Title Research does not charge percentage fees. Our fees will always be paid by our solicitor clients distributing the estate. We charge our clients a fixed fee or a time based fee for finding missing beneficiaries.
What should you do if you approached by an heir locator and they ask you to sign-up to a percentage fee of your entitlement? Here’s our guide on how to get a fair deal.
1. Ask for the name of the deceased and your relationship to them.
2. Ask for contact details of the executor or administrator.
3. Ask if a solicitor has been appointed to handle the estate and ask for their contact details.
4. Ask for the value of the estate and the number of beneficiaries. This will help you to understand what your share in the estate will be.
5. Ask exactly how much the percentage fee equates to in pounds, otherwise you are being asked to sign away a percentage of an unknown amount.
6. Ask how much time in hours the heir locator has spent on finding you including their published hourly rates for their work so you can assess if their charge is reasonable.
7. Contact the Government’s Treasury Solicitor (www.bonavacantia.gov.uk) to find out if the estate was advertised by them as unclaimed. If they are still handling the estate you can recover your entitlement from them. This should be done as soon as possible after being contacted by the heir locator. They can also tell you the Administrator of the estate if they are no-longer dealing with the estate.
8. If the heir locator does not provide you with this information, you should seek legal advice. The agreement may be unlawful if you have not been provided with this information, as the heir locator cannot withhold key information to secure your signature.
9. If the heir locator does provide this information and you are unhappy with the heir locator’s fee, you should contact the executor/administrator and solicitor and ask for your share to be paid to you directly without deduction of heir locator fees. You may need to provide birth, marriage and death certificates to prove your relationship to the deceased. These can be obtained from the General Register Office. Birth, marriage and deaths, as well as census records can be easily searched on websites such as www.ancestry.co.uk, www.findmypast.com, www.1911census.co.uk, www.FreeBMD.org.uk Alternatively, there are many genealogists who can help with this research who can be found on the internet, who charge in the region of £30 per hour.
10. Concerns about overcharging and unfair trading can be reported to your local trading standards authority. Don’t feel under any time pressure to sign an agreement. There is no risk of you not receiving your share. Estates only pass to the Government if they remain unclaimed for up to 30 years. You are entitled to receive your share under the Administration of Estates Act 1925, which sets outs the rules of intestacy.