When we have agreed to act on behalf of a new client, part of the administration and fact finding process, involves establishing what position the client is in now. We obtain accurate details of income and expenditure, assets and liabilities and quite often we obtain authority to speak with existing Investment companies, Banks and Insurance companies to get the up to date values and breakdowns, to establish what the current position of a clients portfolio is, whether it’s investments or life assurance policies. It’s a vital element of our process, because all the information obtained forms the basis of our advice and recommendations.
To be fair, most people are fairly up to date with the holdings they have, though occasionally a client will speak about an old bank account or savings account they used to have or their parents held for them with the Post Office and have lost track of it, or have no documentation- I remember my parents, a few years ago, passing me an old blue post office savings account book, of which they used to put money in, which they had forgot about, sadly with only a few pound in! But I’m still grateful of course!
We quite often deal with clients who have recently inherited or are due to inherit monies from parents or grandparents and they have very little information, apart from perhaps the name of the institution they think the money is held with. Quite often with all the emotion, things get missed when family or even Solicitors are dealing with probates.
We all know we live in an information world and almost everything is googlable and technology plays a major part in our research and advice process and one of the very useful websites that is available for all to use is http://www.mylostaccount.org.uk
So if you think you may have lost touch with your account or savings, this website will guide you through some simple steps to help reunite you with your money. This is a free service and is brought to you by the British Bankers’ Association, the Building Societies Association and National Savings and Investments. Together they represent most of the firms that offer savings and current accounts in the UK. So if you need to trace a lost account, this is the place to start.
Happy tracing!
