Estate Planning

Reality Television Meets Estates

By Hull and Hull LLP

Reality Television has now embraced the world of estates.  "Heir Hunters" is a production of the BBC that tracks the efforts of probate researchers to track down missing heirs. The closest Canadian  parallel I can think of is Manhunter but the plot lines are obviously different:  For example, the episodes include searches "for relatives of Red Cross nurse and hairdresser Ivy Hudson, who died at the ripe old age of 103" and " the heirs of Vera Humphrey, who was given up for adoption as a child, and Arthur Comaskey, who died alone in Essex."

I have not had the opportunity to watch an episode but I am certainly curious.  The search for heirs is often a difficult undertaking and can require a certain degree of sleuthing that, in the right hands, I can see making for engaging, if not riveting, TV.  Estates practitioners may represent a disproportionate group of viewers of the show.

The obligation of an estate trustee to search for heirs has been discussed in a past Probator newsletter on our website at this link. 

David M. Smith - Click here for more information on David Smith.

Full post as published by Toronto Estate Law Blog on March 29, 2011 (boomark / email).