For context, my father passed away back in 2008, and much of his estate was sold off to cover debts, and everything else was passed down to be through probate ruling. At the time, neither me nor my mother knew anything about him holding any stock/shares.
Fast-forward to a few years ago, I learn about Unclaimed Property and discover that my father had a share and some dividends from said share and another mystery share reported as unclaimed. I am currently going through the process of claiming them, but it's an annoyingly long process even with all the information. The thing I need advice on is that the dividends from the mystery share was reported by Computershare. They have a page on how to navigate a deceased shareholder's estate, but they require the account number. I have 0 idea how to go about finding this since I don't have papers with his account number on it, otherwise I would've learned about these much earlier than just now.
Any advice at all on how to navigate this would be much appreciated. My father didn't leave anything in writing whatsoever, nor keep track of much of his stuff so it's been decades of headaches.
Attempting to locate stocks belonging to my deceased father. In need of advice.
byu/LittleChibs instocks
Posted by LittleChibs
3 Comments
If you have old tax forms that’s a start. If they had cloud document storage there may be clues in there. PDF and other official documents.
If you happen to know the brokerage that held the account then you can ask them to investigate. You will need a death certificate.
When you click on the investment in Computershare, you will see three dots. Those will show a drop down menu that includes “Documents”. Clicking in that gives the option to see that statements and tax forms, which include the account number.
Sorry you’re dealing with that.
In a situation like this, I’d usually try to work the paper trail from multiple directions:
– old tax returns / dividend statements
– unclaimed property databases in every state he may have lived in
– transfer agents / DRIP records
– old brokers or banks
– probate records if any were filed
Sometimes the fastest progress comes from identifying even one old account number, statement, or dividend issuer and then working outward from there.