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The Process of Seeking Out Heirs

The process of seeking out heirs, the proverbial long lost heir, is rather complicated. But in the end is well worth it. Chances are that you have seen a movie where the plot entails someone who did not know they had a relative with an estate and all of a sudden they are contacted and a large sum of money comes to that person. Even though our "character" in that movie is usually very brief, nevertheless, that character is who we are. We hunt down people to provide the good news.

 

 

Introduction

 

What the movies do not show is just how involved this process is. Because the exact process is proprietary and we do not wish to give away our secret skills, we will cover the topic generally in this article.

 

Over view of what is involved in seeking out heirs

 

1. First is the Dangers

 

The primary concern is getting it wrong. We have no interest in giving away an entire estate to someone that is not legally entitled to it. Worse still, that deprives the person that is legally entitled to the estate from their legally due enrichment.

 

2. Navigating the perils

 

Your author was once at a doctor's office getting a blood draw, and the phlebotomist needed to in put my personal information. She added my name and date of birth and I appeared in the screen, but it was not me. Astonished I said that is amazing that someone has my exact name and date of birth. She said it is incredibly common. 

 

One would think that such an identifier as a family name and date of birth would be enough, but clearly it cannot be, if such an event is common place.

 

3. Honing in on the actual heir

 

While the odds are good you have a same-name, same-birthday twin out there; the odds of you also sharing relatives with the same names are significantly more unlikely. So a broader search of not only the decedent's family and contacts is needed, but also of any possible identified heirs.  Therefore each potential issuance must be verified through multiple channels. Once our separate sources all converge on the same person, we can feel confident to proceed with making real life, that movie magic moment.

 

4. But it is rare there is one heir

 

The entire process above must be repeated for every person that is possibly identified as a potential heir. This could include any where from one person to likely dozens of potentials. After running through various scenarios and matches and mismatches, we get closer to an answer. Because it is just as important to rule someone out as rule them in, we must be methodical in our investigation.

 

5. Conflicts and partial matches

 

On occasion it happens when our systems partially agree, and importantly, partially disagree. When this happens, depending on the strength and sources of agreement, we have a conflict that must be resolved. In this event, we are not the judge and jury, rather we take it to the judge and set a hearing to determine the rights of those involved. 

 

Sometimes it is possible and even necessary to do a lineage test. These are expensive, but when a true conflict is at hand, this expense may be worth its weight in gold.

 

6. Regardless of conflict approval is needed

 

Even when the process identifies a person that is an heir, we cannot just walk up and give them a check with a large number printed on it. Before this can occur, we must advise the courts that we have located an heir and submit the proof to get a judge's authorization to release it.

 

7. The process is often worth it 

 

Of course being that movie character is fun, but we also have a staff that must implement that procedure to identifiy and rule out heirs. Our staff loves to make people feel great, but they also like to eat food and have a nice place to live at and purchase clothes for their children, etc. Plus our company must pay for a location for them to work at and all the bills that go along with it, not to mention our research programs cost money. Further still, we are in business for profit, not just goodwill alone. 

 

Therefore, all of this procedure requires a fee be exacted from the estate. To ensure uniformity to all, the fee for this process is 30% of the estate, regardless of size. Which is our fee across the board if we have to locate heirs. Usually people are extatic to receive for example $70,000 and do not mind that it is not the full $100,000 because they understand yesterday they had $0 in bonus inheritance, and only because of our efforts are they $70,000 richer today.

 

This notice is placed out to the world to notify of our fees if we are required to search you out. 

 

If heirs are already known and identified by government paperwork, then the above is not needed to be undertaken.

 

8. All property has an owner

 

It is a common misconception that there is abandoned property in the world. By law all property is owned. How can property be owned if there is no one alive to claim it? In that event the property is automatically owned by the state. This is called escheat. 

 

This is why our process of identifying heirs is so important, because if we just give up and declare no heirs without the work being put in, then someone's rightful inheretance if given to the state.

 

But on occasion, and more often than one may think, when a person dies, that is the end of their entire family line. Unless they set up a will that donates money to a charity or friend or their pet (yes that is a thing under the law), then the state takes ownership. In the event there is no identifiable heir and our research confirms this, we are required by law to surrender all of the proceeds in the estate to the government. See ARTICLE 1. Estates of Deceased Persons, of Chapter 6, of Title 10, of Part 3, of the California Code of Civil Procedure.

 

Conclusion

 

The next time you see a movie with the plot of the long lost relative getting an inheretance, you will know just how much went into the process of identifying the main character of that movie. And you can appreciate the pain staking process involved in making sure that main character was correctly ascertained.

 

We hope you get to be a star in your movie too. And when we present that movie magic moment, please be grateful that we did so much work to make sure you were correctly named and did not give it to the wrong person, nor just surrender it to the state.