"Heir Hunters"

[Willow 4873]

Hiya Davidft

Thanx for that I will have a look

Willow x

[Eking]

Questions re yesterdays episode - Alan Fisher

1.  It said he was entitled to a 40k share of his brother's (John Fisher) estate who had died intestate, and this was languishing in a bank account.  Who is reponsible for checking that estate has been shared between the right people.  The sister could have just shared it between her siblings that she had contact with thinking Alan was long gone.

2.  The family decided not to use Fraser & Fraser. Again who is reponsible for checking that there are no other heirs (in this case children) before the claim is validated and paid out to the siblings,neices.

   

[davidft]

Fear not, when the claim is made to the Treasury Solicitor the person making the claim has to prove that they have a claim and all the relevant people are included.  The Treasury Solicitor will disallow the claim if they are not satisfied the person making the claim has done enough work checking - indeed earlier in the series F&F mentioned one case they had bounced back by the Treasury Solicitor because they were not happy with it

[FraserandFraser]

What DavidFT has said is not correct.

The TS are only interested in finding someone with greater priority than the Crown. The will check to make sure the claimant is an heir and after that they have no further interest.

to take out "leters of administration" you must swear an oath you are then required to distribute the estate acording to the law, there is however no one who checks that you do this. If you are found not to have followed the law you can be jailed for fraud.

[davidft]

Thank you for the reply Neil - just goes to prove you can always learn something new.

I was convinced i was correct in what i said about the TS but its a long time since i had anything to do with them, and i respect your knowledge in this area is far greater than anything i knew, or thought i knew.

Apologies to anyone if what i said mislead or confused them.

[trish251]

Hi Folks

I find this very interesting. Wish I could watch the show    If 2 siblings claim an estate & it is finalised & then years later another claimant appears - is it all too late?  or would this be the "fraud" situation?

Trish

[Abiam2]

With regard to the programme this morning.  If there are children from the deceased why can they not be heirs if they have been adopted by their mother's new husband?

Surely they would be closer relatives than the deceased's half brothers and sisters?  Or have I got the wrong end of the stick?
Abiam

[Sue15]

Dear Trish
At the moment expats cannot get access to the BBC's IPlayer but I understand there are plans to change that situation.

Using this link http://www.bbcworldwide.com/bbcworldwide_channels.htm
you can pick up particularly on bbc america some BBC programmes and again on BBC lifestyle although you need to check the box for Hong Kong to see them in English.
Its possible they could be added to these channels--maybe
I know there is an ongoing petition in the cricket world to get the Iplayer for overseas.

Sorry to go off at a tangent but like Trish I would love to see this programme

Sue

[davidft]

With regard to the programme this morning.  If there are children from the deceased why can they not be heirs if they have been adopted by their mother's new husband?

This situation cropped up in the last series of heir hunters. There was a young man whose parents had split up and he went to live with his mother and step father. He was legally adopted by the step-father and altough the young man had been in touch with his natural father before he died he was not entitled to any of the estate when his natural father died as he had been adopted out of the family.

I was very surprised to learn this but apparently when you are legally adopted you cease to be a heir in the family you were born in, but you do become an heir in the family you have been adopted into. I suppose when you think about it, it does make sense - although i still feel sorry for the young man from the earlier series who lost out because of this rule.