(Susan Ware) deceased
Susan Ware had been very independent for most of her life but, in her late 70s, she’d been taken financial advantage of quite badly by her cleaner. The Council became involved and became her appointee and the cleaner was dealt with. Sue had lived in her own home since her marriage decades before, and had been widowed at a fairly young age – she and her husband hadn’t had children. Some years before she died, Sue became very frail and moved into a care home. Whether or not she realised it, Sue was a lady of some means and was frequently encouraged to make a Will but never did – she would often say that she had “nobody to leave anything to.”
Very few people came to visit Sue in the care home and she didn’t respond well to enquiries about her family. When she died, in her mid-80s, the care home didn’t have anybody to contact regarding the funeral so they called on the Council’s Public Health Funerals team. The Council’s Appointeeship & Deputyship team were also involved – on one hand they’d been looking after Sue’s finances and held the balance of her money following her death; and, on the other, they were creditors of Sue’s estate given that their final invoices and OPG fees etc had yet to be paid. Sue’s home had been empty since she left it and had deteriorated – the Council’s Empty Homes Officer has been considering action under s. 215 T&CPA and was now anxious to bring it back into use as soon as possible.
In summary, we can see that the Council is:
| about to organise and pay for Sue’s funeral
| holding cash belonging to Sue’s estate
| a creditor of Sue’s estate
| anxious that Sue’s unoccupied home is brought back into use as soon as possible
The Problem
The Council could not simply pay itself what it was owed from the assets it was holding for Sue, other than for her funeral. Sue had not made a Will and nothing was known of her family, if indeed she had one, and the Council had no idea of who to approach regarding her funeral or to whom they should transfer the funds they were holding and send the care home’s final invoice to; and there was nobody to hand for the Empty Homes Officer to speak to.
The Solution
We see very many cases comprising some or all of these elements. Mindful that a referral to the Government Legal Department was almost certainly premature and unnecessary, the Council approached us with the facts of the case and asked for help. Sue having passed away, UK GDPR was not an issue. We rebuilt Sue’s family tree, clearing off the succeeding classes of kin in order of priority until we isolated the class containing surviving members. In Sue’s case, this was her uncles and aunts of the whole blood and their descendants. This means that because there was no closer living relative, we had to identify and locate all of her cousins – and there were more than 40 all around the world. The family instructed us to take on the administration of the estate, which we did.
The Outcome
Statistically, it was always extremely likely that Sue had surviving next-of-kin and our research proved this to be so. We kept the Council updated along the way and as soon as we were instructed by the next-of-kin, we made the funeral arrangements ourselves, taking the funeral out of s. 46 Public Health Act. This saved the Council the time and costs of doing it themselves. Had the funeral already taken place, we would have reimbursed the Council for its costs on sign of the Funeral Director’s invoice.
As soon as we had the grant of probate we took receipt of the funds that the Council had been holding and gave them a formal indemnity against any person or organisation claiming against them for the funds. We then settled all Sue’s liabilities, including those with the Council. Sue’s house was sold and changed hands accordingly and was brought back into use. The new owners spent a short time improving it, moved in and started paying Council Tax.
Conclusion
We deal with cases like this all the time. If any element of Sue’s story has chimed with you and you could use help locating next-of-kin, do get in touch. We’d love to help.
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