With an estimated £640 Million of dormant share holdings it is more important than ever when dealing with a deceased estate that you perform a search to track down any Shares belonging to the deceased.  Its important to remember that the rules on unclaimed shares differ from those for bank accounts, where dormant funds can be reclaimed in full at any stage. However, tracking down those dormant shares is not always as easy as it sounds.

If you come across an old share certificate, you may want to check if and what any value it holds.  The first action may be to check whether the company still exists. A check of Companies House (www.companieshouse.gov.uk) will hopefully provide you with an address for the company. If the company does still exist, write to the company secretary and ask for the name and address of its registrars, you can then contact the registrar to make sure you are on the list of shareholders.

This of course becomes far more complicated if the company has been taken over or the shares delisted (perhaps it has been bought back and become a private company) or gone under or you cannot locate any share certificates or information at all?

Harrisons Asset Search Solutions is aiming to simplify the process of locating shares and has introduced its Share Search to its list of  VERAFI -Asset Search Solutions.

A VERAFI - Share Search works with the three main Share Registrars  - Equiniti, Computershare and Link Assets as well as searching the FTSE 100, 250 and Aquis Exchange to identify and locate those elusive share holdings.

We are so impressed with the results that you can now include the share search with our VERAFI - Financial Asset Search, adding even MORE coverage its in search for Deceased Assets.