Heir Hunters TV programme

[carol8353]

.  George Ardley the farmer, for example, who had an interesting trip to his own funeral on a snow plough - very amusing 

I half expected them to say at the end that each heir had inherited 15 and a half cows each !!! That trip to the funeral was hilarious too- can't see anyone allowing that in the middle of a town 

I have to record each programme and watch it while I'm having lunch,couldn't possibly wait till the next day to watch it 

Carol

[deesam56]

Surely the best place to get legal advice is going to be from a probate solicitor?  After all you dont expect Neil or any other HH company to give you that info and thus creating more competitors.  Have you seen the Heir Hunters Association website http://www.heirhunters-association.org.uk/  which may be a better place to find out.

Also how can you say that the big companies haven't been able to trace these families?  They will only trace families where there is a chance they would recover some of their costs.

No what I meant was when I have traced ancestors for family tree purposes, in particular, I had one customer who previously engaged a large genealogy company and they got a lot of facts wrong
My company is just myself and my husband and we took over and started again and got all the correct information - certficates etc
so when I say sometimes a larger company can trip over its own feet it's true - too many cooks spoil the broth

[Nick29]

I have been a victim of bad heir hunters, and I know that Neil Fraser from F & F agrees with me, that the heir hunting industry needs better regulation.  In my case, my half-brother's estate was paid out to distant cousins, because the heir hunting company that dealt with it completely failed to find my sister or myself, even though my half-brother's birth certificate clearly showed the name of our father, and my sister's name was on our father's death certificate, as his daughter !  The whole case could have easily have been solved in about 10 minutes by most of the people on this forum !

The difficulty arises because it is hard to prove that the failure to find the correct heirs were due to an intent to deceive and not incompetence.  The reason I say this is because although my sister & I were not close to our half-brother (it's quite hard to be close to an almost total recluse who doesn't own a phone and who doesn't reply to letters), but if anyone had knocked on either mine or my sister's door and told us that someone had died and left us money, there was only one person that it could be.  The cousins, on the other hand, had never met our half-brother, so they would sign up on the dotted line.

Fortunately for us, the 'wrong heirs' had taken out missing beneficiary insurance, so we got money from that, but we still had to pay legal fees, so we ended up losing 1000's of pounds, and it still took us more than a year to get the money that was rightfully ours.  Still, it was still better than having to sue an old lady in her 80's, and creating animosity with cousins that I'd never met.  However, if we had gone down that route, I would have also gone after the heir hunting company and had my day in court with them, even though (as Neil Fraser advised) it was highly probable that this small company would probably have gone bankrupt before we saw any damages from them, even if we had managed to prove the case.  I will be eternally grateful to Neil Fraser for the time and advice that he gave, even though his company had nothing to do with our case.

If I were to be doing heir hunting professionally, I'd want to take out some sort of insurance in case a mistake ended up as a court case.

[deesam56]

I have been a victim of bad heir hunters, and I know that Neil Fraser from F & F agrees with me, that the heir hunting industry needs better regulation.  In my case, my half-brother's estate was paid out to distant cousins, because the heir hunting company that dealt with it completely failed to find my sister or myself, even though my half-brother's birth certificate clearly showed the name of our father, and my sister's name was on our father's death certificate, as his daughter !  The whole case could have easily have been solved in about 10 minutes by most of the people on this forum !

The difficulty arises because it is hard to prove that the failure to find the correct heirs were due to an intent to deceive and not incompetence.  The reason I say this is because although my sister & I were not close to our half-brother (it's quite hard to be close to an almost total recluse who doesn't own a phone and who doesn't reply to letters), if anyone had knocked on either mine or my sister's door and told us that someone had died and left us money, there was only one person that it could be.  The cousins, on the other hand, had never met our half-brother, so they would sign up on the dotted line.

Fortunately for us, the 'wrong heirs' had taken out missing beneficiary insurance, so we got money from that, but we still had to pay legal fees, so we ended up losing 1000's of pounds, and it still took us more than a year to get the money that was rightfully ours.  Still, it was still better than having to sue an old lady in her 80's, and creating animosity with cousins that I'd never met.  However, if we had gone down that route, I would have also gone after the heir hunting company and had my day in court with them, even though (as Neil Fraser advised) it was highly probable that this small company would probably have gone bankrupt before we saw any damages from them, even if we had managed to prove the case.  I will be eternally grateful to Neil Fraser for the time and advice that he gave, even though his company had nothing to do with our case.

If I were to be doing heir hunting professionally, I'd want to take out some sort of insurance in case a mistake ended up as a court case.

well theoretically a good job would not need insurance but yes it is adviseable
I will do old cases where there is no rush to 'get there first'
A thorough job is what is needed and no it isn't hard to trace people in this country but taking your time over it and getting it right is most important

[Nick29]

Well, the irony was that when I spoke to Neil Fraser he remembered the case, even though it was at least 6 years old !  Apparently, F & F had considered persuing my half-brother's case, but they didn't, because he wasn't a property owner.  Unfortunately there was no way of them knowing that my half-brother had over £230,000 of assets in the bank     Shame for both of us really, because I know that Fraser and Fraser would have done a good job 

[LizzieW]

One quick query to Neil.  Are the meetings with the heirs reconstructions?  My husband was watching a programme with me last week and commented on the fact that surely the people in the cars can't have a camera crew with them every time they knock on someone's door.

Lizzie

[carol8353]

I remember Neil saying some time ago that knock on the door first to ask if they'd mind being filmed and then knock again (act surprised!) and make it look like they'd just turned up!

Carol

[deesam56]

Well, the irony was that when I spoke to Neil Fraser he remembered the case, even though it was at least 6 years old !  Apparently, F & F had considered persuing my half-brother's case, but they didn't, because he wasn't a property owner.  Unfortunately there was no way of them knowing that my half-brother had over £230,000 of assets in the bank     Shame for both of us really, because I know that Fraser and Fraser would have done a good job 

how does the treasury solicitor know how much the deceased has left intestate?

[Nick29]

Well, the irony was that when I spoke to Neil Fraser he remembered the case, even though it was at least 6 years old !  Apparently, F & F had considered persuing my half-brother's case, but they didn't, because he wasn't a property owner.  Unfortunately there was no way of them knowing that my half-brother had over £230,000 of assets in the bank     Shame for both of us really, because I know that Fraser and Fraser would have done a good job 

how does the treasury solicitor know how much the deceased has left intestate?

Because solicitors acting on behalf of the Crown would have made searches of bank accounts, etc.  They would also have advertised for heirs in the newspapers.  At one time, the value of estates were advertised in the Bona Vacantia list, but this was stopped to prevent fraud.

You can find out more about the work of the Treasury Solicitor here.