Heir Hunters

[AnneM]

Hi Chris

It is a bit misleading to say that if your ancestor died intestate his or her estate went to the crown. That is only the case if there were no relatives to inherit through the law of intestate succession which before 1964 was pretty complex.

Anne

[Chris Paton]

Hi Anne,

Sorry, it was very generic (probably too generic, granted!), hence why I mentioned Bruce's article, which has about 3000 words on the subject in all its wonderful detail...!

You're absolutely right, a court normally decided on a beneficiary etc, who would be confirmed, as happened with my great granny's case above - I meant the Crown would get it if no legal claimant could be established, which was what I had meant to say! In such a case, the Treasury would advertise the estate, and if no claimant came forward, it could still decide on payment for a "moral if not a legal claim" (to quote Bruce). If no claim was made, the Crown could get the lot, being the ultimus haeres.

Will be more careful next time! (More haste, less speed...!)

Chris

[Miss Poohs]

Trish could you watch it on iPlayer, that's where I watch it.

Just type in BBC iPlayer and see what happens, worth a try eh?

[trish1]

Trish could you watch it on iPlayer, that's where I watch it.

Just type in BBC iPlayer and see what happens, worth a try eh?

As far as I can work out, that only works in the UK. Whenever I try to play it it says - that doesn't seem to work - come back later.

If anyone gets it to work down under - do please let me know. (Or if I can disguise where I am ???)

Trish

[Currie]

Hello all,

I don’t think you’ll get it to work outside of the UK because it knows what part of the world you’re coming from. I even tried connecting via a free proxy server in the UK but the BBC gave me an error message something like “We’re not as green as we’re cabbage looking”.

It wouldn’t have worked anyway because the proxy speed was less than half the speed of a dial-up connection. If you can get a fast proxy that the BBC doesn’t know about, and set it up on your computer, it would probably be do-able but I think you have to pay for those.

Alan

[carolineasb]

Hi all

Not sure if anyone has mentioned this site before for checking on estates that have fallen to the Crown in Scotland:

www.copfs.gov.uk

If you click on the "Unclaimed Advertised Estates Fallen to the Crown" at the left hand side of the Home page, it will take you to a list of these Estates back to about 2003.

Caroline

[TAFKAM]

- if they hadn't been found by one of these firms they would have had NO idea that they were in line for some money
- they may have no idea how to take the claim further.
- it is not always something that pretty much anyone, with a wee bit time and patience, can carry out themselves

Hi Trish,

I take your point, very valid it is too. All I was alluding to though, was the fact that I've yet to see a complex case on one of these shows. All they do is check records that everyone has access to. It's the way they film it, edit it and put it out that hooks you into thinking that it's all one big mystery. Honestly - they're not all that difficult to solve, believe me.

Maybe it begs the bigger question of, why are these people so out of the loop with their families in the first place? That's a WHOLE different forum, eh??

[trish1]

I just managed to lose my reply - but to condense

I do take your point as well and think the last sentence is the reality of modern life and ease of travelling far from one's roots. In my research I have found pivotal folk (usually women) who seem to hold families together & once they pass away, the family contact seems to vanish.

As far as the program is concerned, I think the more difficult tracking is probably hidden - away from the eyes of the competition. I do know that in Australia the legal folks, when searching estate information are part of the privileged few allowed access to the more recent BDM information. I could spend weeks arguing that I should be allowed access & they could get the information almost instantly

Trish

[mean_genie]

I have been watching Heir Hunters with great interest, because in a former life I used to work alongside some of the researchers featured in the series, although I was not in the heir-hunting business myself. It's quite fun to see some familiar faces again.

The TV show does leave out quite a lot of what really goes on, as you can imagine. Quite a lot of the work that they do is not on the kind of 'competition' cases that you see on the screen, but commissions from solicitors to track down named beneficiaries. At least one large firm that I know of withdrew altogether from what we used to call 'coffin-chasing' some years ago.

They don't have any special access to records, but they do have a lot of experience and they know a lot of tricks and shortcuts. But in the end, they still have to produce enough solid evidence to satisfy the Treasury Solicitor. Having said that, sometimes they get it wrong too, and miss important clues.

I must admit I rather enjoy it when they spend a lot of time and money on the wrong line, or the family work out who has died and go it alone, or else another company has found the heirs first. And they do spend a LOT of money sometimes, which is why the large firms like Frasers only go for high value estates, otherwise it wouldn't be worth their while, even with the high rates of commission they earn. Because of the way the English system works, they need to buy lots of certificates at a minimum of £7 a go, or over £20 for the priority (ie 24-hour) service. In the old days when certificates could be ordered and collected in person in London, by the time the certificates were ready for collection they had often found out that some of them were not needed after all, so they never picked them up. The GRO staff at the Family Records Centre (and before that St Catherine's House) were always left with stacks of uncollected certificates, including priorities.

Chris, I remember seeing Gene Detectives last year, and mercifully the details have been wiped from my memory! I just remember thinking it was the most gobsmackingly dreadful piece of TV I had ever seen. Well done for complaining

Mean_genie

[SarahND]

www.copfs.gov.uk

If you click on the "Unclaimed Advertised Estates Fallen to the Crown" at the left hand side of the Home page, it will take you to a list of these Estates back to about 2003.

Hi Caroline,
I can't find that link and a search on the site returns nothing Can everyone else see it?
All the best,
Sarah