Financial Asset & Liability Search

Helping you find all of the Deceased's assets and liabilities in one easy step

One of your duties when administering an estate is to locate all of the Deceased’s assets, which may include known, unclaimed, dormant, or lost assets. 

The rise of online banking, paperless billing, a growing range of ‘DIY’ methods, and poor instruction left behind by the Deceased, all contribute to the increasingly complex nature of estate administration.

Confidently identifying the full extent of the estate can be an incredibly time-consuming task and often includes contacting all relevant financial institutions to gather the necessary information on the Deceased’s assets. It can be difficult to know where to start. 

That’s why Title Research has teamed up with Estatesearch to offer Financial Asset & Liability Searches for just £185 (+VAT).

Search over 150 financial institutions across 450 databases.

This search will provide you with comprehensive and robust information about the Deceased’s assets, supporting your due diligence processes and helping you to build a better understanding of the full extent of the estate. 

The search includes:

• Asset Search: An active search of over 150 banks, building societies, share registrars, pension providers, and insurers to help identify live, online, lost, and dormant accounts.

• Liability Search: An electronic check of Experian data sourced from 600+ organisations delivered within 24 hours.

• Identity Trace: Confirms current details and searches for previous names and addresses against multiple databases.

• Share Search: Provides a robust search of shareholdings administered by Equiniti, Computershare, and Link.

• Vulnerability Registration: Prevents potential fraud and financial abuse against the estate.

Mitigate against the risk of missed debts or liabilities

A credits and liabilities search is also included to help identify estate accounts, mitigate against the risk of debts or liabilities, and assess potential insolvency before you apply for the Grant of Probate. 

The search is quick, concise, and easy to understand. The report will include information on:

• Open and closed current accounts and credit cards

• Hire purchases and personal contract purchases (PCP)

• Mortgage and equity release loans, personal and secured loans, and payday loans

• Utility accounts

• Previous names, aliases, and addresses

• Financially connected persons

• Bankruptcy, County Court Judgements (CCJs), and Individual Voluntary Arrangements (IVAs)

Provides peace of mind

Should an account or policy be missed and subsequently found, you may be unable to charge for the extra work required in reopening the case and distributing as necessary.

If an additional asset is subsequently discovered and a Financial Asset Search has been completed with us, you’ll be able to demonstrate efforts were undertaken to locate the assets, mitigating against risk and the potential cost of reopening and readministering a matter. 

Reduce your administration time

It can take a significant amount of time and effort to write to all relevant financial institutions. Our Financial Asset and Liability Search service working with Estatesearch contacts the financial institutions on the Executor's behalf. It requests a full search of their databases for any accounts whether they may be active, dormant, or lost. This service is provided for a fixed fee of £185 (+VAT).

70% of clients using the search say that it has helped them to identify assets they would have otherwise been unaware of. 

The number of unclaimed assets is increasing year-on-year, and it is predicted that UK financial institutions hold over £200 billion in dormant accounts.

It's incredibly easy for an individual to forget about or lose track of an account or policy. Many factors make keeping on top of assets challenging, including job changes and companies that grow, merge, change their names, and cease trading. That's why it's crucial to search for assets and ensure all are accounted for in the estate administration process.