Are YOU due a cut of £3bn in lost shares and dividends?

WHEN Julia Martin received a phone call last week about unclaimed shares belonging to her father, it came as a bolt out of the blue. Her father died in a nursing home 18 years ago and she thought she had long tied up his financial affairs, sold all his shares and distributed the proceeds among his beneficiaries.

So when someone from stock market-listed investment trust Alliance contacted her to say it had shares and unclaimed dividends in his name worth close to £30,000, she was shocked. ‘My father’s affairs were well filed and documented,’ she says. ‘So I can only surmise that either the solicitor who sorted out probate missed this shareholding, or there was another unknown reason why the shares were mislaid.’

Once the paperwork is completed and the shares sold, Julia hopes her father’s beneficiaries can enjoy a nice post-Covid holiday with the proceeds. Julia’s father is one of 90 Alliance shareholders deemed to have ‘dormant’ accounts. The investment trust has therefore launched a plan to track down each one this year and return the shares and dividends they or their relatives are due.

Between them, the shareholders hold around £1 million of shares and have uncashed dividends worth more than £200,000.

It’s not uncommon for people to lose track of their shares. Around £3 billion is owed to shareholders in unclaimed shares and dividends.

This happens as a result of companies losing contact with shareholders when they move home without updating their contact details – or when investors change t heir name or, as with Julia’s father, pass away.

Regulations state that shares must not be cancelled if a holder cannot be traced, but a company may be able to retain any unclaimed dividends, usually after 12 years have passed.

With some accounts remaining dormant since 1998, Alliance’s commercial and corporate governance manager Ian Anderson decided to do some sleuth work. He searched online resources such as LinkedIn, death registration databases and the probate registry, to track shareholders or family members.

In the case of Julia, he obtained details of her father’s will and probate and located his beneficiaries.

Julia practises as an architect, so Ian was able to find her through the Royal Institute of British Architects. Ian’s detective work also united lost shares with a widower whose wife died 22 years ago.

Henry had no idea his wife Naomi had shares in a particular investment trust – they had been a gift from her father. Ian accessed a copy of Naomi’s will and probate document, which revealed her husband’s name. He then identified Henry through a search at Companies House and got in touch with him through the LinkedIn social media app to explain that 8,700 shares in his wife’s name were waiting for him. The shares currently trade at around £7, valuing the holding at nearly £61,000.

There was also £16,500 in unclaimed dividend payments. Says Ian: ‘Dividends more than 12 years old are statute-barred from claims for repayment, but I had a word with the trust’s chairman and he approved their payment.’

On Friday, Henry told The Mail on Sunday: ‘The money will go to our children, who are now young adults, and will help towards the deposits for their first flats.’

Clare Dobie, a director of the trust, says: ‘ The most important role of a board of directors of an investment trust is to protect shareholders. We not only oversee investments but also ensure shareholders are treated fairly.

‘We are always delighted when we reunite shareholders with their lost assets.’

Julia’s name has been changed for privacy reasons.