>> The thing that puzzles me is, when someone who has no obvious relatives dies, how
>> do the authorities, or the executor know that they have located all the assets and
>> monies that the person possessed?
>>
>> How does anyone know there wasn't an odd £10,000 tucked away in XYZ Unit Trust?
There are, as somebody else pointed out, professional firms that will work on tracing relatives and no doubt assets too. The BBC ran several series on this work under the title Heir Hunters. One of the subjects was a chap who turned out to be called Charlie Cullum. He was a former colleague of mine though we knew him as Carl Von-Eudeni, a Clerical Officer He was the sort of eccentric who wouldn't last in today's Civil Service but personnel found various niches for him over the years. He'd had some sort of health incident as a youngish man that completely turned his personality - there was a medical term for it.
Where people have no relatives whatsoever the estate passes to the Crown though it can be restored if a relative emerges later. There are oddities in Cornwall and Lancashire where it passes to the Duchy rather than directly to the Crown. There's a team at the Treasury Solicitor's Office dealing with it:
www.gov.uk/government/organisations/bona-vacantia
They will go through documentation etc with a fine tooth comb.
Last edited by: Bromptonaut on Mon 26 Apr 21 at 17:53
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