Hiring a Heir Hunter

Although not Heir Hunters ourselves we do have a wide range of professional researchers in the UK and worldwide who carry out assignments for a wide range of professional and private clients. Typical assignments include:

• Tracing relatives who have disappeared and efforts to find them have failed. Finding them may be personal or financial. Usually we are engaged by relatives of the lost person.
• An administrator or executor of a deceased person's estate is winding up the affairs and has beneficiaries entitled to moneys but who cannot be found.
• Lawyers and Insurance companies who wish to trace beneficiaries of bequests or insurance policies where the person named cannot be traced by traditional means.

Time frame

Sometimes a search can be successful within a week, or may take months.

Although hired by the day/hour this "hour" may be split over various periods of time and activity. For example 30 mins may be taken with initial research and then a few days are required to get back replies to emails, phone calls etc. Then the "clock" restarts each time a response is received, or when the researcher may spend 15 mins reviewing progress and setting off other lines of research, narrowing their field of enquiry until they strike "gold."

Costs

Rates are usually from £150 a day (8 hours) with a minimum of 1 day. Clients can set or limit costs to a number of days. The initial agreed fee is deemed the "retainer" or "advance". VAT may be added only if the researcher is VAT registered, most are not as they operate independently, some part time.

Some clients offer us a "bounty" or success fee which could for example be £5,000 for finding a particular person who has been elusive after years of research by the client and/or others. Or for example £500 "bonus" for each person found if a family may exist.

Fees are usually "all inclusive", or may charge extra for official certificates which may need to be obtained which may include, birth, marriage, divorce, death, probate certificates etc. Sometimes the instructing client may wish to obtain certificates direct, this may however slow some enquires down.

Procedure

The first move is to Contact Us and outline whom you seek and why, and what efforts have been made todate. Details of any certificates, family trees, reports or other documents you have are vital and help speed the case and keep costs down in duplicating effort which has already been carried out.

Once the terms of the assignment have been discussed and agreed (via email) we ask you to forward the initial fee agreed based on the number of  days (minimum 1)

We also ask you to post (or fax) us copies of any documents or notes you or others have complied during initial searches, as this can speed enquires. Often our researchers can spot a key area which has been missed which can help unlock many new doors needed to find the person sought. Read more details about sending documents to the HHA

On receipt of the retainer fee and documents these are inspected and one or more researchers are assigned who may then ask more questions. This "ground work" is essential as often you know or have access to much more knowledge than our researcher(s) may have access to.

Then the actual search proper starts, usually within a few days, a week at most of receiving formal instructions.

As the search progresses we may ask further questions or report useful findings. The key is the initial aim of the assignment " find John William Smith (JWS) alive " for example When JWS is found alive or proof of their death, the assignment is complete.

If JWS has issue (children) or a spouse then new instructions may be needed to expand the search. This may require a review of fees based on time taken todate, any "success bounty" due or paid and the amount of time likely to be need to continue searches.

Joy and sadness

The result of enquires can perhaps find a person:

• has died and left no descendents.
• has died as has their spouse but children and possibly grandchildren are found, the client may then wish to extend the search further to include them.
• is found alive and well, married with children and possibly grandchildren, opening up a whole world for the client, reuniting family perhaps locally or in other parts of the world they did not know existed.

Joining our team

New researchers are always in demand, and are drawn from our Membership - we do not accept speculative applications from non-members. If you are interested please Join and then Contact Us and outline your details - name, address, qualifications and experience and names and contact details of 2 referees. A brief outline of the way researchers work for us click this link

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