Wilson & Fish are a niche firm specialising in Executry, Probate and Estate Administration based in Glasgow and acting for clients throughout Scotland and overseas.
Fiona Bain, Executry Solicitor at the firm explains “In Scotland, Executry is the legal term used to describe a deceased estate once it has passed to the executor for distribution. At Wilson & Fish, we understand the importance of bringing closure to the families of the deceased. Our approach focuses very much on customer care and ensuring that clients are aware of what is going on during every step of the process. One of the most difficult parts of estate administration is making sure that we uncover and correctly value the full extent of the deceased’s estate, this can be particularly challenging when shareholdings are involved. This is where Estatesearch’s expertise has proved to be invaluable”.
Investigating the issue
“We had been really struggling with one case where, during our usual asset tracing process, a share registrar had informed us of an account with a major high street bank they had paid dividends into, a bank account which was then unknown to us. After 10 months of ongoing communication with the bank, who were adamant there was no match, they stopped replying to us and we didn’t know how to resolve the situation. We were contacted by a member of the Estatesearch team on an unconnected matter and they offered to help.”
Ollie Wright, Head of FI Team at Estatesearch continues “Even though we weren’t initially involved in the matter, when we heard about the issue that Fiona was facing, we were confident that we could help get to the bottom of problem. Our team immediately got to work and after some digging, we realised where the issue stemmed from. The bank was correct, there was no account in the name of the client for whom Wilson & Fish were acting. The registrar has mistakenly sent them details relating to the wrong person. After further investigation we located the correct account the dividends had been paid into. We were then able to start gathering the information Fiona needed to move forward. We also contacted the registrar who have since issued an apology.”
Customer service is key
Fiona adds “Estatesearch share our approach to customer service in that we both go above and beyond to ensure the very best outcomes for clients. We never would have got there without the help of Estatesearch as we had completely hit a dead end. Their services are highly recommended.”
Estatesearch has a dedicated Financial Institute Relationship Team focused on helping banks and other financial organisations improve processes and procedures to enable private client professionals to provide a better service to their clients.
Book a demo of our services to find out more about how we can support you with probate and estate administration.