When the average person thinks about missing heirs, they usually think of dollar bills inside old pairs of pants or quarters they left by the coffee maker for some reason. But missing inheritances aren't just limited to the Paris Hiltons of the world. Government agencies are holding millions of dollars in hidden, unclaimed money for people across the country, across every income bracket. It's no surprise that articles on unclaimed funds are regularly printed in Forbes, the New York Times, and seemingly every local news station around the country.
Some people are out to find this missing money for themselves. Other enterprising people look to find money that belongs to others and point them to it in exchange for a finder's fee. Still others are legal professionals looking to contact an heir for their state's probate system. Either way, locating missing heirs requires many of the same skills needed to find a missing person, with one crucial difference - all the heirs want to be found.
But locating a missing heir before their inheritance is seized by the government is a difficult task. Most governments have set time frames for locating an heir before an inheritance becomes government property. The state of California, for example, has a shocking 7.2 billion dollars in unclaimed money in its coffers, and only 20% of it ever gets claimed by the legal owners!
Tracking Unknown Heirs
Another difference between missing heirs investigations and missing persons investigations is that in many cases, private investigators don't really have a name or a location to begin with. Things get even stickier when the trail starts with a person who has already passed away - getting a deceased person to give you information about his or her family is exactly as difficult as you'd think. Still, there are plenty of effective ways to locate heirs -
Heir Finder Services
Online databases aren't usually as effective when it comes to tracking people - they're usually limited in scope and can't get into the same nooks and crannies that a real person can. But the state of California controller's office has a great database that allows prospective heirs to check on missing money with the ease of a ten second search. It's an amazing resource that everyone should use as a starting point if you're lucky enough to be a resident. If you or your friends don't live in California or a state with a similar resource, things get a little dicier.
Genealogy
This is the quickest way to find a missing heir if they're one or two generations back and you know all the players involved. But things can get thorny if the family isn't tightly knit. One of the problems faced by those searching for missing heirs is that family units are far more dispersed then they were even twenty years ago. One side of the family might live in the same state, and the other side might be spread across the country. And often when families become separated by great distances, people lose track of when their extended family members live.
If you're in a situation like this, you need to be smart and ask questions. Human intelligence is always the best tool that a private investigator has at his disposal. Ask about siblings, ex-spouses, and children, as these are the most reliable ways to trace a person. Nobody leaves their kids without good reason, and nobody forgets about a spouse completely.
Public Records
Birth records, marriages, debts, a credit report - all of these are inexorably tied to a person no matter where they go in life. Even negative stuff like bankruptcies, foreclosures, and liens can be useful!
Finding a missing store of money or missing heirs can be a time consuming and intense search, but we can make it simple. In a field this broad, the most important thing you can do is get a consultation with a professional who can give answers that are unique to your particular situation. Don't delay, visit http://www.privateinvestigatorservices.org/ today!
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