FAQ

When you receive the first letter from us, years of research have generally been conducted. We have thereby identified you as an heir and have reached our goal. You must understand that we must clarify the matter of payment before we share further details.

This is common practice among all heir tracing companies and you assume absolutely no risk by signing the fee agreement, since we only receive our fee is you are paid your share of the inheritance. Should this not occur, we also do not receive payment.

No! It is not necessary to appoint your own lawyer. Many lawyers work in our company who are specialised in processing inheritance proceedings.

Our company also regularly assumes the associated costs if a lawyer should prove necessary in asserting your right of inheritance. If you appoint your own attorney, you are solely responsible for these costs.

Yes! After we have initiated contact with you, it is possible that we write to you again to notify you that additional information is required. The faster and more thoroughly you answer the questions, the more effectively we can continue our investigation and positively conclude the inheritance matter for you. We may also request personal documents (i.e. birth-, marriage- and death certificates) from you.

If you have access to the requested documents, then it would be extremely practical to provide these to us, since these documents must be submitted to the probate court for the determination of inheritance right. After the matter is concluded, we will of course return the documents to you. The availability of requested documents can thereby greatly contribute to resolving the matter sooner.

In general, we have previously gathered all necessary personal documents over the course of our research.

We are regularly appointed in inheritance proceedings that require the special abilities of an heir tracing agency. This is especially true if the heir tracing proves so difficult that our assistance is indispensable in identifying the heirs.

If, contrary to expectations, we are unable to identify the heirs, the inheritance right is transferred to the state. In order to avoid this, we are appointed to investigate by the probate courts and executors.

IIn most cases, we are commissioned to identify heirs by court-appointed executors. The executor is legally obliged to determine the inheritance tax issues for unknown heirs. In addition, the inheritance tax is already paid in almost all of the cases we handle. As soon as the certificate of inheritance is issued, there is usually a claim to compensation for overpaid inheritance tax for the heirs we identify.

When determining inheritance tax for unknown heirs, the tax authorities generally assume only one heir in the highest inheritance tax bracket. Since many heirs we have identified are in a more favourable tax bracket and each individual heir qualifies for an inheritance tax-exempt amount, in addition to the fact that our heir tracing fee can be made fully inheritance tax-deductible, there is generally an inheritance tax refund, which we strive to attain.

Yes! We only deal with inheritance cases that are not overindebted. If we have identified you as an heir and have attached a fee agreement, you can see that our fee is a certain percentage of the inheritance.

We would not do this if the estate were overindebted. It would be senseless to take part in a negative inheritance.

No! We only receive our fee if you are paid an inheritance. You will never be subject to any costs in advance. We only charge our fee from the inheritance payment; you never have to pay a fee directly to us.

We cannot concretely ascertain when you will receive your share of the inheritance, since this can only be done once our research is full completed. The inheritance case can only be concluded when all personal documents necessary to establish your right of inheritance have been obtained. It hereby depends on the number personal document from how many family branches must be obtained.

In part, obtaining personal documents is associated with intense time investments, especially if the documents are from previous German locations, since many civil registries and church documents were destroyed by war. In these cases, we must obtain the necessary documents from worldwide archives accessible to us.

It also always depends on how long the probate court takes to issue a certificate of inheritance. This varies by probate court and of course we have only limited influence over this.

Our heir tracing fee is common and is in keeping with all domestic and foreign decrees published on this topic. The heir tracing fee is regularly associated with the efforts associated with the research, according to the costs we have accrued and the length of processing. Of course, the amount of the inheritance also plays a role. The heir tracing fee may seem somewhat high for some heirs, but an heir tracer must bear all of the costs in advance and only receives a fee if the heir is identified. Sometimes no heir can be identified if the testator has died without relatives.

In these cases, we have invested years into costly research without receiving a fee or compensation for the costs we accrue. The amount of compensation is therefore considered appropriate, since our research generally takes place over years and is therefore associated with intense time and cost investments. Furthermore, the work does not end when we identify an heir. Afterwards, we generally procure all personal documents in order to obtain the certificate of inheritance for each individual heir. Only then is it possible to convey the inheritance to the heir.

We are an international heir tracing company that receives cases from around the world. Most of our cases come from Germany, Switzerland and Austria. Our company has been established since 1904 in Germany and enjoys a good international reputation, which is why we receive foreign cases, in particular from Germany and Austria.

If we contact an heir, it is not necessarily a Swiss inheritance case, but could be from anywhere in Europe. We are also often entrusted with heir tracing appointments from North and South America, in which we then seek heirs in Europe.