Lost Heir | About our fees

About our fees

Percentage based fee agreements with heirs and set fees paid by the fiduciary: There are occasions where each is appropriate. Where only one of several of the heirs is missing, we can enter into a fee agreement with the heir whom we locate. This way, our fee is paid solely by the missing heir and not by those heirs who are known to the estate. (We often refer in our office to the Birthday Card Test....if only that missing heir had sent his dear deceased aunty a birthday card, he wouldn't be missing today!). Possibly there are no funds available to pay for our services, and the only way that the heirs will be found is if we enter into fee agreements with them.

If, however, you have funds available (or the court will make them available) and you wish to pay us directly when you make distribution to the heirs whom we have found, we welcome this and can work at a somewhat lower fee (because we are not at risk of failing to reach an agreement with a recalcitrant heir).

The actual percentage we charge varies according to the difficulty of the case and the size of the estate. There are companies who claim that only a formula based fee is fair. Their formulae usually involve some rather complex arithmetic, based, essentially, on years since the missing heir was last seen, or degrees of kinship or whatever. But this makes their fees neither fair nor reflective of the difficulty of the case. When you call us, and request a quote, you are likely to be asked the surname of the missing heir, the geographical region where he/she was last known to be and other pertinent questions. Our experience-and common sense-allow us to give you a fair and accurate fee quote without counting or resorting to multiplication tables - and our fee quote is invariably competitive, frequently lower.

What happens when we don't find the missing heirs? We give you a complete synopsis of our efforts, in affidavit form if you wish, at no charge to you.