Heir Hunters

Miss Poohs · Post by **Miss Poohs** » Thu Jul 10, 2008 11:07 pm

anyone else watch it?

I'd so love to do that for a living.

Do they have probate hunters in Scotland?

Post by **joette** » Fri Jul 11, 2008 12:50 pm

I'll bet they work on commission though so if they don't sign up you're stuffed!
This series much better than the previous & more realistic on the searches-not like WDYTYA where certificates etc appear out of thin air.
I think inheritance law is different in Scotland(I know it is) so perhaps different tactics there.

Miss Poohs · Post by **Miss Poohs** » Fri Jul 11, 2008 1:09 pm

I think it works that if you don't sign up they get nothing.

I watched one of the episodes yesterday and they informed a rellie of a death and an unclaimed estate (of which they were very sketchy with the details), and the guy went away, done his own research and claimed his share of the inheritance for him self from the treasury, there by cutting out the probate hunters altogether.

I think if you can prove a blood line - then you can claim in person.

Very interesting.

Post by **Ina** » Fri Jul 11, 2008 4:58 pm

There is a fellow who belongs to our Scottish Society of the Desert who traced his family back to a Baron in Scotland. Apparently there had been no male heirs for many years, so he inherited the title. I believe he's either the 6th or 7th Baron of Lanarkshire. Along with the title came some beautiful jewelry.

Regards,

Ina

Post by **joette** » Fri Jul 11, 2008 6:09 pm

I'm sure if they hunted me down it would be to inform that I was the
"Honourable Holder of the Royal Chanty" & had three hundred years of back fees to pay!
I don't think any of my rellies had much in the way of money to leave & most had large families to squabble over anything.

Miss Poohs · Post by **Miss Poohs** » Fri Jul 11, 2008 6:15 pm

I have the feeling if they were to come after me - it would be to pass on a great big bill from the poor hoose that had been lying for 100yrs and had gathered thousands in interest!!

Yep - no way would I be getting a wind fall.

Chris Paton · Post by **Chris Paton** » Fri Jul 11, 2008 7:35 pm

joette wrote:I think inheritance law is different in Scotland(I know it is) so perhaps different tactics there.

Yup, there is no chancery system in Scotland, as in England. As Scotland was feudal until 2004, if your ancestor died intestate (without a will), the estate went to the Crown as the last heir (ultimus haeres). If the ancestor died testate (i.e. with a will), and there was no claimant, the estate would be sold off and the proceeds would go to the Crown's pot, until a claimant appeared. A good article on Scottish wills and testaments by Bruce Durie appears in the current Family and Local History Handbook (11).

Incidentally, because Scotland is no longer feudal, the Scottish title of 'baron' (which is not the same as an English peerage rank of 'baron', it's a Scottish equivalent of the English 'Lord of the Manor', and not a rank in the peerage) is actually worthless, as it is no longer tied to the land. You can actually buy the rank of a 'baron' now; they appear from time to time on eBay for ridiculous amounts of money!

On the probate chasing front, my great grandfather died in occupied Brussels in 1916 as a civilian. He had been hiding for a year and a half from the Germans, before he died of stress. Having passed away intestate, after the war his wife returned to Glasgow, and was confirmed as his beneficiary. There were two pots of money, one in Scotland, the other in Brussels, and she was only able to get the Scottish portion.

Back in Northern Ireland, about twenty years ago, my father got a phone call from a German bank, asking him to confirm all his details and his relationship to his grandparents. He answered most question right, but then gave a wrong answer. No sooner had the German banker heard this, than he hung up on my father. I'm assuming that the Belgian assets of my great grandfather had somehow found their way to a bank in Germany shortly after the Germans found my great gramnps body out on the street (long story!). After his death, his son was arrested in 1916 and interned in Berlin, having turned 18, and my great granny and my grandad were under house arrest for a time in Brussels, where they remained to the end of the war. We'd love to know what became of his Belgian assets!

Chris

TAFKAM · Post by **TAFKAM** » Fri Jul 11, 2008 8:01 pm

These programmes are weird for me - a game of two halves if you will.

First of all, as with most genealogy based programmes, I find the storytelling aspect of it quite endearing, some of the tales are nice.

However, the whole sign 'em up "ambulance chasing" nature of the probate firms sickens me, especially when the work they do is something that pretty much anyone, with a wee bit time and patience, can carry out themselves.

The other thing that gets me - the whole "all of a sudden, John had an idea. What if ???? had been married a (incredulously pronounced) second time"?? I think most of us, ranging from amateur genealogists to people with decades of experience, winces through certain bits of the programme saying " I'D have done that first!!! Not as a late afterthought!!!"

I also get annoyed when you see these people doing the job, when it is abundantly clear that the Heir Hunters have little or no interest in genealogy in the first place. Purely in getting cash from the estate, that's their goal.

Rant over - time for an Innis & Gunn methinks!

Chris Paton · Post by **Chris Paton** » Fri Jul 11, 2008 8:20 pm

Hi TAFKAM,

I haven't seen Heir Hunters yet, because of the ambulance chasing point you've just made - I couldn't agree more. TV does always tend to dumb down a subject matter now, which is why I asked for voluntary redundancy from the BBC two and a half years ago, where I used to work as a producer. Family history sadly tends to get the same treatment. The Gene Detectives series last year on BBC1 daytime was a similar case in point, and was the first time I ever felt motivated to phone up the BBC to register a complaint, as it was very unethical. I don't trust the BBC any more with genealogy (I haven't done so since BBC4's Family Ties series a few years back), hence why I haven't bothered to tune in to Heir Hunters. The Corporation (and other TV channels) are too busy looking for stunts and gimmicks these days to peg a series on (unclaimed assets, DNA) and have forgotten the simple truth that a good story told well can make great telly without any gimmicks.

Now my rant is over!

Chris

trish1 · Post by **trish1** » Sat Jul 12, 2008 1:48 pm

Like any organisation in our wonderful free enterprise society, heirhunters have to make a profit to survive. As mentioned, people don't have to "sign" after they have been found, however, many do, because

- 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

Having just discussed online, the difficulty of finding some England/Wales records, for those who haven't been through the joys of doing this, it may well be easier to let someone else do the work, for a % of the money. 100% of nothing is nothing, if you don't get it correct.

I haven't seen the show - it doesn't yet go to my part of the world, but I would like to see it - from what I have read it sounds very interesting.

Trish