Bad press for heir hunters

[LizzieW]

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

[Jean McGurn]

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

 

[Nick29]

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   No,  farm labourers in Mayo in the 1790's not likely to be - but I can dream 

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.

[Nick29]

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.

[Nick29]

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 

 

[DudleyWinchurch]

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?

[violeign]

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.

[carol8353]

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

[DudleyWinchurch]

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]