Anyone inherited from a distant relative?

[superduster]

We have had a call from a relative tracing company to say a distant cousin has died intestate with no close relatives.

It looks like the value of the estate is small and as its reached second cousins (or first cousins once removed?) there are lots of people equally entitled, so I doubt there will be much money, maybe a few hundred each after costs.

Anyone have any experience of this? It looks expensive to put in a claim with or without the tracing company because of the need to buy so many certificates. It looks like its better to wait for one of the other many cousins to put in the claim first.

I've only seen this on Heir Hunters tv programme.

What certificates would you need to buy?

I inherited around a sixteenth of an intestate distant relative's estate, and was contacted by their solicitors. There were no fees payable by me at all.
I don't know if it is different because this was in Scotland.

This very situation happened to me about 12 years ago. I thought at first it was a scam but my sister had given the tracing company my details.

The amount in question was quite small - just over £1500 after fees - and it took a full year for the estate to be settled. This is because the solicitors have to be extremely careful in expending best efforts to trace all their potential heirs. If they missed out an heir and they popped up later that person could sue all the beneficiaries who had got "their" share. To prevent this the solicitors have to take out an insurance policy. They have to convince the insurers that they have exercised due diligence in tracing all the potential heirs.

This is the part of the process that the TV companies dont show.

As OP has stated in their posting, the solicitors will only go so far down the "tree" of potential heirs when making a disbursement. In our case it was second cousins - so my sis and I were included but not the sons of DS.

Yes, my husband was contacted (by the same company that is featured in the Heir Hunters programme). He initially ignored the letter but was then contacted separately by a distant cousin via Facebook to remind him. My husband forgot again and then received another letter asking him to phone one of the researchers which I urged him to do. Generally, the researcher double checked the family tree with him, asked him if he was aware of any other family members etc.

It turned out my husband's Uncle, who had emigrated to Canada when my husband was young and then returned just before his death, had died without any immediate family and my husband was due something like a twentieth or so of his estate (husband's father was one of 9 children so there was a fair few cousins to divide between). I think my husband had to agree to give the company 20% (can't remember without digging out the letters) before knowing what his portion was.

Once my husband had agreed and the payment was made he then received a letter listing which of his cousins and extended family had been found so far, how much they had received each and who had not yet claimed. Some of the claimants were heirs themselves of the original nephews and nieces who had been due the money and had passed away before the Uncle, so people we had never met or my husband knew existed.

My husband has some vague childhood memory of this Uncle turning up at his house and asking his father for a loan of cash, staying for a few days and then disappearing again never to return. He remembered him being a bit of a rough rogue type. Anyway, we had a lovely toast to him when my husband received his part of the inheritance, it wasn't a huge amount but a nice surprise regardless.

If it hadn't have been for the heir hunting company we would never had known about this Uncle's death and the inheritance due, they are definitely a useful business.

We have had this happen a couple of times - once in the UK - we bypassed the heir hunter
Once overseas - wasn't much choice there tbh so the foreign gov body dealt with it

I've always wondered about this! I doubt it will ever happen to me, my dad is from an absolutely huge family, so I'd get pennies if anything.

Birth, death and marriage certificates would cost you £11 each but only order from here: www.gov.uk/order-copy-birth-death-marriage-certificate

You can use www.freebmd.org.uk/cgi/search.pl to help find the (hopefully correct!) people and it will then give you the reference to be able to order the certificates.

This is a guide for making claims yourself from the Bona Vacantia list www.gov.uk/guidance/make-a-claim-to-a-deceased-persons-estate

Yes a great aunt in Scotland. It was about £3000. Couldn't believe she'd actually left it to me. No fees to pay as I was contacted directly via a solicitor.