Nicholas Beetham, Business Development Manager, Title Research
These days, it has got to make sense to become involved in as many commercially viable estate administrations as possible. With increased competition and PRs looking to save money wherever possible, practitioners might like to consider the following often overlooked opportunity.
Apparently bona vacantia estates
At Title Research, we see dozens of apparently bona vacantia estates each year. These estates, where the deceased has left neither will nor, apparently, entitled family, nonetheless offer practitioners the chance to take instructions. The likelihood of these estates actually devolving to the Crown (read also: or either of the Duchies of Cornwall or Lancaster, as the case may be) is very slender indeed. Our generous intestacy provisions (with eight degrees of kin entitled in priority to the Crown) and the national demographic mean that these estates almost always yield up entitled relatives.
The opportunity
Usually, these estates land on practitioners’ desks in one of two ways: perhaps you’ve had a neighbour, or friend of the deceased walk in to the office with details of the death – but no entitlement to take the Grant nor to instruct you. Or maybe you’ve been Deputy during the deceased’s lifetime, the Deputyship having come to an end with the Person’s death, in which case, aren’t you the ideal candidate to administer the estate? Regardless of their source, these estates will have to be administered by someone. Why shouldn’t it be you? So, how to acquire a client and take instructions – without incurring unrecoverable costs?
How to take instructions
The Treasury Solicitor’s bona vacantia division is the last place you should consult. They may have a role to play, but if you refer the file to the division too soon, you’ll almost certainly never see it again. Much better to consult with your friendly Law Society endorsed probate researcher / genealogist. An accommodating firm will agree a conditional fee with you, based on the time and disbursements necessary to identify someone entitled to the Grant in priority to the Crown, locate them and put them together with you so that they can instruct you.
In the unlikely event that the enterprise fails (e.g. if the estate proves genuinely bona vacantia – most unlikely, but if so now’s the time to call the bona vacantia division; or that the putative PRs, once located do not wish to work with your firm – very rare), then all bets will be off and you will not be invoiced.
Once you’ve got a client with a Grant, the matter should, with the right care and feeding, flourish like any garden variety intestacy.
A word on costs
When it comes to locating people relevant to intestate estates, whether potential PRs or beneficiaries, the work should be funded on the basis of the time and disbursements necessary to do the job or, possibly, by way of a no success-no fee fixed price – fixed in cash terms that is, and not a fixed percentage or fraction of the estate. The temptation can be to employ a genealogist on a “contingency fee” basis. Practitioners should beware: not only does this way of doing things discriminate in favour of known beneficiaries at the expense of the equally entitled missing, it involves the estate in unnecessary and avoidable expense, is inconsistent with best practice and leaves the PRs (and their advisers…) open to the risk of action against themselves personally from beneficiaries who’ve signed “contingency fee” agreements.
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