Random letter arrived saying dad is a beneficiary to someone we've never heard of

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has anyone else had this and could advise? dad received a letter this week saying that he is entitled to part of a ladies estate, him and his brother except his brother passed earlier this year. We haven't heard of this woman's name before, I have googled the solicitors who sent the letter an all looks legit, I've been in touch via email and again everything seems to be ok BUT we have been caught with a scam before and are extremely nervous of things like this, the other issue is we have 6 weeks to act but the letter arrived almost 3 weeks after it was sent so we are already short on time. They want bank details (acc no sort code) and form of ID.

Part of me thinks well how else would you notify you and what more can I do to check it's legit? the other part of me is thinking its so random its got to be a scam?

Advice stories welcome tia

The whois website is useful. https://www.whois.com/whois/ Type in the URL of the website you are interested in. It tells you when the website was first registered and went online, when it was last updated. So mumsnet, for example, was registrered on 11 January 2000.

If you are googling ANY business which is claiming to be long established, whether a retail store or solicitors, and you see the website domain was only set up in July 2026, that's ringing alarm bells. Also things like going to the website and reverse searching images, scammers are not going to the lengths of using original images, they are taking photos from other places on the web. If there is a physical address given, and you'd expect that to be the case for a solicitors, get on google streetview and see if it is actually an office and not a residential address or takeaway. All basic checks which take 2 minutes.

I would be highly suspicious about the first contact letter asking for bank details and the short time pressure.
My mum received a letter saying she was a beneficiary of a will - turned out to be a very distant relative and was genuine. When she responded to the letter, a visit was arranged and in addition to proving her ID, she was asked for information about her family and wider relatives in order to confirm the connection. She was informed them about a neice and another cousin who also benefitted. The process took a number of weeks before she received her share of the inheritance. She also received a copy of the will and the family tree showing how she was linked. She did pay a fee but this was made clear at the outset - she felt this was fair as she wouldn't have known about the inheritance otherwise. It was like an episode of Heir Hunters without the cameras.k

Fab, hopefully this will help the OP

This happened to my father; he was also suspicious and called the solicitor, who confirmed it was genuine.

We spent ages trying to figure out how the person who had died was related to the family. In the end, it turned out he was the son of my father's great uncle, who had been a lot younger than my great-grandfather and had therefore had a child who was closer in age to my parents than my grandparents. We never found out why his parents (the great-uncle and his wife) had lost touch with the rest of the family, which was particularly confusing as they lived in the city my father grew up in!

As other posts have said, it was a great reminder to make a will; other shares of the relative's estate went to his mother's family members, who had moved away to America. The executor of the relative's estate was a close friend who surely would have been recognised in his will, if he'd had one. The friend had organised a collection for a charity at the relative's funeral and so my parents ended up donating some of the money they'd inherited to the charity, as it was clear it was a cause close to the relative's heart - but again, one he'd not honoured by making a will!

Do call the solicitor and find out if the letter is legitimate. As other posters have said, it's quite easy for people to lose touch with family members and end up in the position where their estate is being shared out between people who had no idea of their existence.

Just this week I did a Google street view for something at work, a professional type firm but the address was a house in an ordinary street. I know for certain that the business is legit but for whatever reason I assume they use the home address of one of the directors, I did think they'd be better with some kind of c/o office address

This can definitely happen as it’s happened to me.

But this sounds highly suss,

The first thing a solicitor did in my case was ask to confirm identity. I filled out endless forms. I had to prove who I was before they would even talk to me.
Then there was a very long time between notification and payout.

Why would a letter take 3 weeks to arrive, and why badger you immediately for bank details? There is no time pressure - they’d have to go on trying to find you and pay you regardless. In my case it took the solicitors 5 years to trace all the beneficiaries.

Agree, but it's part of the picture. If you are 100% sure that everything else is legit, you can overlook a residential address. But if there are other red flags like spelling errors on the website, Americanisms, stolen pictures that's when alarm bells start ringing.

Very similar to my experience except I didn’t have to pay any fee.

Ignore it, it's a scam

have you not read the thread then?

Ring solicitor on the number given on the website. Tell them you’d like to book an appointment to come in with the relevant paperwork.

Has the letter got the solicitor SRA registration number on it