All I could find re his estate was a line in the London Gazette put in by a solicitor, asking for anyone with claims against the estate to contact him.
If someone dies intestate, then someone, usually next of kin, would apply for letters of administration, before they could dispose of any property. That could be a sibling or a niece or nephew, it would probably be difficult to find out.
Some years ago, my OH found that a family bible that once belonged to his 3 or 4 x g-g-parents was up for auction, but we were too late to buy it. The auction house was able to send us a very good quality image of the page with names and dobs and told us it had been bought by someone with the same surname. More recently my OH did a DNA test with Ancestry and so had several paternal cousins which he messaged. he discovered one of his third cousins had bought the bible, so it stayed in the family. We never discovered who sold it. So many of these things just get lost for many years. In the case of someone who died in 1983, I wouldn't be surprised if the administrator just got a house clearance company in, then they would just sell anything with any value on through their usual outlets.
