Who appoints a solicitor in case of intestacy?

Hi all,


When a person dies intestate, who actually appoints the solicitor who deals with the matter of dividing the estate up amongst surviving relatives?

This is in the case of a bachelor with no children and no siblings. Is the solicitor automatically appointed by the state or does someone need to hire the solicitor?

I should be open on this and state that this query relates to research for a piece of fiction. So it's not a matter of life and death, but I would very much appreciate advice on this detail.

Of course it's a matter of life and death, because the situation arises among the living after a death has happened.

In general, the role of administrator falls to the closest surviving relative. If there are several people with the same degree of relationship, it decided is by agreement between them (sometimes the agreement is by default, in the sense that the others walk away because they don't want the responsibility). The administrator can appoint a solicitor to do the work, but sometimes the administrator does the work him- or herself.

If there are no traceable relations, then the state might appoint a solicitor to act.

Thanks Padraig

So if there is no known closest surviving relative and that that person has to be found - a cousin in the US, that kind of thing - the solicitor charged with finding that person would be appointed by the state?

If a verbal agreement had been made by the deceased with a non-relative relating to the estate, would that person be likely to appoint their own solicitor to look into the question of relatives?

I'm not sure of the mechanism by which the state appoints a solicitor; my guess is that the State Solicitor for the area would either act or recommend somebody to act.

There is no particular legal protocol for finding the closest surviving relative. Some friend or neighbour of the deceased might take it on out of goodwill. A verbal agreement made prior to death has no legal standing; in particular, somebody appointing a solicitor on foot of such an agreement has no assurance that the fees will be met out of the estate.

I suppose you know that if no relative is found, the estate goes to the exchequer.

The scenario of the state stepping in does not happen as far as I am aware, I've certainly never seen it happen.

In reality what happens is that wealthy bachelors are watched by cousins etc who have figured out some time ago that they are next in line and then the next of kin go to their own solicitor and start to investigate whether there was a will or not. Where there was no will next of kin will be traced. Where they are difficult to trace private investigator firms are hired.

Or what can often happen is that it starts with the body- when someone like this dies there is a body and a funeral to be arranged. A neighbour, a carer or someone like that arranges the funeral, the money has to be obtained to pay for the funeral, someone talks to a solicitor, solicitor starts an investigation.

Thanks, Vanilla.

But can we tease it out a bit, please?

Suppose a neighbour of mine dies and I have no knowledge of a family or where to start looking. And suppose further that as an act of neighbourliness I arrange a funeral. There appears to be some estate -- say, a furnished house, so I set out to recoup the cost of the funeral. I approach you and ask you to sort something out. This leads to two questions:
(a) what standing have I -- is it simply as a creditor, and can letters of administration be granted on that basis?
(b) after realising enough to pay the funeral expenses, what happens the residue of the estate (still on the presumption that no next of kin can be found)?

I had a friend who worked in the Attorney Generals Office and this was one of his functions. As I understood it, there would be an estate and there would be a necessity to finalise it - e.g. lands required by a state body for development or access or such like and he would appoint a local solicitor to make the application and the asset(s) would then vest in the state.

Mind you, in Ireland, it would be so rare not to have some (however distant) relative and I reckon Vanilla has it nailed!

mf

Yes I should have said it rarely happens- I was trying to give a flavour of real practice to the OP for their fiction.

I have been in contact with that office in the Attorney Generals before about estates, where I acted for someone with a common law action but in general, how would the State ever know about such an estate except in the unusual circumstances of compulsory acquisition, as mf1 says.

Far more common is where a house or building is left to ruin and the local council acquires it under the Derelict Sites act and bank accounts are left to go dormant.

I had a friend who worked in the Attorney Generals Office and this was one of his functions. As I understood it, there would be an estate and there would be a necessity to finalise it - e.g. lands required by a state body for development or access or such like and he would appoint a local solicitor to make the application and the asset(s) would then vest in the state.

Click to expand...

This is called an escheated estate. Automatically vests in the State, though I think if a genuine relative turns up years later, they can claim the value of the estate.