With 700 unclaimed estates in Birmingham hundreds of Brummies could be oblivious that they have an inheritance waiting for them.

Could you be heir to an unknown fortune?

An estate is passed to the Crown if there is no will left by the deceased or there is no known next of kin.

In 2017 there are already four unclaimed estates in Birmingham.

They are those of John Leslie Smith, Bogdan Wiktor Boguniewicz, Leonard Dennis Clark and Peter John Russell.

The value of an estate must be at least £500 to be listed on the Central Probate Registry.

If claimed within 12 years then the individual will receive the value of the estate plus interest.

Danny Curran of Finders International and BBC’s Heir Hunters said: “These 700 estates are waiting to be claimed from the government, who are sitting on the fortunes of over ten thousand people across the UK.

“If someone thinks that they are related to somebody on the Bona Vacantia list then they can contact Finders International and we can help them.

“Some kind of documentation is needed before a search can commence.

“Then we can carry out an asset search and estimate the value of the estate.”
Surnames of some of the current unclaimed Birmingham estates include:

Afford

Allen

Arnold

Baldwin

Bambi

Bayliss

Bedford

Bennett

Blandord

Boguniewicz

Bird

Bishop

Brookes

Callaghan

Carter

Clark

Clewer

Cockerill

Collins

Cooke

Cunningham

Dodd

Douglas

Eddy

Ellis

Farrell

Fisher

Foster

Gardner

Gibson

Gordon

Griffiths

Harrison

Humphries

Hunt

Kelly

King

McKenzie

Murphy

Nicholls

Parker

Pearce

Phillips

Riley

Russell

Savage

Smith

Sullivan

Taylor

This article has been first published in birminghammail.co.uk