letter referred to a genuine firm of solicitors so I decided it was at least worth checking out. It was all totally kosher, though ultimately not that exciting, as I think my father ended up with around £1K as his share.

[mandarinpink]

@oakleaffy

Anyone with any common sense or the most modest of estates leaves a will.
Otherwise it goes to the government.
Outstanding money in U.K. from 1993 sounds very suspicious.
So many graspers out there after” Free money “
Make sure you have a will, if you own property otherwise it will go to government.

Well that's not true either. Property will not go to the government if you don't leave a will in the vast majority of cases. You need to stop spouting nonsense.
And lots of people with common sense don't leave wills for very many reasons.
Honestly, your points are ridiculous gobbledegook.

[MorrisZapp]

@RaspberryCoulis

Agree, *@MorrisZapp*. I'm always really concerned when people say they've downloaded something or other off the internet and filled it in. A smart lawyer can write wills to adapt for changing situations - we made our will when we had one child, told the lawyer more were planned, so she wrote in a clause about "any further children of our marriage" so we didn't need to go and make new ones.

Is it just English estates you pursue or do you work overseas or in Scotland too?

(You should do a AMA)!

I do Scotland, and my firm work worldwide. Scottish intestate law is slightly kinder because where there are no cousins/ descendants of cousins we can go to second cousins. Bit of a double edged sword though because it takes you a generation back into bigger family sizes and gets ridiculous pretty quickly :) I do love it though.

[Russiansilver]

Sounds legitimate to me. I followed up on a lead I was given and we as a family . inherited over £400.000. It was a family member who died without a will or direct line relatives.