Certainty Will Search is not only used by the legal profession and the public but also local authorities.
Back in July we reported on a Certainty Will search that was undertaken by the Environmental Health Department at East Cambridgeshire Council who deal with ‘lone’ deceased persons. The Certainty Will Search identified an ‘unknown’ Will which had been registered with Certainty the National Will Register by a law firm.
The unknown Will of the deceased not only identified the actual beneficiary of the £230K estate (a charity) but also allowed the estate of a distant relative of the deceased, who had recently passed away leaving £295K to the deceased, to be distributed.
Within minutes of East Cambridgeshire Council carrying out the Certainty Will search, the law firm that had written, held and registered the Will contacted the council.
Jayne Stephenson from HEY Solicitors, a Law Firm whose history dates back over 200 years, comments: “The first we knew of the testator’s death was when Certainty got in touch. The Will was dated from April 2013 and the sole beneficiary of the Will was a charity.”
The deceased was deemed as a lone person and making contact while alive was not possible.
Jayne continues: “When pulling out this client’s file, it appeared that they should have inherited a substantial amount of money from a distant relative’s estate who had too passed away. The relative’s estate had not been distributed at the time of their death. HEY Solicitors then had the task of liaising with the solicitors dealing with the distant relative’s estate simultaneously, resulting in the charity not only receiving the estate from the person whose Will was being searched for but also from the estate that should have been inherited by her from her relative.”
The searcher from the Environmental Health Department at East Cambridgeshire Council commented: “The distant relatives under the rules of intestacy would have been next in line to inherit but the deceased’s Will stated very different instructions!”
HEY Solicitors received the probate work and distributed both estates at once, resulting in the charity not only receiving the £230,000 estate from the person whose Will was being searched for, but also the £295,000 estate that should have been inherited by the deceased from their relative.
