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Messages - PBirchwood

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The Lighter Side / Re: Heir Hunters Series 7 - March 2013
« on: Monday 25 March 13 10:35 GMT (UK)  »
Quote from: andrewalston on Sunday 24 March 13 16:08 GMT (UK)
Thursday's prog included the "unsolved case" of Pattie Fenella Lawson.

A quick search of the BMDs leads to the conclusion that her parents were Frank Herbert Lawson (1898-1948) & Phyllis Sophia Ormand (1900-1978) who were both born in Halifax reg district, married and died there too. Both had siblings in 1911.

So why have the professionals been "unable to establish who her father was" ? Was some terrible error made on her birth registration?



Almost certainly because the value was much to low for anyone to work on it. Most of the cases on the BV list are very small indeed.

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The Lighter Side / Re: Heir Hunters Series 7 - March 2013
« on: Friday 15 March 13 16:09 GMT (UK)  »
Ever since "Heir Hunters" started on BBC1 the number of "Heir Hunting" companies has mushroomed. I've noticed that series 6 stated there were over 30. Now on series 7 it's over 40. Now most of the new people have just got an interest in the topic and are diving into the TS pool of unclaimed estates. Now apart from the occasional estate worth over one million which will have been very difficult to solve or found to be dead, the majority of the estates on that monthly Ytrasury list are pretty small so companies like my own just work on the newly-advertised cases.
Even on those cases, we are beginning to get tiny firms trying to work them and because often they do not know how to proceed we get the situation, as happened recently, where I have one of my case-managers visiting an heir and there is a phone call to the heir from someone trying to interfere with the discussion.
I know of one person working on her own who got contracts from a number of people on a case with a very common name and then found that the entire estate was worth under £1,000 and her fees would be about £12 in total.

3
The Lighter Side / Re: Heir Hunters prime time
« on: Wednesday 16 November 11 17:26 GMT (UK)  »
When I started working in the missing heir business I was with a firm that had good contacts with one of the large US companies. We would get a lot of cases from them. One fax asked us to look for the next of kin of someone from California. It didn't supply the date of death which we queried. The reply was "She's not dead yet but will be any day now!"

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The Lighter Side / Re: Heir Hunters prime time
« on: Wednesday 16 November 11 17:13 GMT (UK)  »
Quote from: helenM123 on Sunday 23 October 11 17:51 BST (UK)
I always enjoyed watching this series until our family was contacted by a firm of "Heir Hunters" We were informed (my brother,sister and myself) that we had been traced as beneficiaries to an estate of a relative on my grandmother on my fathers side of the family but couldn't reveal who until we signed up with them.As my sister and I have been researching our family we could account for everyone way back and couldn't think for the life of us who it could be. My late Dad was an only child and had four cousins,two of whom were deceased,I was asked about any other relatives and mentioned the cousins and the chap from the heir hunting firm said yes he was aware of them and had their details and had been in touch with them too. However we found out the following day,it was infact one of my dad's two remaining cousins who had died. He'd been admitted to hospital and died suddenly over a bank holiday without being able to give details of next of kin,hence the delay in us finding out he had died.Somehow this company had got his details and proceeded to try and sign up relatives. He had only been dead for FIVE days!!! One thing that isn't made clear on this programme is just how large a percentage these companies take from deceased estates, 40% + vat in this case! No wonder they are so keen to beat the competition and sign people up. Needless to say they didn't get a penny out of us.
This is surprising as it doesn't sound like any of the firms that I know. I would be interested in knowing who it was if there's a facility to send a private message.

5
The Lighter Side / Re: Heir Hunters TV programme
« on: Friday 19 February 10 17:47 GMT (UK)  »
The F & F office is like a ballroom compared to mine. We had to borrow next doors cat to see if we could swing him and that wasn't appreciated.  We have our case-officers dotted around the country and that works well for us.
Neil is correct; the problem is other companies one or two of whom are so desperate to sign heirs that they drive the fees down to 2%.

6
The Lighter Side / Re: Heir Hunters TV programme
« on: Friday 12 February 10 17:25 GMT (UK)  »
Hi Plummiegirl:
Thanks for the enquiry. I use Brother's Keeper 6 which can be downloaded as freeware but if you pay a few dollars you get some extra bits and pieces which are worth-while. It produces a basic family tree with everything that the professional might need and if you trade up to the paid version you get enough extras for your own tree: photos, documents etc.

7
The Lighter Side / Re: Heir Hunters TV programme
« on: Thursday 04 February 10 17:39 GMT (UK)  »
If you want to get on the BV list, first thing is to die. After that, you can leave the rest to your friendly neighbourhood social services.

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The Lighter Side / Re: Heir Hunters TV programme
« on: Tuesday 02 February 10 11:42 GMT (UK)  »
I didn't see that show but finding a case dead is one of those things. I just had to close a million-dollare estate because all the family were dead.

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The Lighter Side / Re: Heir Hunters TV programme
« on: Sunday 31 January 10 10:47 GMT (UK)  »

Census information Crown Copyright, from www.nationalarchives.gov.uk


   Re: Whose your most famous rellie
« Reply #7 on: Today at 10:42:37 »     

~~~~~~~~
Estate administration: what can go wrong.
My company, Celtic Research has had some problems recently with estates that have either been administered by family members or by so-called "heir hunters" who haven't been in the business long enough to know what they are doing.
One case where an heir on one side of the family got the admin although we had signed the majorit of the heirs on the other side was where that heir decided that you took the sum total of heirs and divided the money equally between each one! And the first thing I knew about it was when the heirs got paid and we got our fee.
I've also got someone who claims to be an heir hunter and submitted a claim to our administrator on the basis of "this is a list of heirs; please give them the money and send me my fee." No family tree, (I eventually got one apparently scrawled on a roll of wallpaper) no certificates and copies of his agreements which committed him to nothing except getting his fee! The estate's worth about £5,000 and there are over 60 heirs so some of them will spend more money proving their claim than they will receive.
Heaven protect us from people who got into the business after series 1 thinking they would make a fortune in three weeks. 

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