By Legal Futures’ Associate Landmark Information
Landmark Information, the property, land and environmental data specialist, has today announced that, for the first time, probate professionals can now access Experian CAIS (Consumer credit Account Information Sharing) data as part of its trusted all-in-one LandmarkFAS (Financial Asset Search) service. This means that LandmarkFAS now supports the reconciliation of both active and inactive assets and debts, in one combined report, saving time and money for probate teams; all from one single order.
With reports suggesting that up to £15 billion of unclaimed financial assets are present in bank accounts, pensions, life assurances and investments*1 and almost half of UK adults confirming that they would not know how to find the details of a loved one’s total financial assets upon their death*2, the LandmarkFAS tracing service centralises the arduous task of locating current, lost or forgotten financial assets by enabling lawyers to input the person’s information just once.
LandmarkFAS searches over 200 financial institutions in one order, including the Experian Unclaimed Asset Register, and identifies personal pensions, life policies, occupational pensions, unit trusts, investment trusts, investment bonds, National Savings & Investments, Building Societies and Banks dormant accounts, FTSE100 shares; also Wills registered with the officially-recognised national wills register.
Caroline Alexander, Senior Associate (FCILEx), Michelmores LLP has been using LandmarkFAS service for many years and is enthusiastic about the new data, “The fact that LandmarkFAS now includes details on active and inactive assets and debts is transformative for legal professionals. It gives me confidence that I have full coverage regarding the deceased’s financial affairs, without having to sift through mountains of paperwork. It covers everything we need to progress with probate and, in my view, is a critical service that I wouldn’t be without.”
Chris Loaring, Managing Director (Legal), Landmark Information said, “In today’s world, where people don’t necessarily keep paper records of their financial affairs, our new LandmarkFAS service greatly supports probate professionals in uncovering credit and debt against a deceased person; removing the need for time-consuming manual investigations.
“Probate professionals have a number of important obligations to fulfil, whether they are acting as an executor to a will or assisting the personal representations. Our LandmarkFAS service gives confidence to legal professionals and their private client customers that thorough due diligence has taken place to support the process of administering a deceased person’s estate.”
As part of the update, the LandmarkFAS online ordering platform has been revamped to make it quicker to place orders via a new secure online portal, in addition to providing the ability to track status updates and feedback from financial institutions.
By registering on the new LandmarkFAS secure platform, probate professionals receive log-in details to the service and can order a search by providing details of the deceased. All the findings are consolidated into one single report, which is delivered within 28 days. The LandmarkFAS system will continue to monitor any additional responses for a further 90-days after the initial search was ordered for complete peace of mind.
For more information regarding Landmark Information visit www.landmarkfas.co.uk or telephone 03300 366000.
