Financial asset search: what it is and why you might need it

Are you sure you have found all the assets in the estate? According to the Daily Telegraph, there is an estimated £50bn of unclaimed assets sitting in dormant accounts in the UK. A financial asset search can help you find any unknown assets.

Assets you might not know about

We have numerous clients that discovered unknown assets whilst going through the probate process. Often the discovery was only by chance and incurred unnecessary costs and delays to finalising the estate. 

Unknown assets often include:

• banks and building society accounts
• personal pensions
• investments
• life assurance policies
• shareholdings
• National Savings & Investments (NS&I) holdings

What a financial asset search is

A financial asset search is an easy and cost-effective way of locating all the assets that are due to an estate. 

There is a company called Estate Search who offer a market-leading comprehensive service that covers over 200 financial organisations and 350 financial databases. Their searches reveal an unknown asset in 56% of cases.

After uploading various details about the deceased to their portal, they will use their integrations with hundreds of companies and financial databases in the UK to locate any unknown assets. Notifications are provided to you in real-time when a financial institution reports a ‘match’. You’ll also receive information on how to claim the asset.

Different financial institutions take longer than others. Some will only take a few days to respond, others may take up to 8 weeks.

This type of search is a legitimate estate expense. That means you can either use the estate money (if you already have access to it) or pay yourself back later from the estate.

Main benefits to running a financial asset search

• Maximise the estate’s value in a cost- and time-effective way
• Perform due diligence when undertaking your duty as executor
• Reduce risk of unnecessary costs and delays if you find assets after probate (you’d potentially have to go through the process again)

What you’ll need to run a search

To run a search, you will need:
 

• all the deceased’s personal details, including:
• National Insurance number
• last 5 years of address history
• the death certificate (from the local council)
• the will (if applicable)
• if there’s no will, your birth or marriage certificate showing your relationship to the deceased

Where to run a search

There are a few providers of this type of search. Estate Search offers a comprehensive service to non-solicitors for £192 (at the time of writing).