Could you be due a share of unclaimed family fortune?

FAMILY fortunes that belong to people in Leicestershire are lying unclaimed.

Residents in the county could be entitled to inherit almost 100 estates that have gone unclaimed across the region.

When somebody dies with no written will or known family, their estate is passed to the Crown where it is held, waiting to be claimed.

These estates are kept for 30 years – after which they become the property of the Crown and Treasury.

But in the meantime, any relatives who couldn’t be tracked down at the time of death can still make a claim on the estate. It means many people out there are entitled to an inheritance they haven’t had.

The government publishes a list of these unclaimed estates on a regular basis. There are currently 94 unclaimed estates which belonged to people with a connection to Leicestershire, including a total of seven estates which were added since the start of the year alone.

■■Holt, Brian Neville: 25/09/1931, Leicestershire - 23/06/2013, Leicester Leicestershire;

■■Willars, Jeffrey Clinton: 05/10/1952, Loughborough Leicestershire 06/09/2021, Leicester Leicestershire;

■■Quince, Georgina May: 17/01/1953, Leicester - 27/02/2022, Newtown Unthank Leicestershire;

■■Joshi, Mitesh: 09/07/1978, Leicester 13/07/2020, Leicester Leicestershire;

■■Smith, Ruth: 27/08/1941, Unknown 18/05/2022, Leicester Leicestershire

■■Nichols, Illeyana Ferlisha-Ja: 07/04/1992, Nottingham - 14/06/2021, Leicester Leicestershire;

■■Woodward, Neil John: 04/01/1971, England - 04/09/2021, Leicester Leicestershire.