Look up please

[dawnsh]

You don't need to approach an 'heir hunters' company as you will then be signing away a percentage of someone's inheritance.

If there is an estate, property, money in the bank etc, then approach a local solicitor with probate experience for advce.

The Law Society website can help with finding a specialist solicitor if you do not know one.

There is a company that searches for wills

https://www.nationalwillregister.co.uk/

you pay their fee and they will search their database and then write to every solicitor within a given radius of last known addresses to see if a company has one on file.

Your local solicitor can also do this for you.

Solicitors tend to have their own research companies, many of whom do not charge contingency fees but their fees are taken from the estate prior to distribution.

Firstly they have to establish David's birth and marriage even if that means buying every marriage cert you can find with his name in the index, apply to HMCTS for decrees absolute for any marriages found, check for issue from those marriages, confirm the dates of death for his parents, check for other siblings. They also need to find a family member to act as the personal representative in the absence of a will and apply for a letter of administration.

It can be a long winded process even if things appear to be straight forward from the outset.

[dawnsh]

The rules of intestacy are clearly defined and whilst your intentions to help your friend are well-intentioned, research into this shouldn't really be undertaken on a public forum as that could cause a compromise.

Please ask your friend to seek professional advice from a solicitor if he is not a close family member.

[aliray]

Ok then ...many thanks to you all .....