We have contacted you to ask for your help in arranging for an unclaimed asset/entitlement to be reunited with its owner or their beneficiary. The owner/beneficiary will be you or an individual we believe is known to you.

We would welcome the opportunity to speak with you to discuss our approach to you. Rest assured we only make contact when we are confident the entitlement to an unclaimed asset or estate (lost shares, cash, pensions, property etc.) is valid.

If you are the owner/beneficiary we will require your agreement to providing you with a service pack that will comprise:

In order to provide the necessary information and perhaps subsequently carry out a full recovery, Treethorpe must first be contractually engaged by its clients. This will involve each individual that has an entitlement or is acting as a personal representative in each case having to sign up to a plain-English fee agreement with associated standard business terms and conditions.

An authority to proceed by Treethorpe is also essential, as we cannot approach any custodian organisation to gather further information about your entitlement claim until we have been granted the authority to act on your behalf. The relevant authority documents for your case will be provided within a Service Pack, which will in almost all cases be sent only with the prospective client’s permission.

All authorities and documents will only ever be used in the context of your case, and will be returned or annulled once the case is concluded.

Upon receipt of the signed documents, Treethorpe will approach the custodian organisation or organisations to notify them that we have located the rightful owners or beneficiaries and to request that they send acknowledgement and confirmation of the asset(s) as still being unclaimed. Note that we generally will not make a full disclosure of the nature and value of the asset(s) until after obtaining this important confirmation. Please bear in mind that each case may take years to get to this stage (although typically it will be less than 12 months). A request to recover any associated past recoverable income (if there is any), may also be submitted to the custodian on behalf of the client at this time: this will be forthcoming (to the client) regardless of how the case concludes.

Upon verification of the client claim being valid, and an up-to-date valuation of the asset(s) obtained, a full disclosure of entitlement will be made. At this point Treethorpe will disclose by way of a full and accurate client statement of account (based on the up-to-date valuation received on the asset(s) involved, and the past recoverable income, if any) of the value of the case as we have identified. Our clients are given the opportunity to realise the entitlements into a cash sum in full, in part, or to retain the asset(s) entirely.

It is at this point, once full disclosure has been made, that the client may contest our right to a commission if they believe we are not entitled to our ‘success fee’ – no fee will have been taken up until now. If we have provided information on an entitlement that is already known to the client then we will happily accept this and will not make a charge for our work (although we may then separately assist the client in relation to the recovery of another asset or assets). All that we require is documentary evidence that clearly shows this to be the case (as per our standard terms). But this is rare, as it is not in our interest or the interests of our clients to spend time, effort and resources on invalid cases – part of the skill in providing our complete service is to ensure that cases are, and remain, valid throughout their duration.

In the event that the client is satisfied as to the service we have provided, we will then proceed as instructed to conclude the case, bringing matters to a close and finally making a distribution if we have been asked to oversee the recovery. In most cases, the client will ask us to attend to the realisation of the asset(s) identified, as this element of our service is not charged for.

Depending on the individual circumstances of the case, the time taken between our clients engaging our services and full disclosure can vary greatly, due to a variety of factors mostly out of our control. Typically however, a ‘routine’ case will take anywhere between four to eight months to conclude. Note that for cases involving a Grant of Representation or similar however, the whole process will take longer.

The size and value of the asset(s) involved can also play a major role in just how quickly and efficiently the case will be brought to a conclusion. A smaller case with perhaps just one element will generally be concluded in less time than it takes to progress to conclusion a larger case or an estate with many different elements, again mainly due to the logistical, legal and administrative practicalities involved.

In all cases we endeavour to progress all the matters in hand as expeditiously as possible.

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