A shares question

[Mo1959]

It covers everything. The person is 95.
TBH when I agreed to PoA and went to the bank with them. Upon coming out the person said to me "thank goodness for that, its your problem now".
I am trying to sort this without causing them stress.

Hopefully they will be like my dad and step mum and have a drawer or filing cabinet with everything pertinent to their finances. I found an old shares certificate when I was dealing with dad's estate. In my case, just a matter of handing it to the lawyer to deal with as dad had made him the executor thankfully.

 

[Trickedem]

I had POA for my Dad as he had Alzheimers. We found some share certificates in a company called Redman Heenan and he told me they were worthless. This was indeed the case originally. However the company was used in a reverse takeover and the shares had suddenly become active again. The moral of the story is to check the value of any share certificates you find with the relevant Registrar.

 

[nickyboy]

If you know which companies the shares are held in, it's pretty simple. Contact the company and find out their registrar details.

On the basis that it's never going to be that simple, it may be worth contacting some of the larger UK registrars* (Computershare, Equitini, etc) to see if they can help. They will need to see a certified POA before supplying any information and it's possible that they are unable to search by name across all share registers, but it's worth a try.

*All UK limited companies must keep a record of who owns their shares. Many companies can't be arsed to do this themselves so outsource it to specialised registrars. It's been many years since I was in this line of work but I doubt much has changed.

I'm in this area and can confirm that your advice still holds good. In the absence of a physical certificate the best approach is to look at the company's website. All UK listed companies are obliged to provide details of their company registrar on their websites. Failing that, just contact the company. Then contact the registrar. They deal with this type of enquiry all the time

 

[Lozz360]

Just a thought, can you check the person's bank account? There may be dividend payments that should give you the info. you need.

 

[Notafettler]

To make life easy for the children, should I depart unexpectedly, I do have a spreadsheet listing my holdings, I my even tell them the password, one day

I'm not, i told them they will have to work for it!

 

[Notafettler]

It covers everything. The person is 95.
TBH when I agreed to PoA and went to the bank with them. Upon coming out the person said to me "thank goodness for that, its your problem now".
I am trying to sort this without causing them stress.

Ha ha ha. Nice one he suckered you good and proper.
Note the following when he pegs it you are responsible for checking all debts are paid. If there is claim after the proceeds of the will are handed out YOU AND YOU alone are responsible for the debt. There is no comeback on those that have received money. You owe the debt even if you have received nothing from the will. You do a reasonable check put an advert in the London gazette and 6 months latter you can hand out the money with no fear of come back.

 

[SpokeyDokey]

I'm not, i told them they will have to work for it!

Does that mean you are not leaving them anything or that you are going to make it hard for them to track down your holdings?

 

[Notafettler]

Does that mean you are not leaving them anything or that you are going to make it hard for them to track down your holdings?

The latter, I don't see why they shouldn't work for it. That assumes they will out live me, I don't intend on that happening either!!