I'm writing from England with a long story, but I'll try to make short!
I was contacted by NSW Trustee & Guardian to tell me that my brother died in Sydney nearly 4 years ago. He made no will - so intestate. No wife ever. No known children.
He was in his late 80's and in a care home. They found a letter from me in his papers and asked if they could administer his estate - about $30,000 - I said fine. Since then, I've been emailing them regularly with no real progress.
At first, they asked me to fill in all the papers to claim as a beneficiary. I did that and gave all our parents and other siblings details.
The last email I had from NSW T&G was that they were still carrying out ongoing Genealogy searches to see if they were other possible beneficiaries. Seems a bit bonkers to me after all the info I gave them and also that they said they were trying to prove a negative i.e. that there were no other possible beneficiaries.
Cut to the chase - I left them to get on with it, feeling I had no choice in the matter anyway. This has been playing on my mind lately as I'm nearly 90 and trying to tie up loose ends.
I looked on the NSW Supreme Court website and found that NSW T&G had posted a Notice of Intended Distribution of my brother's estate back in 2014. They never told me about this. And they engaged in all the genealogy searches after this notice was posted!
Maybe I'm getting too old but I thought you'd find the beneficiaries before you posted such a notice. And really, in fact they already had, with all the paperwork I sent them.
Can't help feeling something is wrong. Am I and being swindled?
I would have thought NSW T&G were reputable but maybe someone knows someone and is giving them genealogy work to be paid for out of my brother's estate. Maybe they're just incompetent. Maybe I'm dim and not understanding.
Any help would be welcome - any thoughts - maybe I'm not clear on what that Notice actually means but it seems clear enough.
I was contacted by NSW Trustee & Guardian to tell me that my brother died in Sydney nearly 4 years ago. He made no will - so intestate. No wife ever. No known children.
He was in his late 80's and in a care home. They found a letter from me in his papers and asked if they could administer his estate - about $30,000 - I said fine. Since then, I've been emailing them regularly with no real progress.
At first, they asked me to fill in all the papers to claim as a beneficiary. I did that and gave all our parents and other siblings details.
The last email I had from NSW T&G was that they were still carrying out ongoing Genealogy searches to see if they were other possible beneficiaries. Seems a bit bonkers to me after all the info I gave them and also that they said they were trying to prove a negative i.e. that there were no other possible beneficiaries.
Cut to the chase - I left them to get on with it, feeling I had no choice in the matter anyway. This has been playing on my mind lately as I'm nearly 90 and trying to tie up loose ends.
I looked on the NSW Supreme Court website and found that NSW T&G had posted a Notice of Intended Distribution of my brother's estate back in 2014. They never told me about this. And they engaged in all the genealogy searches after this notice was posted!
Maybe I'm getting too old but I thought you'd find the beneficiaries before you posted such a notice. And really, in fact they already had, with all the paperwork I sent them.
Can't help feeling something is wrong. Am I and being swindled?
I would have thought NSW T&G were reputable but maybe someone knows someone and is giving them genealogy work to be paid for out of my brother's estate. Maybe they're just incompetent. Maybe I'm dim and not understanding.
Any help would be welcome - any thoughts - maybe I'm not clear on what that Notice actually means but it seems clear enough.
