Law firm backs genealogy firms warning that the restored bona vacantia list risks renewed fraud
A south east law firm has added its voice to renewed concerns over the Government Legal Department’s decision to republish the Bona Vacantia list, the public register of unclaimed estates, after it was withdrawn last year amid allegations of fraud.
Parfitt Cresswell said it supports warnings raised by several genealogy firms, which have questioned whether the list should have been restored without stronger safeguards. The register, which identifies estates of people who die without known heirs, was taken offline in July last year following a BBC investigation into claims that the data had been exploited by criminals.
The list has now been reinstated in a restricted form. According to the Bona Vacantia Division (BVD), it will display only the deceased’s name, date of death, the area in which they died and a BVD case reference number. The division has described the decision as a “prudent” step intended to “protect the list’s integrity”.
Concerns persist, however, that even limited public information can be misused. Allegations previously raised suggested criminals were targeting estates of people who died intestate by submitting fraudulent wills to the Probate Registry. In those cases, the false documents were used to obtain grants of probate, allowing access to estate assets. Properties and other assets were then sold, sometimes at significantly reduced prices, to avoid inheritance tax.
Parfitt Cresswell said it was among the organisations that alerted authorities after being directly affected by such activity. The firm acted as attorney under a lasting power of attorney for a client who died intestate. During the administration process, it discovered that a fraudulent will had been submitted to the Probate Registry.
A grant of probate was issued, which the firm said occurred without adequate scrutiny. As a result, the fraudster was able to gain access to the estate and extract hundreds of thousands of pounds from the deceased’s accounts.
At the time, Parfitt Cresswell litigation lawyer Simon Steele-Williams detailed the firm’s findings. He said the firm was aware that the client had never made, nor intended to make, a will. After the client’s death, inheritance tax was paid and an application for Letters of Administration was submitted, only for the firm to learn that a grant of probate had already been issued based on a will claiming the estate fell below the inheritance tax threshold.
An internal review, he said, identified significant inconsistencies within the will. Following the discovery, the firm wrote to the Lord Chancellor, calling for a government investigation into fraudulent probate applications and reforms to require stricter checks on wills and witness information.
In response to the recent republication of the Bona Vacantia list, Parfitt Cresswell said it does not accept statements in a Government Legal Department press release asserting that there was no evidence of fraud linked to the list’s previous publication. The firm said its own investigations, combined with wider experience of probate fraud, indicate that the list has been used on multiple occasions by organised criminal groups to facilitate fraudulent activity.
Writing after the list’s return, Steele-Williams said the decision to reinstate it without substantive safeguards risked repeating past failures. He said the firm had seen clear evidence that publicly available estate information had been exploited to commit serious fraud.
He added that while transparency in estate administration is important, transparency without sufficient protection risks exposing estates to criminal exploitation. According to Steele-Williams, restoring the list without reform recreates conditions in which fraud can flourish.
He warned that unless effective protections are introduced, confidence in the probate and estate administration system will remain undermined and further instances of fraud are likely to occur.