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General => The Common Room => The Lighter Side => Topic started by: Nick29 on Friday 05 February 10 15:05 GMT (UK)
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Heir hunters companies have been in the press today, but not in a good way. This follows allegations made in the press by people claiming to have been "ripped off" by heir hunters. One such press article is this one (http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1248377/BBC-bounty-hunters-row-Anger-lets-firms-track-relatives-cash-unclaimed-wills.html) in the Daily Mail.
One woman complained that she was charged 33% of the estate of a cousin three times removed. Having seen the Heir Hunters show, I can see for myself how much it must cost to keep about 30 people in an office in full-time employment, plus several mobile interviewers and researchers, plus the cost of certificates (which Neil Fraser himself has said costs F & F about £100,000 a year), and the costs of the property itself, and the heating, lighting and maintenance of it. Bearing in mind that not all cases actually yield benefactors, I don't feel that the commissions charged are too high. In the case of the woman whose benefactor was a cousin 3 times removed, she probably would have been quite oblivious to his passing, if the heir hunters hadn't contacted her.
Bearing in mind that if these companies didn't exist, the government would pocket all the money, and that distrust in MPs is at an all-time high, I don't think that any of the companies featured on the BBC show are guilty of ripping people off at all. It really annoys me that people like MPs and bankers who are ripping us off on a regular basis attract little attention, whilst those trying to run honest businesses are hounded by the press.
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I agree Nick wholeheartedly and she should consider herself lucky that she got anything at all which of course without the intervention of companies like F and F she wouldn't have done. ::)
Kerry
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I think it should make us all aware of how important it is to make a will ;D
Some of the more recent cases,you just know they would rather the money have gone to friends or neighbours or even the local cats home ,than a fairly distantly removed cousin they had never even met, least of all heard of.
Carol
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This is all part of a completely transparent PR campaign, behind which is a company that likes to think it is whiter than white, but which is arguably more morally bankrupt than the likes of F&F et al.
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There is a bit of me that thinks (and I know before I get jumped on that it is not completely black and white) that if these people had kept in touch with the deceased in the first place they would presumably have been in a will!
I know there are a lot of ifs and buts in that statement but perhaps we should all just try a little harder to communicate once in a while with our family.
Kerry
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From Daily Mirror article: Yesterday, Labour MP Tom Watson said: "This seems a staggering commission. It seems like people are being ripped off."
This is from an MP who thought it was quite acceptable to claim the maximum of £4800 a year food allowance on his expense claims ! ::)
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I don't understand why MPs are allowed to claim for food anyway?
If one is away for a night in a hotel etc for your work, then fair enough, but when you are saying that you have a second home in London, then strictly speaking you are not away from home! ???
Kooky
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Exactly ! Especially when HM Customs & Revenue make it so clear about what you are entitled to claim for, as a UK taxpayer, and that does not include expenses involved with travelling to or from, or living in, your usual place of work. Since the normal place of work for all MPs is Westminster, then they should not be claiming anything for food if they live nearby. If I were an MP, I would be very careful about allegations of ripping people off ! ;)
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These heir's do have a choice to sign or not.
monica meg
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I believe the large sections of the press make these allegations to divert attention from their own shady practices. I would like to see the salaries of the editors and the reporteres making criticisms madatorally published as part of the headline of any articles concerning people's salaries or commission rates etc. etc.
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The Daily Mail have only gone after F&F because they have seen how popular the program is and they probably have some column inches to spare. I notice how the artice is from only one point of view and that is a handful of people who are unhappy, where are the people who are happy with the service that has been provided from F&F and other companies ?
People have that choice werther to sign and as we have seen sometimes they don't sign on the dotted line and personally I would never sign up until I knew what such fees were.
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I'm sure companies like F & F can justify their expenses much more believably than our MP's could who in the main wouldn't command the salaries + perks in the private sector,I'll bet the Fraser Bros. haven't a duck house between them.
Today's Daily,tomorrow's fish & chip paper,today's MP tomorrows Big Brother contestant.
jim
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I would happily sign up at 33% commission if F&F knocked at my door.
Just think, a ready made family tree set in front of you. All those brick walls knocked down and gaps filled in. Well worth 33% when you work out the cost of certificates, memberships. Trouble is I know they never will be at my door - all my ancestors were poor ;D
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Just think, a ready made family tree set in front of you. All those brick walls knocked down and gaps filled in.
Sadly they only need to search back as far as the deceased grandparents,so you won't get an awfully big tree ;D
Carol
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Ahh, but there have been cases where someone has been assumed to be poor, and then it was found that they had themselves been left money by a relative (if you get what I mean). Of course, heir hunters only have to go back 2 generations in the UK to find heirs, and most of my "brick walls" are 4 generations back :)
You pipped me to the post, Carol :)
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So Carol, if my deceased grandfather (1920) was bequeathed money by his grandfather and F&F had only today traced my grandfather would it come to me?
That would knock down a brick wall for me cos I cannot find my gt gt grandfather - I wonder if he was rich :P No, farm labourers in Mayo in the 1790's not likely to be - but I can dream :D
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Certainly F&F can justify their expenses far more readily than many MPs and others in the public and private sectors, and certainly the Editors etc. of rags like the Daily Mail! I had no idea that was the paper, but really it had to be, I must have smelt it before I responded to this thread. My grandmother called the Mail the Dail Liar. That was 60 years ago, she was right then and it still is, trouble now it has several rags copying it.
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There is a bit of me that thinks (and I know before I get jumped on that it is not completely black and white) that if these people had kept in touch with the deceased in the first place they would presumably have been in a will!
I know there are a lot of ifs and buts in that statement but perhaps we should all just try a little harder to communicate once in a while with our family.
Kerry
Thats ok if you know your family. Ok I know 4 cousins on my fathers side but I know there are lots more who I have never met and no nothing about.
Through family history I have contacted 2 cousins on my mothers side but there are more that I know nothing about.
So sometimes its not that you don't keep in touch its finding out who family are.
Christine
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I can't believe there is anyone alive, or who has recently died, of whom I am their closest relative. I have cousins alive, but they have children and grandchildren as I do, and I and my cousins are the oldest generation left. I also know of quite a few 2nd cousins who also have children. Have to say I don't seem to have been in touch with any 3rd cousins, but I am in touch with 4th cousins who also have their own families.
Lizzie
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Problem is these days everyone wants something for nothing.
Shame on those unexpected benificiaries for complaining.
I find that so many newspapers these days seem to concentrate on trying to outdo each other on what they used to call 'scoops' then everyone else jumps on the bandwagon.
Not knowing how companies like heir hunters work out their charges, I would assume that they work it out by the time and effort, number of people entitled and total amount due to be paid to each. (I seem to remember from watching a number of programmes they do not know how much money is involved until the very end.)
I bet if the Daily Mail had spent as much time and money finding searching for living dependants, they would expect to get a percentage of the money to cover their costs and time taken.
Jean
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So Carol, if my deceased grandfather (1920) was bequeathed money by his grandfather and F&F had only today traced my grandfather would it come to me?
That would knock down a brick wall for me cos I cannot find my gt gt grandfather - I wonder if he was rich :P No, farm labourers in Mayo in the 1790's not likely to be - but I can dream :D
If your grandfather was bequeathed money, you would have no use for heir hunters, because heir hunters only work on estates where a will has not been made (or if a will was made and is invalid for some reason). However, if your grandfather had a brother or sister, and one of the descendents of these siblings had left an estate without a will, the money could come to you, if there was no closer relative.
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Certainly F&F can justify their expenses far more readily than many MPs and others in the public and private sectors, and certainly the Editors etc. of rags like the Daily Mail! I had no idea that was the paper, but really it had to be, I must have smelt it before I responded to this thread. My grandmother called the Mail the Dail Liar. That was 60 years ago, she was right then and it still is, trouble now it has several rags copying it.
I wouldn't say that the Mail or Mirror were lying, but they were certainly being economical with the truth. They were correct in saying that you don't need heir hunters to make a claim against an estate, but it's not anywhere as easy as they made it appear. What they didn't say was that in order to make a claim, you first of all have to know who the deceased person was (and if they were a distant relative, you may not even have known them), and then you also have to give details of how you are related to the deceased, and give evidence of that. Even then, before the estate can be paid, the treasury solicitor will need evidence that there are no other heirs that would have a better claim, or who would share the claim, so unless you're quite a talented genealogist, you may have to spend money doing something which heir hunters include in their fees.
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There is a bit of me that thinks (and I know before I get jumped on that it is not completely black and white) that if these people had kept in touch with the deceased in the first place they would presumably have been in a will!
I know there are a lot of ifs and buts in that statement but perhaps we should all just try a little harder to communicate once in a while with our family.
Kerry
That's ok if you know your family. Ok I know 4 cousins on my fathers side but I know there are lots more who I have never met and no nothing about.
Through family history I have contacted 2 cousins on my mothers side but there are more that I know nothing about.
So sometimes its not that you don't keep in touch its finding out who family are.
Christine
I agree. My father was never close to his family, and he had a son by a previous marriage (his first wife died). When our half-brother came to live with us when I was a little boy, things were OK at first, but my father was really annoyed that his oldest son spent so much betting on horses and dogs, and eventually things came to a head, and my father threw him out. Our half-brother always believed that it was our mother that had him thrown out, and later in life (after a car accident and several strokes) he became even more belligerent towards her. My sister and I did what we could to keep in touch with our half-brother, but he was very reclusive, and he didn't have a phone, and would not reply to letters. When my sister lived close to him, she would periodically visit him to make sure he was OK, and to help him wherever she could. Then, my sister moved to another county, and was not able to visit as often as she did, but she did leave details with him with her new address and phone number.
Time went by, and one day my sister and I were talking about our half-brother in a phone conversation, and she remarked that it had been quite some time since we heard from him. As I had an Ancestry subscription, I looked up his name in the deaths section, and found that someone with that name, in the same area that he lived had died early in the year 2000, so we sent off for a death certificate. This was our haf-brother, who had died in hospital after a sudden heart attack, and apparently social services could not find anything in his flat that would indicate the next-of-kin.
We then found out that his estate had been found by an heir hunters firm (not one of those featured in the BBC series) and apparently the estate had been paid out to our half-brother's cousins, because (allegedly) the company thought that we were half-siblings by virtue of our mother and not of our father. Fortunately, the cousins had taken out a Missing Beneficiary Insurance, which eventually paid us our rightful inheritance, but that was after a year of legal wrangling and £3000 in legal fees.
This is the reason why I know quite a lot about inheritance and estates where there is no will. However, there was a silver lining - not only did I make contact with cousins on my father's side that I had never met, I also was given copies of photographs of people in my father's family, which was a real bonus. And - more possible icing on the cake - I found out that one of my cousins on my father's side has no children, so we could all get another windfall if he has not made a will :)
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I can't believe there is anyone alive, or who has recently died, of whom I am their closest relative. I have cousins alive, but they have children and grandchildren as I do, and I and my cousins are the oldest generation left. I also know of quite a few 2nd cousins who also have children. Have to say I don't seem to have been in touch with any 3rd cousins, but I am in touch with 4th cousins who also have their own families.
Lizzie
After several years of research and mapping out about a thousand actual relatives, I thought that too but only this week suddenly worked out that a whole family of my grandad's cousins (so first cousins twice removed) seem to have died unmarried in the 1970s and 1980s.
If they did leave anything intestate, it would have to be shared amongst so many people it would not signify but I'd be happy for a whole extra bunch of certs from the heir-hunters.
Can one of them tell me what would they do in a case with dozens of beneficiaries for a relatively small estate?
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Certainly F&F can justify their expenses far more readily than many MPs and others in the public and private sectors, and certainly the Editors etc. of rags like the Daily Mail! I had no idea that was the paper, but really it had to be, I must have smelt it before I responded to this thread. My grandmother called the Mail the Dail Liar. That was 60 years ago, she was right then and it still is, trouble now it has several rags copying it.
I wouldn't say that the Mail or Mirror were lying, but they were certainly being economical with the truth. They were correct in saying that you don't need heir hunters to make a claim against an estate, but it's not anywhere as easy as they made it appear. What they didn't say was that in order to make a claim, you first of all have to know who the deceased person was (and if they were a distant relative, you may not even have known them), and then you also have to give details of how you are related to the deceased, and give evidence of that. Even then, before the estate can be paid, the treasury solicitor will need evidence that there are no other heirs that would have a better claim, or who would share the claim, so unless you're quite a talented genealogist, you may have to spend money doing something which heir hunters include in their fees.
The part in bold is not right. The Treasury are only interested in an estate up to the point that one entitled heir can be shown to exist.
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The part in bold is not right. The Treasury are only interested in an estate up to the point that one entitled heir can be shown to exist.
That can't possibly be the case?
How would they know how many ways it should be shared until all heirs have been found?
They wouldn't give it all to the first one that came forward,sureloy they have to be absolutely certain that all avenues have been explored to find all of the heirs,what if there were dozens more out there?
Carol
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I think the point that violeign was making is that it is not the Treasury's job to see that the money gets to the heirs. It is the Treasury's job to hold (and use) unclaimed monies for the nation.
If one heir puts in a claim and the claim is found to be valid (i.e. they are within the degrees of relationship to have a true claim), then it becomes their responsibilty to ensure that all of the money goes to the rightful heirs. That is all the work that the heirhunters are claiming responsibilty for - I presume that they have insurance that covers them against mistakes, only one of the things that that independent heir needs to worry about.
[added: you're probably fine if you're a close heir that has been overlooked (half-brother or half-sister perhaps that the other marriage was not found in initial searches), but if, like me, you're a descendant of over forty cousins on just one side of the family as would have been so in the case I mentioned earlier, then I wouldn't want the responsibility of ensuring that all heirs are found]
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Dudley
I haven't even found a branch of cousins who died out. My father's cousins either didn't marry, married but had no children but died many years ago most probably without any assets or married and had children who now have their own children.
The one exception was my father's half cousin (they shared the same grandmother who was married twice, so different grandfathers). Her husband died from wounds the day before Armistice, but she herself didn't die until many years later, 1950s or 60s. She had money which she'd inherited from her own mother who had married (years after having her daughter) to a rich man with children, but who got some inheritance from him. Apparently when she (my father's half aunt) died, there were advertisements in newspapers asking for any relatives to come forward. I've been told by a distant ancestor, that some 1st cousins once removed saw the advert and claimed the estate. They didn't let on that this lady actually had cousins who were still living and they, according to my distant relative, inherited a fortune. Maybe if an heir hunter company had been in existence in the 1950s/60s the money would have been shared out. As I know of at least 10 cousins, they wouldn't have had a large amount each, but would have been grateful for what they got.
Too late now to do anything about it. All the cousins are dead and I have no idea what happened to the money.
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I think the point that violeign was making is that it is not the Treasury's job to see that the money gets to the heirs. It is the Treasury's job to hold (and use) unclaimed monies for the nation.
If one heir puts in a claim and the claim is found to be valid (i.e. they are within the degrees of relationship to have a true claim), then it becomes their responsibilty to ensure that all of the money goes to the rightful heirs. That is all the work that the heirhunters are claiming responsibilty for - I presume that they have insurance that covers them against mistakes, only one of the things that that independent heir needs to worry about.
[added: you're probably fine if you're a close heir that has been overlooked (half-brother or half-sister perhaps that the other marriage was not found in initial searches), but if, like me, you're a descendant of over forty cousins on just one side of the family as would have been so in the case I mentioned earlier, then I wouldn't want the responsibility of ensuring that all heirs are found]
Precisely. The Treasury do not care how many entitled relatives there are. Once one has been shown to exist they legally cannot have any further interest in the estate. It then becomes the responsibility of the Personal Representative of the estate or their appointed agents (ie administering solicitors) to ensure all of the entitled relatives get their proper share.
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Thanks for the support, this all shows what can happen when a comedian decides on "Twitter" that the BBC should pay him more money rather than making a day time TV program.
It is even more ironic that the comedian in question spent 100's of thousands of pounds of BBC money travailing all over the world looking for people with his name. You would have thought he could see how hard it was to find people, who not only have the correct name but also the correct date of birth and parents.
To concentrate on the fact that the top fee charged by any probate firm is 40% is like saying that all car firms charge the same as a Bugatti Veyron.
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"The estate cannot be dealt with until all claims to it have been received. Individuals have six months from the date when probate was granted to make claims against the estate."
http://www.lawsociety.org.uk/choosingandusing/commonlegalproblems/probate.page
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"The estate cannot be dealt with until all claims to it have been received. Individuals have six months from the date when probate was granted to make claims against the estate."
http://www.lawsociety.org.uk/choosingandusing/commonlegalproblems/probate.page
That is once an administering solicitor has been appointed, not once the Treasury Solicitor has been notified that there are entitled kin.
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These heir's do have a choice to sign or not.
monica meg
I agree and untill someone knocks on their door they've no idea that they are heirs.
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The administrator still has a legal duty to account for all the heirs. The six months is the time for creditors to apply for repayment from the estate not heirs
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My wife received a letter from a heir Hunter company asking her to sign away 33.3% plus VAT. I phoned all the family and asked not to sign anything. I then managed to get the commission down to 25%. But some interesting history came out of it. My wife's great grandfather bought shares in West Ham United when it was the Iron Foundry football team. All the beneficiaries received 2000 shares each. Unfortunately the Icelandic company who bought West Ham forced us to sell to them, a shame as we wanted to keep them in the family.
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The administrator still has a legal duty to account for all the heirs. The six months is the time for creditors to apply for repayment from the estate not heirs
Indeed.
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Did anyone see todays programme? The case of Michael Moore who had Downs Syndrome. They found a heir who was giving her share to Mencap who helped to look after him and FRASER & FRASER also gave their commision.
Well done Fraser & Fraser :) it just shows that all the companies should be tarred with the same brush.
Christine
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Yes we decided several months ago, to support Mencap after the heir said she wanted to, shame the mirror never picked up on it.
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I think the company who stated in those hightly reputable "newspapers" ::)
that they only charge a flat fee are slightly misleading, becuase if you read on they then say they will go on to charge time related fees, and if their fee for getting a BDM certificate (if i have read it right) is £50,
then equate that to possible fees they charge,
then i am afraid they won't be getting the part of snow white in the next pantomme.
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I think the company who stated in those hightly reputable "newspapers" ::)
that they only charge a flat fee are slightly misleading, becuase if you read on they then say they will go on to charge time related fees, and if their fee for getting a BDM certificate (if i have read it right) is £50,
then equate that to possible fees they charge,
then i am afraid they won't be getting the part of snow white in the next pantomme.
That's just the tip of the iceberg...
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Yes they said to the paper that they would charge between £250 and £350 plus VAT to find an heir. That is fine when you are given the name of the heir and relationship to find; F&F would charge less, I think. they also fail to mention that they would charde 250-350 pound for every heir the had to find so from the £7500 had more than 17 heirs the estate would have nothing left ( as a small point most estates we look at to cousin levels have 15 to 20 heirs minimum, on Av we think there are probably 30 heirs per case.)
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Fraser - Is it worth your while sending your point of view to the newspapers? Mind you, I suppose like everything else, the untruths are printed in foot high words on the front page and apologies lost somewhere in the middle of the paper in tiny print.
Lizzie
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Lizzie, Good point, I believe we need legislation to enforce equal prominence to retractions etc. as was given to the original publicity, but we are not likely to get it. In view of the work involved, probably a commission of 30-40% is usually reasonable in these cases.
Estates revert to the Government if no heir can be found. Think for a moment is this a bad thing? There seems to be a trait in Britain that we want Scandanavian levels of service, paid for by North American levels of taxation. This leaves a huge gap, and miscellaneous revenue like this makes a tiny contribution to it.
Estates that go to Government do lower taxes by a tiny fraction.
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The amount of money the Government gain from unclaimed estates does nothing to dent the amount of tax that you have to pay. They get a few million pounds, when you think of the expenditure it is nothing.
Very few cases pay 40% fees they are cases where more than just us have to get paid. In the US we must employ an attorney and a local genealogist, in several states we also have to fly the heir and a researcher to the court, to give evidence, there system is not as easy as it is here.
The press didn't want to listen last week, we were trying to explain that yes we have a few cases that we have had to charge high fees on, but wording it how they did is crazy. It is like saying that a Ford Ka cost £1/2 million just because that is how much a Ford GT costs.
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Of course the press don't want to listen, doesn't make for such good headlines.
The fact that this other company are working on outdated information (from over 3 years ago), are distorting the true picture and have their own agenda they are trying to forward doesn't help matters, but how much would their own practices stand up to scrutiny?
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Fraser and Fraser, "Every little helps" as the saying goes.
Violeign, the press have their own agendas, only one of which is to sell newspapers, the others are ancilliary to this end.
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If an heir hunter comes to your door - you are never forced to sign, you can chose not to...
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If the money goes uncliamed the goverment get 100% - but i the person dies and makes a will the probate searchers and the goverment can often walk away with nothing - its a no brainer really get all your relatives to make a will ;) ;)
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That's a Lemontree, my dear Watson ! ;D
Sorry, couldn't resist ;)
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As usual with these things the truth is somewhere in the middle. It's not surprising the tabloids pick at cases which may well be the exception rather than the norm. Also it's not surprising that it is Fraser and Fraser as they've put their head over the parapet so to speak by being so prominent in the program.
But there are surely some concerns about some of the charges. Being commissioned based I think is the issue.
If an heir hunter is charging 40% on an estate of £10000 say and there are 5 beneficiaries, well the beneficiaries get around a grand and are likely to be happy and £4000+ of of effort on behalf of the heir hunters reasonable.
But lets jump that that estate to £250,000 , The beneficiaries may well still be happy with £25,000+, but the heir hunter with £100,000? That does not feel right.
Nobody would deny a fair return for a fair job done. Perhaps, if more honesty were shown when signing up heirs .i.e. as to the size of the estate (It is known in many cases) people would be happy to pay for the work done.
Regulation need to come to the industry, if only to control smaller companies that may have established themselves based on the success of Fraser and Fraser promoted by the TV program, who may see signing up heirs as a way to a quick buck.
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While i agree that charges WHERE possible should be clear and upfront,
i am not sure that is always possible
day 1 they go and see an Heir, who knows from there on how many will surface, in what country, what expenses they will incur, IF they find 3 Heirs pretty easily and then take 40%, agreed totally OTT,
as i said in an earlier post, i see a company wanting to charge £50 to get a BDM certificate for something that costs them £7, THAT IS A RIP OFF!!
Just because it's in the paper, is it the truth, i have seen bisto on the side of buses but i havn't found one that sells any yet, as many have said they signed of their own free will and also have a cooling off period,
Agreed some won't understand the procedure, but who do we blame for that?
Without being contacted these Heirs would get NOTHING, 0% of a million aint a lot,
maybe the question a lot should be asking is WHY should the goverment receive 10 million a year? i havn't seen many complaining about their cut, maybe a good idea is that heir hunters fees should come out of this pot, i will bet my life the heir hunters expenses would be less than expenses claimed by Politicians!
That pot could also be used to help people submit their own claims, i would think the majority of people are daunted by the system and are glad of people like F&F, Firstly informing them and also helping them get their £££'s,
MY opinion the goverment have no right at all to this money, and could be used in a multitude of ways!!
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as i said in an earlier post, i see a company wanting to charge £50 to get a BDM certificate for something that costs them £7, THAT IS A RIP OFF!!
MY opinion the goverment have no right at all to this money, and could be used in a multitude of ways!!
two points here. First, that in order to get the first claim in, the heir-hunters are presumably paying the "emergency fee" for certs, which I understand is likely to be £30-£40 pounds, not seven. A strict cost benefit would be ridiculous as there would be no case for making a business of doing this. And what about all the certs bought for cases that go cold (no provable living heirs found) or where the heirs later decide to prove their own case, or those that sign up to another company.
The other points is that the government use of this money is, presumably, the same as the use for which they apply our taxes etc. and so is providing a multitude of benefits.
Perhaps you are suggesting that it should be a nationalised industry to avoid any duplication of costs?
I must say that if heir-hunters approached me, I would try to negotiate a discount for the information that I could give to them but would probably be prepared to pay a reasonable fee to them for taking on the work of preparing the legal proof for the case. After all, it would be unlikley to be anyone that I could easily trace and fully prove all the heirs for, or it wouldn't have got to the heir-hunters in the first place.
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re the certificates you have misunderstood me/not read earlier posts,
had nothing to do with Heir Hunting, it was a firm that were quick to jump on the bandwagon when the press got hold of it, and stated they only charged a flat fee, THEN in small letters plus time related, and then reading their website re family history if you didn't know how to obtain certificates they wanted £50 per certificate plus any charges for doing your searching.
The approx 10 million a year that the goverment takes each year, has been paid tax on many times over the years, so why should the goverment have this money?
you get fined by a local council for parking etc and the cash goes to that council (supposedly)
speeding etc the spin is it goes toward roads/safety,
i am not advocating someone else should benefit from this 10 million + but as above it should be used for something related to the reason it was taken,
some of these poor people are given what you would describe as Paupers funerals because no one is allowed to access the funds,
i don't actually think the fund should be used to benefit the heirs, it was just an example, but i would deffo like it to be used in some way that benefits the future forgotten.
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It really annoys me that people like MPs and bankers who are ripping us off on a regular basis attract little attention, whilst those trying to run honest businesses are hounded by the press.
Well 4 MPs are going to be charged, many have had to repay, Banking bonuses are under severe scrutiny and it's hardly been out of the press.
Heir Hunter's have had little attention in comparison, and honest businesses should not worry about it.
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i don't actually think the fund should be used to benefit the heirs, it was just an example, but i would deffo like it to be used in some way that benefits the future forgotten.
I'm afraid that we're all the "future forgotten". If you don't believe me, just go and look at the churchyards with 200 year old graves which have been allowed to crumble into dust. Money should be spent on the living, not the dead.
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Heir Hunters was in the papers again this weekend.
http://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/editors-choice/2010/02/14/heir-hunters-find-scots-family-of-loner-son-of-mafia-godfather-86908-22042092/
The story where the heir discovered her Mafia connections from the Heir Hunters
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Brilliant detective work, :)
Eilleen.
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I find the link to the Daily Record doesn't work very well for me, slowly if at all. Perhaps I should make it an offer it can't refuse.
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I read it okay earlier today- although it was a little slow and I did have to press to reload.
Carol
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Every time I watch HH I marvel at how much is must all be costing, and wonder why the companies don't find a way of divvying up the new cases between themselves at the outset and save themselves a bob or two, or maybe the competition is what keeps them on their toes 8)
As for the lady complaining about the size of the commission, she has the choice of making the claim herself, and if she's got a beef she should have tried to negotiate herself a better deal. Either way, what the HH do is a big responsibility, and it's is money she wouldn't have seen a penny of without them anyway.
Meanwhile, if it's ever our family's turn, I hope they have better luck with my Uncle Charlie's brood than I ever did :)
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As for the lady complaining about the size of the commission, she has the choice of making the claim herself, and if she's got a beef she should have tried to negotiate herself a better deal.
Well, She would have to know who's died. Also renegotiation is tricky after signing the agreement. There may be some mileage in challenging the legality of the agreement though.
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"There may be some mileage in challenging the legality of the agreement though"
trust me a firm of our size would not have allowed the BBC to film us if our contract was not legal!
There is a lot of false information flying around that what we do is in some way wrong and out contracts are not legal, if that was the case do you not think that we would have made them legal by now, we have only been doing this since 1923. Please don't believe all you read in the paper or on line as true. There is one firm that has been trying to control the market who only charge by the hour they have done a big campaign to say that the industry needs regulation, I agree it should be regulated. However in a lot of areas it is already regulated, F&F is regulated by ISO 9001 , ISO 27001, Data Protection ICO, AGRA, APG, Lexcel, FSO, and I am sure several others; our contracts are also regulated by the Trade Descriptions act, Consumer Protection (Distance Selling) Regulations and Cancellation of Contracts Made in a Consumer's Home or Place of Work etc Regulations.
F&F have been open regulation. I think there is a bigger issue to a firm that is not open to where research is conducted and how it is charged for than there is ever about agreements being legal.
I firmly believe that a % agreement is the fairest way to charge rather than an unregulated hourly charge when work is done on the cheap in India and charged as if it is done in the UK.
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"There may be some mileage in challenging the legality of the agreement though"
trust me a firm of our size would not have allowed the BBC to film us if our contract was not legal!
There is a lot of false information flying around that what we do is in some way wrong and out contracts are not legal, if that was the case do you not think that we would have made them legal by now, we have only been doing this since 1923. Please don't believe all you read in the paper or on line as true. There is one firm that has been trying to control the market who only charge by the hour they have done a big campaign to say that the industry needs regulation, I agree it should be regulated. However in a lot of areas it is already regulated, F&F is regulated by ISO 9001 , ISO 27001, Data Protection ICO, AGRA, APG, Lexcel, FSO, and I am sure several others; our contracts are also regulated by the Trade Descriptions act, Consumer Protection (Distance Selling) Regulations and Cancellation of Contracts Made in a Consumer's Home or Place of Work etc Regulations.
F&F have been open regulation. I think there is a bigger issue to a firm that is not open to where research is conducted and how it is charged for than there is ever about agreements being legal.
I firmly believe that a % agreement is the fairest way to charge rather than an unregulated hourly charge when work is done on the cheap in India and charged as if it is done in the UK.
Have any agreements been challenged?
My concerned is for people who sign agreements where the other party is withholding information, hardly a 'fair' contractual situation.
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Don't you think that heir hunters are right to withhold the information that may have cost them a lot of money to find ?
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Don't you think that heir hunters are right to withhold the information that may have cost them a lot of money to find ?
When it comes to situations when they know how much they will gain from an agreement whilst the other party is signing blindly I not sure that is right.
I appreciate that work has been done and a fair price should be paid (Of course heir hunters need to turn a profit, else we wouldn't have any!). My concern is over the high percentage commission on larger estates, an area open to abuse, and the area the tabloids are focussing on.
Do the heir hunter firms itemise their 'work' to the beneficiaries after the event? I would imagine any expenses have to be fully accounted (receipts etc.), but what about the general day to day work?
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The firm that Fraser&Fraser alludes to in his post are not only basing their 'campaign' on outdated and exaggerated information about the working practices of the rest of the entire industry (ie that heir hunting firms are always aware of the value of an estate, fees are routinely charged at 40% or that the name of the deceased is witheld from beneficiaries) but as Fraser&Fraser points out a lot of their own working practices are not beyond scrutiny - outsourcing research to mention only one...
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Don't you think that heir hunters are right to withhold the information that may have cost them a lot of money to find ?
When it comes to situations when they know how much they will gain from an agreement whilst the other party is signing blindly I not sure that is right.
I appreciate that work has been done and a fair price should be paid (Of course heir hunters need to turn a profit, else we wouldn't have any!). My concern is over the high percentage commission on larger estates, an area open to abuse, and the area the tabloids are focussing on.
Do the heir hunter firms itemise their 'work' to the beneficiaries after the event? I would imagine any expenses have to be fully accounted (receipts etc.), but what about the general day to day work?
The number of cases where the value of the estate is known is pretty small, and in those cases most of the major heir hunting firms offer a choice of payment methods from % to time-spent.
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Don't you think that heir hunters are right to withhold the information that may have cost them a lot of money to find ?
When it comes to situations when they know how much they will gain from an agreement whilst the other party is signing blindly I not sure that is right.
I appreciate that work has been done and a fair price should be paid (Of course heir hunters need to turn a profit, else we wouldn't have any!). My concern is over the high percentage commission on larger estates, an area open to abuse, and the area the tabloids are focussing on.
Do the heir hunter firms itemise their 'work' to the beneficiaries after the event? I would imagine any expenses have to be fully accounted (receipts etc.), but what about the general day to day work?
The number of cases where the value of the estate is known is pretty small, and in those cases most of the major heir hunting firms offer a choice of payment methods from % to time-spent.
So, like any other industry, there are always going to be 'Cowboys', 'Rogue Traders' etc. As I mentioned earlier it is likely to be these smaller companies causing the problems, going for the big hit!
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Just in the last 5 years, our agreements have been to court 4 times (not because some one is trying to get out of or to challenge them), one of those courts it the highest in the land, The House of Lords. The agreement has also been seen by several lawyers, including a QC who was asked to give us a legal opinion on the existing agreement, our practice and any possible improvements.
As part of our ISO requirements we have a fully documented procedure, that is followed in all cases. The contract is for the supply of information, and does not have any grounds for a firm to show its expenses or costs. Obviously when billing on a time spent bases then a full brake down is required.
To make matters clear, the current contract used by most firms is 1 page of single sided A4, written in plain English, there is no small print or hidden clauses F&F use a font size of 12 or 13. I don't think the agreement could be any clearer. We suggest that if an heir want they should take independent legal advice. when a contract is signed on the spot, a second cancellation form is signed by F&F and left with the heir this is in the same font size as the agreement (by law). for every document signed or taken away a carbon copy is also left.
I am not trying to say that there is no room for improvement in the way we work but the you would be hard pushed to come in a pick huge holes in our operation or to challenge the legality of an agreement.
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So, like any other industry, there are always going to be 'Cowboys', 'Rogue Traders' etc. As I mentioned earlier it is likely to be these smaller companies causing the problems, going for the big hit!
Yes, it is, but not necessarily from their charges. I think my sister and I were victims of a rogue small company, who (allegedly) managed to completely fail to find my sister and myself when searching for heirs for our-half brother, even though my sister's name was on our father's death certificate. I am totally sure that this smaller heir hunter company knew that if they approached us we would know exactly who it was that had died, and we would not need their services, so they conveniently found some cousins instead, who were not able to guess the identity of the person that had died.
The problem is that it would be difficult to prove that this was a deliberate act, and not just negligence. If we were to take the heir hunters company to court, they would probably have no insurance, and if the court award was big enough, it's quite likely that they would just declare themselves bankrupt and fold the company. I spoke to Neil Fraser about this (it was he who told me which company had dealt with the case, because that in itself is not easy to find out), and he said that F & F have insurance that would cover this sort of thing, and that he wanted to see legislation to force companies to have this insurance, because at the moment it is optional.
Fortunately in our case the cousins did take out Missing Beneficiary Insurance which paid us out, but in the end we had to settle for less than the actual value of the estate, because the beneficiaries had under-insured themselves, but the actual difference was not big enough to take court action over. Ironically, F & F had not originally persued my half-brother's estate, because at the time it didn't look valuable enough to pay their costs (although subsequently it was found to be a lot more than expected, because my half-brother had money from insurances and pensions stashed away).
I applaud Neil Fraser's frankness on this subject, and I hope that one day there may be more regulation so that the reputation of the more established companies are not tarnished by the actions of a few cowboy companies.
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Just in the last 5 years, our agreements have been to court 4 times (not because some one is trying to get out of or to challenge them), one of those courts it the highest in the land, The House of Lords. The agreement has also been seen by several lawyers, including a QC how was asked to give us a legal opinion on the existing agreement, our practice and any possible improvements.
As part of our ISO requirements we have a fully documented procedure, that is followed in all cases. The contract is for the supply of information, and does not have any grounds for a firm to show its expenses or costs. Obviously when billing on a time spent bases then a full brake down is required.
To make matters clear, the current contract used by most firms is 1 page of single sided A4, written in plain English, there is no small print or hidden clauses F&F use a font size of 12 or 13. I don't think the agreement could be any clearer. We suggest that if an heir want they should take independent legal advice. when a contract is signed on the spot, a second cancellation form is signed by F&F and left with the heir this is in the same font size as the agreement (by law). for every document signed or taken away a carbon copy is also left.
I am not trying to say that there is no room for improvement in the way we work but the you would be hard pushed to come in a pick huge holes in our operation or to challenge the legality of an agreement.
I'm not suggesting F&F are doing anything illegal. I am talking across the whole industry.
I'm thinking more when someone has signed up to an agreement, with a quite large commission. At the time they do not know how much the may inherit, but may be thinking, as I'm sure many do, that say 60% of something is better than nothing. At a later date they find out the estate is quite large. OK 60% of a large settlement is even better than 60% of nothing, but then realise the heir hunter fee which could easily be 6 figures if, for example, the estate involved selling a house.
At this point is is well past the cooling of period, Had the beneficiary known of the potential size of the fee they would liely have negotiated, the least they would expect a clear breakdown of why the fee is so high.
In many cases the heir hunter will know the size of the estate before asking people to sign agreements. Their research in tracking down the beneficiaries may show property for example, if they have been appointed by a solicitor or if the deceased is living in Scotland where estate values are still published. These are the agreements I would be concerned about, if not illegal, certainly mis-balanced.
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I applaud Neil Fraser's frankness on this subject, and I hope that one day there may be more regulation so that the reputation of the more established companies are not tarnished by the actions of a few cowboy companies.
Me too, When people are approached by heir hunters it is very likely they have never been in the situation before. They have no life experience on how to handle themselves. It's not like employing a builder where you will know what they do or can ask a friend and have a good idea about what you are going into (Yes, I know there are loads of 'cowboys' there too).
The information here given is invaluable should they come knocking.
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In many cases the heir hunter will know the size of the estate before asking people to sign agreements.
No, they won't. As far as I'm aware, they have no idea what's in the deceased bank accounts. They can only make an educated guess based on property owned and maybe what someone did for a living. As I said in a previous post, F & F didn't persue my half-brother's estate, and I can't blame them, because he lived on his own in a one-bedroomed council flat in SE London, he didn't have a phone, and had been in retirement for more than 20 years. As it turned out, his estate was in excess of £180,000 because of the savings, insurance and pensions that he had.
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Please remember when quoting the 40% fee this is only charged on cases that come from the US and then only really on some New York cases. I have never seen a 40% fee on a domestic English estate, ( I have however heard of other firms charging by the hour using more than half of the estate)
The reason that a New York case has higher fees is because who has to share that fee. The Heir Hunter in England (Europe) will be luck if he gets 2/5 of that fee so in reality a fee of between 15% and 20%.
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Please remember when quoting the 40% fee this is only charged on cases that come from the US and then only really on some New York cases. I have never seen a 40% fee on a domestic English estate, ( I have however heard of other firms charging by the hour using more than half of the estate)
The reason that a New York case has higher fees is because who has to share that fee. The Heir Hunter in England (Europe) will be luck if he gets 2/5 of that fee so in reality a fee of between 15% and 20%.
I noticed you said 'English'. Do you only deal with estates in England?
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No F&F are international
I mean I have never seen a 40% fee on an Estate where the deceased died in the UK.
We have offices in France, Italy, Poland and Norway.
Moderator comment: topic edited after discussion with some of the contributors. Returned to the board for information and locked.