When managing estates with international assets, complexities abound. One such complexity is escheatment—a process that can significantly impact estates with US-based assets. In this article, we explore escheatment, its implications for UK estates with US holdings, and how practitioners can mitigate its risks. What is Escheatment? Escheatment refers to the legal process by which unclaimed or dormant property is transferred …
Resealing a Grant of Probate: What It Means and When
When managing the estate of a deceased individual, particularly if assets are held in different regions, you may encounter the need to reseal a Grant of Probate. Whether you are a solicitor, financial advisor, or accountant managing an estate with cross-border elements, understanding when and why a reseal is required can ensure that assets are handled efficiently and within legal …
A Guide to Navigating Overseas Assets
A step-by-step guide to assist you in administering deceased assets. The Estate Administration process can be complicated, especially when handling an estate that is not straightforward. For example, different rules will apply if the deceased did not have a will. In some instances, there may be missing beneficiaries to be tracked down before distributing the estate or foreign assets forming …
How to Handle Selling UK or International Securities
The sale or transfer of securities process is time-consuming, involving a lot of paperwork with different requirements from share registrars. The process becomes even more complex regarding overseas shares and funds. Each country has contrasting rules, processes and established ways when handling the transfer or sale of securities. Navigating these varying rules slows down the work. Many investors move between …
Navigating Overseas Probate: effectively managing the pitfalls
Working through overseas probate is never easy nor straightforward due to differing laws and regulations between countries. As a result, unforeseen challenges frequently occur when working on overseas probate cases, making the process strenuous and time-consuming. Probate and International Investments It is not uncommon for individuals to have assets abroad or hold international investments. For example, we estimated 3.5% …
Resealing Grants Overseas
When non-UK shareholdings and assets have a value so that an informal procedure such as a ‘Small Estate Procedure’ cannot be used, it is necessary to obtain probate or equivalent in the jurisdiction in which those shareholdings and assets are situated. Where those assets are situated in jurisdictions within the Commonwealth, or in certain circumstances formerly so, such as Australia, …
What do you do with offshore assets?
Should you have faced the scenario of finding evidence of an asset which is not located in your legal jurisdiction in the administration of an estate, you will know that there can often be complications involved in dealing with that asset. Even those who have met this before are often tempted to ‘park’ the offshore asset whilst dealing with more …
Lost Share Certificates – Countersignatures.
Have you lost a share certificate? If the paper share certificate is lost, then usually the share registrars (being frequently Computershare or Wells Fargo for USA shares) will ask for an Indemnity Bond which usually costs about 3% of the current value of the shareholding. In the case of U.K. shareholdings, a countersignature will be asked for and again this …
Business Case – Dealing with a Deceased’s Estate
May 2016 We recently received a request from the Solicitors dealing with a deceased’s estate. They were presented with a bundle of paperwork involving shares, funds and bank accounts held by the deceased. It seems that the late Mr X did not like to throw anything away!!! Among the paperwork there were share certificates for companies that no longer existed, funds that …
Assorted Companies
Hewlett Packard share split in November 2015 divided into Hewlett Packard Inc and Hewlett Packard Enterprise Inc and shareholders received an equal number of shares in Hewlett Packard Enterprise Inc. Verizon / Vodafone – the closure of the Verizon Nominee Account at Computershare, Bristol has caused all former Verizon shareholders to have their shares moved to Computershare …