How to find a deceased person's assets and debts
Bank accounts, pensions, shares, policies and liabilities: where to look, which free tracing services to use, and how to know when you have searched enough.
Photo: Pexels
The short version
- Start with 12–24 months of bank statements. Regular payments in and out reveal almost everything else.
- Redirect the post and read it for six months. Annual statements and renewals surface accounts nothing else will find.
- Use the free tracing services: mylostaccount for banks, the Pension Tracing Service for pensions, Gretel across several asset types.
- Search the registries: HM Land Registry for property, Companies House for business interests, the share registrars for shareholdings.
- Find the debts too. A credit report shows what was owed, and you're required to settle debts before beneficiaries.
The hardest part of administering an estate is not the forms. It's knowing what the estate contains in the first place.
People accumulate accounts across a lifetime and rarely leave a list. Pensions from jobs held decades ago, a policy taken out when the children were born, shares from a privatisation in the eighties, an account opened for an ISA allowance and forgotten. None of it announces itself.
£50 billion is sitting unclaimed
Research by the tracing service Gretel estimated that around 20 million UK accounts worth more than £50 billion have been lost or forgotten, including roughly £37 billion in pensions, £5.3 billion in investments and shares, and £2.2 billion in Child Trust Funds.
The Association of British Insurers puts the number of lost pension pots at at least 2.8 million, averaging around £9,400 each.
Gretel's research also found that almost half of UK adults think they may have a lost or dormant account, but only around 13% have ever tried to trace one.
These are national figures for living account holders as well as estates, and they are estimates rather than audited totals. The point isn't the precise number: it's that unclaimed money is normal, not exceptional. If you don't look, you probably won't find it.
What you're actually required to do
As executor or administrator, you're expected to take reasonable steps to identify what the estate holds and what it owes. You're not expected to be omniscient. But "I didn't think to check" is a much weaker position than "I searched these sources, and here's the record".
This matters in two directions. Miss an asset and the beneficiaries lose money they were entitled to. Miss a debt, distribute the estate, and the creditor can come after you personally.
Start with the paper trail
Before any online search, do this:
- Request 12 months of statements for every known account, 24 months if the finances look at all complex. Banks usually provide them free to a personal representative on production of a death certificate.
- Read every line. Standing orders and direct debits point to insurers, pension providers and subscriptions. Small credits point to dividends and annuities.
- Redirect the post and keep reading it for at least six months. Annual statements, policy renewals and dividend vouchers arrive on their own schedule: the one that lands in month five will tell you something nothing else did.
- Go through the filing. Old paperwork, address books, and the drawer everyone has.
- Check the last tax return, which lists income sources directly.
Where to look, asset by asset
| Asset type | Where to search |
|---|---|
| Bank & building society accounts | mylostaccount.org.uk (free, run by UK Finance and the BSA); Gretel |
| Pensions | The government's Pension Tracing Service; HMRC employment history, then each former employer's scheme |
| Shares & investments | The main UK share registrars (Equiniti, Computershare and MUFG) hold most shareholdings between them |
| Property & land | HM Land Registry search by owner name |
| Life insurance | Gretel; the Unclaimed Assets Register; old statements for premium payments |
| Premium Bonds & NS&I | NS&I tracing service |
| Business interests | Companies House, including the register of people with significant control |
| Digital assets & crypto | Email and browser history; contact exchanges directly with the death certificate |
| Safety deposit boxes | Ask each bank explicitly; they rarely volunteer it |
A note on pensions specifically: the average person changes jobs many times, and each job may have left a pension behind. Pensions are the single largest category of lost money in the UK, and they're the one most often missed in an estate.
Don't forget the debts
Asset discovery is really asset and liability discovery, and the liabilities carry the personal risk.
- Get a credit report from Experian, Equifax and TransUnion; they'll show accounts, cards and loans.
- Check for outstanding tax, both the final personal return and any open years.
- Look for informal debts: money owed to family, care costs, tradespeople.
- Consider a statutory creditor notice in The Gazette and a local paper. It gives unknown creditors two months and a day to come forward, and it protects you personally afterwards; see the full list of deadlines.
Knowing when you've searched enough
There's no formal test. In practice you've done enough when you've worked through the statements, used the free tracing services, searched the registries, read six months of post, and placed a creditor notice, and you've kept a record of each.
The record is the point. If a question arises later, being able to show what you searched and when is what protects you.
How Solace does this for you
Everything above is doable by hand. It's also weeks of work, spread over months, at a time when most people have neither the attention nor the appetite for it, which is precisely why so much goes unclaimed.
Our team runs the same process for you:
- Reads the statements you send us and pulls out every recurring payment, provider and counterparty.
- Goes through the post and paperwork you pass on to us, for statements and policy documents.
- Writes to registries, banks, insurers and pension providers to ask whether the deceased held anything with them, and chases the ones that go quiet.
- Brings back what we find for you to confirm. Nothing is acted on without your say-so.
- Keeps the audit trail: every search, every letter, every reply, dated.
The searches themselves are the same ones a diligent executor would run. The difference is that they all actually get run, and the evidence that they were is kept.
Common questions
How do I find out if someone had a bank account?
Start with 12 to 24 months of statements for known accounts and look for transfers between them. Then use mylostaccount.org.uk, the free service run by UK Finance and the Building Societies Association, which searches banks and building societies at once. Tracing services such as Gretel search across several asset types.
How do I find a deceased person's pension?
Use the government's Pension Tracing Service to identify schemes, and request the deceased's employment history from HMRC so you can approach every former employer's scheme. Pensions are the largest category of lost money in the UK, with at least 2.8 million lost pots according to the Association of British Insurers.
How much unclaimed money is there in the UK?
Research by the tracing service Gretel estimated around 20 million lost or forgotten UK accounts worth more than £50 billion, including roughly £37 billion in pensions, £5.3 billion in investments and shares and £2.2 billion in Child Trust Funds. These are estimates rather than audited totals.
Is an executor legally required to search for assets?
An executor or administrator is expected to take reasonable steps to identify what the estate owns and owes. There is no fixed checklist, but keeping a record of the searches you carried out is what protects you if a question is raised later.
How do I find out what debts someone had when they died?
Request a credit report from Experian, Equifax and TransUnion, which will show accounts, cards and loans. Check for outstanding tax, and consider placing a statutory notice for creditors in The Gazette and a local newspaper, which gives unknown creditors two months and one day to come forward.
What happens to unclaimed assets if nobody finds them?
They stay with the institution. Dormant bank and building society accounts may eventually be transferred into the UK Dormant Assets Scheme, but the money remains reclaimable by the rightful owner or their estate indefinitely. It is not lost, only unfound.
How long should I keep looking for assets?
Until you have worked through the bank statements, used the free tracing services, searched the relevant registries, read six months of redirected post and placed a creditor notice. There is no formal test, so the record of what you searched matters as much as the searching.
Related guides
Important
Solace is not a firm of solicitors and does not provide legal, tax or financial advice. We are an estate administration service and we are not regulated by the Solicitors Regulation Authority, the Financial Conduct Authority or any equivalent body. Nothing in this guide constitutes legal, tax or financial advice, and no solicitor–client relationship is created by reading it.
This article is general information only. It reflects the position in England and Wales at the date shown above; the law and the figures change, and Scotland and Northern Ireland differ in important respects. It may not apply to your circumstances. Administering an estate carries personal legal responsibility, and you should obtain advice from a qualified solicitor, accountant or other regulated professional where appropriate. Always check current rates, fees and deadlines against GOV.UK before acting.