Probate issue
questioner
I have a curios story I'll keep brief as possible. It may be a bit
confusing.
I received a letter from American Research Bureau of Salt Lake,
regarding searches for possible monies/property in probate, with no
obligation other than 25% of any recovered monies.
My father passed away mid-February of 2009. I had just contacted him in
2007 via the SS administration after 20 years of no communication
between he and his three sons. He has lived in the UK for about 25 years.
He passed away in February of '09. We found out about a month later when
we called him, and were informed by his long-time "partner" of his death.
She claimed she could find no phone numbers to contact us, but at the
least, thy were on my father's phone records (he usually called here due
to expense).
There was no discussion of a will, or anything of that nature. She
informed me that his divorce from his second wife had consumed his
wealth in the course of a brief conversation.
There was no further communication with her since then.
A bit of background: My father was at times quite wealthy, and had made
many promises over the years, etc. At the time of his death, he lived in
one of the most expensive areas of the UK, etc.
Now, almost a year later, I get this letter from ARB.
BUT, to make even more interesting, my middle brother, who is employed
but essentially off the radar,received the same letter this past week.
He rents a bedroom from someone, and his physical address is known only
to him and myself. This address is linked to him nowhere. He has no car,
no license, his landlady does not list him in any way.
But he got this letter at this address - the only letter he has received
at that address ever in the 4 years there. The only two letters he has
received in that time frame were sent to him c/o/ his employer.
IOW, someone went through a lot of effort to get his physical address,
because for all intents and purposes, no-one knows it other than two
people - he and I.
Now, here's my question/assumption:
This company must already know there is a probate issue - If it was a
mass mailing based on death notices, I think I would have received it
well before now, and they got the names from a recently posted probate
issue.
That they went through the effort to do the impossible - locate my
phantom brother's physical address, leads me to believe this company
sees it as worth pursuing.
Now, having already mailed in the agreement - what are the chances that
probate court in the UK will contact me with the information these ARB
folks just got 25% of?
d...@passenthru.net
Do a Google or Yahoo etc search for
AMERICAN RESEARCH BUREAU SCAM
and read at least a fair sampling of the information to which you will
be led thereby.*
- - - - - - - - - - - -
* On Sat, 30 Jan 2010 14:19:54 -0600, questioner <nu...@void.net>
wrote:
Assuming that someone who learns of the death of another person
"knows" that "there is a probate issue" is to indulge in near but
vacuous truism. Whenever a person dies in the U.K. or in the U.S.
there is an "issue" of whether (or not) the deceased left an estate
and, if so, whether (or not) the deceased left a will that ought be
probated.
It is possible that your father left an estate and it is also possible
that he died without a will, in which event his biological children
may be entitled to inherit some portion by reason of intestacy, or
possibly that he died leaving a will that left some portion of his
estate to one or more of his children or, also possibly, that he died
leaving a will that did not provide for his children.
One alternative for you is to wait passively until, possibly, someone
provides you with information about these matters than you have now.
Another alternative is to pay or to oblige yourself to pay money to a
scammer in the worse than empty hope that, possibly, that person is
not a scammer and, also possibly, that you will obtain a net benefit.
Still another alternative is that after more than twenty-five years of
estrangement and your knowledge that the deceased had created a
superseding family - including, at least, the person you refer to in
"scare" quotation marks as his "partner" - it may make sense not to
expect or to do anything more.
And still another alternative is for you is to be less passive and
also very careful in verifying the bona fides of persons with whom you
choose to deal in this connection to make more active inquiries on
your behalf then to decide whether to proceed further when, but only
if, you have more fact based information than you say you do now.
But an alternative that probably would not be prudent or, anyway,
helpful would be to act in reliance on what to do advice from anyone
whose knowledge of the facts is limited to what you say above.
Barry Gold
[OP received a letter from "American Research Bureau" telling him they
would search for monies owed him in probate, with them keeping 25% of
anything recovered. OP asks about his obligations.]
This is for discussion purposes only, and is not legal advice. I'm
not a lawyer. If you want legal advice, hire a lawyer.
First of all, until you agree to their terms you have _no_ obligation.
If the unsolicited letter provided enough information for _you_ to
track down the money you (may) be owed, then you can go ahead on your
own and pay them nothing.
Second, this outfit sounds shady to me. I don't know about the law in
Utah or in whatever state you live in (you don't say), but in CA the
rule is that agencies of this type are limited to 10%. Anybody asking
for more than that arouses my suspicions.
Third, you _can_ agree to use their services. If you do, you will be
agreeing to make your "best efforts" to recover the money with their
help. I ran into this with a CA outfit -- I was too busy dealing with
work and taking care of my parents to go digging through 10 years of
records looking for some proof that my father lived at a particular
address, and they threatened to sue.(*)
So don't agree to their terms unless you have the time and effort to
spare to follow through. And, for obvious reasons, don't agree if you
*already* know where the money is or can easily find out (e.g., by
looking it up on the Lost Property register of whatever state your
father lived in) -- unless you think that working with them will
somehow make it easier to claim the money. In my case, I found them
demanding _more_ papers than the state would have, which is part of
why I was disinclined to put forth the effort to dig up what was
needed.
(*) By the time this arose, both my parents had died and I had
resigned as trustee of their trust. I forwarded the mess to my
sister, the sole remaining trustee, who has nothing to do except
live off their estate, and she dug through boxes and found a utility
bill or something. Only it turned out that the agency failed to take
any action, so she called up and complained and they waived their fee.
My sister got to keep the whole $2,000 (approx.) Neat result.
--
Barry Gold, webmaster:
Conchord: http://www.conchord.org
Los Angeles Science Fantasy Society, Inc.: http://www.lasfsinc.org
Stuart A. Bronstein
> [OP received a letter from "American Research Bureau" telling
> him they would search for monies owed him in probate, with them
> keeping 25% of anything recovered. OP asks about his
> obligations.]
>
> First of all, until you agree to their terms you have _no_
> obligation. If the unsolicited letter provided enough
> information for _you_ to track down the money you (may) be owed,
> then you can go ahead on your own and pay them nothing.
Barry's post is excellent advice. I just want to comment on this
small part.
I used to deal with these kinds of things all the time, but haven't
for some years. At that time "finders" (or "heir chasers") were
limited to 10% only with respect to some matters, though I don't
remember exactly what that subset is right now. But in most cases
they can charge whatever they can get.
If he chooses, OP should feel free to negotiate with the finder.
Often people are contacted by more than one, and they can negotiate
a lower fee as a result.