From misplaced certificates to long-forgotten investments, missing shareholdings are more common than many realise, writes John Martin
- Executors have a duty to identify all estate assets, including forgotten or missing shareholdings, which may significantly increase the value of an estate.
- With an estimated £2.8bn in unclaimed shares and dividends in the UK, modern search tools and share registrars can help trace lost investments and uncover hidden value for beneficiaries.
Ascertaining the monetary value of shares in terms of known investments is not necessarily problematic. For the purposes of probate, informing the company that the client is deceased usually leads to a prompt response specifying the value of the shares as of the date of the person’s death. What is considerably more difficult is cases where the names of possible companies in which the investments have been made are not immediately obvious.
This could be for a variety of reasons; the deceased simply may not have kept their registration details up to date, after, for example, moving house; or had not retained accurate records of their investments; or perhaps had forgotten
