Inheritance out of the blue

[UmbrellaEllaEllaAyAy]

Unexpectedly, we have been contacted by a company informing us of a family member that passed without a next in kin and there is an estate to be passed down. I have no experience at all and no idea where to start, if we chose to go with the company they will take a fee once the estate is released. What happens if we do not go with said company, how do we access the estate? I understand once the estate is settled, funds will be held in trust for anyone in the line to inherit.

Since we have no experience of probate and inheritance ….

AIBU to pay the fees and let company handle it all

or

YANBU to do the leg work yourself, unnecessary to pay the fees as the funds will eventually end up where they should be anyway?

Any advice would be much appreciated if you have been in this position

I should mention, we have looked into said company and all appears very above board, have checked companies house etc.

My DP had one of these contacts. I think he ended up with about £200 after 6 months, and one of his siblings fell out with him, which was nice.

Have you checked the relative? Is it someone you knew of?

Is it a solicitor that has written to you?

I’m assuming it’s someone like Heir Hunters?
I would ask them approx how much is the estate in total, how many beneficiaries do they think there are, and what their fee is.

Have a look at the contract that the company are offering. How much money is involved, and what percentage are the company hoping to take? If it's only a small amount that you might inherit, it might not be worth the hassle.

As you weren't expecting it in the first place, and it's obviously not someone you knew, or have had contact with in recent history, then I would just sign up and get the company to do the work, otherwise, it will fall to you to find any other remaining relatives in order to ensure that the estate is split between all the people who may be eligible to claim. These companies don't even tend to take up the job unless there's a reasonable sum involved, and even if you only get £100, at the end of the day, you wouldn't have even got that, had they not sought you out.

I agree with @UpaladderwatchingTV
Watch a few episodes of Heir hunters and see. They do put a lot of work in.

I had this. My family members and I signed up and the company made 10%. They don't know value of the estate until they apply with your permission. but it is at least 500 quid to get listed in the first place. My share turned out to be £80 but a 2nd cousin got about 1500.

Yes, it was a huge amount of work for the 'heir hunters' and they had to deal with a lot of nutty relatives too. I think it was my DP's great uncle? Something like that.

He paid for a car repair out of his 'loot'. Bonus.

I agree with @UpaladderwatchingTV especillay with this part

and even if you only get £100, at the end of the day, you wouldn't have even got that, had they not sought you out.

I can think of much better ways to spend the hours, weeks and potentially months of time you would need to invest in tracing family members. Not to mention the mountains of paperwork you might need to complete before being able to access the money. Just go with the company, and enjoy the unexpected money.

I'm not sure if this will be useful or not so apologies if not!

MIL was contacted in a similar way, it was a distant relative (2nd cousin I think) we were a bit sceptical of scammers but it was legit, she looked into whether she could claim the estate without going thru the company, but it was very tricky to find out details of solicitors etc and the funeral had already taken place so it was difficult to know who to contact. It seemed as though if it had reached the point where inheritance hunters had been involved it was too late for someone else to intervene iyswim, but perhaps that was just MIL's perception?

Anyway in the end the company traced around 10 relatives and MiL received about £400 so maybe it would be worth the hassle if you know it's likely to be a large sum and/or if there aren't any other relations who will be sharing the inheritance? Good luck!

I’d avoid using them. I was in the same position late last year and also they work with solicitors and if solicitor does a shoddy job, the solicitor technically answers to the company and not you. I had a really poor experience of both the solictor and heir hunter company.

If someone dies with no identifiable next of kin, councils are responsible for a cremation etc… and a central list of of unclaimed estates can be found here: https://www.gov.uk/government/statistical-data-sets/unclaimed-estates-list#the-list .

I live abroad probate would have been a nightmare to deal with. However, if I were in the UK I would simply scan the unclaimed estates and take the paperwork up from there once I’d been notified someone had died.

If using the company who contacted you, please be aware that other companies may also contact you, do not accept the percentage fee they offer, shop around. Also ensure they and the solictor tell you the fee structure the solictor uses, do they take a fee and a percentage on top of the company that contacted you? Fees, percentages are negotiable.

I believe filling in probate forms is fairly straightforward once you have the death certificate.

So sorry for the news it’s always upsetting, but shop around, and use the government resources that are freely available to you. I am sure others will be able to give more advice about the probate paperwork itself.

💐

Mine was made much more interesting by the fact that the cousin of my grandmother (who we'd never heard of) turned out to be an Olympic sprinter in her youth and then stabbed her husband to death in their bedroom. The value to my family tree was much more value than the cash. My cousins were expecting untold millions and were a bit disappointed though 😁

Yes it’s a ‘heir hunter’ type company that do family researching type work. They do not know the value of the estate yet, all they know if that there is property. Is there any way of finding out an estimation before agreeing to the fees?

Thank you to those who mentioned fees are negotiable!

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

@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.

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!

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.

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

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

I have not missed any zero's off.

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.

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 😆

Rules of intestacy.

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).