Heir Searchers: What you need to know about heir searchers and the heir search industry
As a Probate Attorney or Trust Officer working today, chances are at some point soon you’ll be presented with a case involving a missing heir. That being true, as a first step, you’ll probably start with a Google Search, like most firms do, related to missing heirs, the heir search industry, or heir searchers. What you’ll find? This: That there exists, perhaps surprisingly, a booming professional heir search industry, with myriad options available to professionals in your position.A quick read of industry information will show that hiring a professional heir search firm is the best choice, that conducting a search for a missing heir in-house or on your own, can be difficult, risky, and costly (because, among other things, most law firms, probate attorneys, or trust officers don’t have the time, staff, budget, expertise, or access to new search technologies and skills required to do a search quickly and accurately).
You’ll also find that there are two main types of professional heir search firms -- one (the most popular, percentage-based professional heir searchers often called Heir Hunters) you’ll want to stay away from, and another (non-percentage based professional heir searchers like International Genealogical Search Inc. (www.heirsearch.com)) you’ll want to learn more about.
Why? Because while Heir Hunters employ business practises that many in the industry consider unconscionable -- they often launch searches without the prior knowledge of the heir, the estate, or the acting probate attorney or trust officer, and have fee structures (“no fee to the estate” that can cost the heir (unknowingly) as much as 50% of the inheritance -- non-percentage based search firms (like IGS) take the best interests of the heir and the estate into account.
Non-percentage based professional heir search firms (or “heir searchers”) like IGS help you to uphold your fiduciary responsibility to the missing heir by charging fees based on a schedule of charges and dependent upon the nature of the search and the information available, not on the maximum amount the heir searcher believes they might be able to claim.
By putting yourself in the missing heirs shoes (as IGS implores probate attorneys and trust officers in your position to do) you’ll see that a non-percentage based heir search firm is the very best choice. You probably wouldn't choose to pay ⅓ or more of your inheritance to an opportunisticearch firm as a windfall finder’s fee just to be located. Well, neither would the missing heir.
Contact IGS today to learn more about the heir search industry, non-percentage based search firms like www.heirsearch.com, and how we can help you to uphold your fiduciary responsibility to your missing heir.
