A missing heir is a relative who is unaware of their inheritance due to unknown whereabouts. Probate courts may hire investigators to find them, but locating them doesn’t guarantee inheritance. Laws differ on unclaimed property, and missing heirs can be found in various scenarios, requiring diligent search.
A missing heir is the term used to describe a relative who has been asked for a gift by a deceased relative, but who is unaware of his inheritance due to the whereabouts of this individual being unknown to those responsible for the distribution of the property of the deceased. In an effort to find missing heirs, it is not uncommon for an probate court to find that a beneficiary had little or no contact with the deceased prior to being named in that person’s will. Finding a missing heir can sometimes take years and some heirs are never located.
Finding a missing heir is not always an easy task. When traditional search methods fail to discover a person’s whereabouts, a probate search investigator who specializes in finding missing heirs can be hired. Many of these investigators commonly have international ties to other investigative resources, which is helpful since missing heirs may not necessarily reside in the same country as the probate court where a will is being examined.
Because many wills are contested by other heirs and family members, simply locating a missing heir is not always a guarantee that an inheritance will be granted. Special investigators skilled in these matters are also sometimes hired to uncover evidence in an attempt to demonstrate why a missing heir should not be eligible for a will. It is not unusual for such matters to take several years to resolve in probate court, as the process of locating a missing heir is often followed by a lengthy legal battle.
Jurisdictions may differ on how to proceed with a will in cases where an heir cannot be identified. In some cases, laws may require that all assets intended for an heir be sold and the proceeds held in a government treasury account as unclaimed property. Due to advances in technology, many of these databases are available to be searched online by the public, and many heirs have discovered unclaimed property by doing random searches on such websites.
Sometimes a missing heir is found to be a child given up for adoption at birth, but still included in a relative’s will. In other cases, a missing heir may simply be a child living with her or her mother in another state who was left with an inheritance by a father who had little or no contact with the child or the child’s mother before to die. There are a variety of possible scenarios that explain the existence of missing heirs, but most probate courts require that a diligent search be performed in an attempt to find such individuals before a will can be distributed.
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