Whittles/Phelps Heir Hunters

Every Thursday morning across the UK,

heir hunting companies scan the Treasury's list of recent estates

that belong to people who died without leaving a will.

In London, one company has found an estate

that could be worth up to a quarter of a million pounds!

They're racing to find long lost relatives who have no idea

they could be in line for a windfall.

Could they be knocking at your door?

On today's programme...

the heir hunters get the inside scoop on a £250,000 case.

But it's not all plain sailing!

In future, when you say you've got a list, show me the list.

And the heirs to one woman's estate are stunned to inherit

from someone they've never even met!

I never, ever dreamed that somebody we had never heard of

would leave something to us.

Plus how you could be entitled to unclaimed estates

where beneficiaries need to be found.

Could you be in line for a cash payout?

Every year in the UK, an estimated 300,000 people

die without leaving a will.

If no relatives are found,

any money that's left behind goes to the Government.

And last year, they raked in a whopping £12 million

from unclaimed estates.

There are over 30 specialist firms competing to stop this happening.

They're called Heir Hunters and their business

is to track down missing relatives

and help them claim their rightful inheritance.

I make sure the Government doesn't seize assets

which do not belong to them.

It's early on a Thursday morning and overnight,

the Treasury has advertised a new list of unclaimed estates.

In London, Heir Hunting company Fraser and Fraser

are scouring the lists for cases to investigate.

But not all estates come to them through the Treasury.

They use a variety of sources to try and get exclusive access

to estates before they become public knowledge.

OK, thanks ever so, bye.

What we have is what we call reporters.

We've quite a few people out in the field, field agents really.

They inform us when they come across what could be an estate.

Whether that's an empty house, a notice in the local paper,

whether it's something that's gone through the coroner's office

or just word of mouth.

Getting the inside scoop on a case before the other companies find out,

means zero competition for the heir hunters and partner, Neil Fraser,

has just been given an exciting tip off from one of his field agents.

OK, bye.

One of them has just given me some information.

That information sort of indicates that we possibly have an estate

which is possibly going to the Treasury Solicitor.

Value wise, we're looking at quite a large amount,

possibly up to £250,000.

As this estate is potentially more valuable

than what has appeared on the Treasury's list,

Neil makes this case a priority.

His first move is to get all the team ready for action.

You're in Reading. OK, can you stop in Reading for a minute?

Put the handbrake on. It's £250,000. It's a proper job.

The field agent has given Neil all the information he can

about the deceased.

He was called Howard Whittles,

he died in April 2010 and they know he owned a property.

We think he was born in Sheffield,

so we're going to start looking around Sheffield for his birth

and from there, the parents' marriage and possible siblings.

Howard Whittles died aged 71.

He was a bachelor

and had lived in Minehead in Somerset for over 15 years.

A keen sportsman and walker,

his death came as a great loss to his close friends.

Keith Williams was Howard's walking partner

and he remembers an outgoing, determined man.

Howard loved his walking, his hill walking.

He never took a map anywhere he went.

He just knew that way and that was the way to go.

Howard was diagnosed with throat cancer in the late 1980s

and eventually had to have his voice box removed.

His health took another blow later on in life

when he was diagnosed with Parkinson's disease.

It was a frustrating blow for a man who enjoyed an active lifestyle.

I miss him quite a bit.

I miss going out to see him on a Sunday morning

and even when he was not very well,

it was nice to go out and have a chat with him.

Very sad when he did go.

But even at the height of his illness,

he remained a determined, single minded and energetic character.

I do miss Howard. I miss not just the presence, but Howard.

He was enthralled by cricket

because he used to spend most of his time watching cricket matches.

Howard was more than just an armchair cricket fan.

Before he moved to Somerset, he had lived and worked in London

where he was an active member of his local cricket club.

Almost two decades later, his former team mates still remember him

as a man who lived and breathed the sport.

I would say, without doubt,

he was one of the best off spin bowlers

we either played with

or played against.

He certainly had a gift and well respected in the team

and if I was skippering today, I'd love to have him on my side.

Howard had plenty of friends

but the heir hunters' main concern is whether he had family.

The case is handed over to senior manager, David Pacifico

and as one of Fraser's oldest employees,

the £250,000 hunt is in experienced hands.

Do you want to pop Bob on to me then? I'm dealing with this case now.

David gets researcher, Alan, to do the immediate legwork.

Thanks, Alan.

Using the birth record, he quickly works out who Howard's parents were.

Heir hunters use essential information like this

to make family trees.

These are like roadmaps through someone's ancestry

and should show the way to heirs.

Grandparents, by the way are...

He marries as Harry Whittles, March 21st in Sheffield.

The family Alan has discovered

all seem to have their roots in Sheffield.

Howard was born there in 1938

to parents Harry and Fanny who both died in the 1970s.

Alan has also found the parents' marriage records and from this,

he uses Fanny's maiden name to trace any potential births

for brothers or sisters of the deceased.

He's in luck.

-Thank you very much, Alan.

-It's early days

but he's already found a woman who could be Howard's sister.

The exclusive nature of this case means the heir hunters aren't

competing against other firms

and this allows them to work in a more relaxed way.

So instead of rushing to speak to potential heirs on the phone,

they're going to send one of their travelling researchers to the North,

to try and meet relatives in person.

Right, let me speak to Bob Barrett first of all.

Hello.

-We want to try and get this family signed up as soon as possible.

-Sure.

Neil knows nothing beats a face-to-face meeting

when it comes to getting heirs to sign on the dotted line.

This means the beneficiaries will allow the firm to handle their case

and in return, they'll pay them a pre-agreed percentage of the estate.

The one-to-one touch, the personal relationship we can build

when you can look someone in the eye and tell them what it's all about,

is far better than someone over the phone.

That's why we send people travelling.

Ex policeman, Bob Barrett,

is one of Fraser and Fraser's squadron of travellers

who are willing to go wherever a case takes them.

Based all over the UK and abroad,

their job is to follow the clues and sniff out potential heirs

and inform them of their deceased relative's estate.

Sorry to send you up north again.

This one has become important, you know.

Yes, sure, I'll head up there and get some details from you later.

Thanks, Bob. Bye.

Bob will be heading to Chesterfield

where the team think Howard's sister and other siblings live.

Although it'll be an expensive 400 mile round trip,

the team are hoping it's a gamble that will pay off.

David hasn't spoken to any potential heirs yet,

but with Bob en route, it's time to get on the phone.

I'm going to try and contact someone who will be a sister of the deceased.

But it's not a good start.

It must be a nice day. Everyone seems to be out.

I can't get through to the sister.

David's not too worried because with no competition on the case,

he can afford to wait and call back later.

In the meantime, Alan's tracking down Howard's other siblings.

I believe, but I'm not 100% certain that the brother was in the Army,

so it's quite probable, being in the Army, he was fairly mobile.

Howard's potential heirs are coming thick and fast,

but David still hasn't managed to speak to any of them.

'Hello. Your call cannot be taken at the moment.'

We've got a nephew that I've got no phone number for

living in WC2, London,

who we think his father may be dead now.

Nice working case, but without the hassle of other companies.

Well done. Excellent.

In the research room, Alan has managed to confirm a potential sibling.

It's the brother he found earlier, and it looks like he's still alive.

I know he was alive a few years ago because he was mentioned on his sister's will.

I believe I have an address for him.

Across the office, David has finally had some success.

He's to spoken to one of Howard's sisters who lives in Sheffield,

and he's made an appointment for Bob to go and see her.

If only all heir hunts were this easy.

Hello, Bob. I was going to phone you actually.

-I just made contact with the sister of the deceased...

-Oh, right.

..who's very happy to meet with us.

I said about 3.45 this afternoon in Sheffield.

The team are making very good progress.

They've found that Howard had seven brothers and sisters

and this has led them to four possible heirs to his estate.

Three of Howard's siblings died without children,

but one brother and two sisters are still alive,

and there's a niece from his late sister.

I think that's the extent of the family on this,

so we're talking about, I think, four people.

It's over to Bob Barrett now to make contact, you know,

personal contact, which we wanted to do as soon as possible.

Bob's still cruising his way up North.

He has three heirs to visit, and he hopes to sign them all.

Bob, it's David.

Just to say I've just received a call back from the other sister.

She's happy to see you later on.

That's all four heirs accounted for and meetings set up -

a cracking result for the team.

So, basically, we're in touch with all the family,

-so it's all tied up now.

-Well, that's good then.

-It is amazing.

But then suddenly everything changes.

One of the researchers has come across records

suggesting Howard may have had more brothers and sisters

than the team first thought.

What I'm going to do is to phone the sister back just to clarify

something about whether or not she knows of any other siblings.

Although there's no competition on the case at the moment,

this is still a worry. If the team miss any heirs now,

their rivals could sign them up at a later date

and that would mean losing out on valuable commission.

David calls Howard's sister to see if the new information is true.

Does the name Iris and Stuart Whittles mean anything to you?

Did Stuart actually survive to adulthood then? Oh, he's got children?

So, in other words, there's two more beneficiaries here?

-Are you in touch with them at all?

-It seems the paperwork is correct.

David wants these loose ends tied up as quickly as possible.

We've got two more beneficiaries on this.

Two children may still be in the Sheffield area.

Can you see if you can locate them?

Armed with this new information, the team springs into action.

To have relatives unaccounted for

is the heir hunters' worst nightmare,

and Alan can't understand why no-one told them before.

No mentions have been made of Stewart by the family, so...

I don't know why.

Coming up, as David tries to tie up the loose ends

of the Whittles' family tree, he gets the shock of his life -

it looks like they're not the only company chasing Howard's heirs.

When did you...? When did they speak to you? Competition on it now.

To be sure of making a healthy profit,

the biggest Heir Hunting firms try to only chase the highest-value cases.

But smaller companies with fewer staff

can still turn a profit by taking on estates

worth just a few thousand pounds...

as long as they can be solved quickly.

Leonora Phelps died in January 2009 aged 81,

leaving no will and with no known relatives.

She passed away in Runcorn, a small industrial town and port

sited on the southern bank on the river Mersey.

A retired receptionist,

she spent most of her career working for a large chemical manufacturer.

Her old work-mate, Pam, remembers a vibrant lady with a big heart.

She was just warm and witty. A very, very nice person to work for.

By all accounts, Leonora stood out from the crowd

for a good number of reasons.

She looked like a model. She was beautiful. She really was.

-PHONE RINGS

-Good afternoon. Celtic Research.

In 2010, Saul Marks of heir-hunting company Celtic Research

took on Leonora's case.

The company has case managers around the UK

to quickly find heirs, wherever they may be.

Working alongside father-and-son team, Peter and Hector Birchwood,

Saul has immersed himself in the world of forensic genealogy.

You should have it in about ten days, all being well.

Based in the North West,

Saul was in a prime location to take on the case.

Leonora Phelps was a case which was released on a Thursday, as are

all the Treasury Solicitor cases, and it caught my eye particularly

because she died in a place quite local to our Northwest office.

She died in Runcorn.

As with any estate released on the Treasury's list,

there's always the chance

of competing companies chasing the same heirs.

Saul hit the ground running.

I looked into it using the birth, marriage and death indexes,

and we knew from the listing that she was a spinster, so she had no

children, so the first place we had to look,

was for brothers and sisters.

Leonora had never married

and died without children.

It was time for Saul to go back up the family tree.

Her mother's maiden name was Wood, and I could then look for other

children called Phelps with the mother's maiden name Wood.

There was one - a sister, Barbara.

So I looked for her death and I found it.

We knew then that we would be having to look for children

and we didn't find any.

So, based on that, we came to the conclusion that there were going

to be no nieces or nephews of the deceased and we'd have

to start looking for cousins.

Saul now turned his attention to tracking down any other

relatives Leonora may have.

We knew that, by and large, we'd be looking for cousins

or maybe even descendants of cousins,

because chances are, quite a few of her cousins would have passed away.

Saul started on the maternal line of her family.

He used Lavinia's maiden name of Woods

to find her birth certificate from 1888.

Then he matched the details on that, with other births, to try

and find her siblings.

I found she was actually one of eight children, so we knew we were

going to be dealing with quite a big family on the maternal side.

Leonora's mother had three sisters and four brothers.

One brother had died without leaving any children, and so had a sister.

Saul was discovering the family had strong links

to the Birkenhead area and were still living there today.

But oddly, Leonora who spent most of her professional life

working just up the river in Runcorn,

seemed to have lost all contact with her wider family.

Friend, Pam, remembers Leonora as a nice,

but private lady, who never spoke about her life outside of work.

It was her job as a receptionist for the chemicals giant ICI,

not her family, that seems to have been

the main focus in her life.

Leonora thoroughly enjoyed her job

and it showed in her smile

and in the way she greeted people.

She really enjoyed what she did and did it to the best of her ability.

Leonora was proud to be working as a receptionist for the largest

employer in the area.

Dr Terry Gourvish, from the London School Of Economics,

understands just how significant ICI was

to the local population.

It was a very large employer. I think there were about 6,500

working at Runcorn as late as 1970,

so, a lot of people.

The company was formed in 1926

and became one of the biggest names in the chemical industry.

Its heyday was from the 1960s through to the '80s, and was

the first British company to achieve £1 billion in annual profits.

Because it was large and successful and indeed, a global company,

it attracted people.

People wanted to work for it.

Leonora was one such person.

As a receptionist, she was front of house

and revelled in the responsibility the job brought.

For many local girls, it would have been a dream job.

You felt really fortunate to work for ICI,

and they made you feel special, very special.

Like Leonora, heir hunter Saul is passionate about his job,

and decades later, was working hard to try and trace her relatives.

The first line I looked at was the oldest aunt

on the maternal side,

who was Emily Adelaide Wood, and I established

that she had married a gentleman called Ralph Rowland

and they had two sons.

Saul discovered one of the sons - William - had also died,

leaving no children, so he turned his attention to the other,

who, like his father, was also called Ralph.

He lived in the area of Tranmere in Birkenhead,

and was recorded in the Census as a shopkeeper and milkman.

Saul looked for a marriage record for him

and went on to discover he'd had two sons -

one named Roger, and one named Philip, and Philip

lived also fairly close to our Northwest office,

so I went over to see him.

Saul had found his first heir, and for Philip's wife, Barbara,

it's a moment she'll not forget in a hurry,

because she'd just stepped out of the shower.

I thought he was a salesman,

and I thought I was going to close the door.

But he was so nice,

informative and put me at ease straight away,

bearing in mind I was in a dressing gown with a towel

and a wet face.

Barbara called Philip, who rushed back to meet Saul.

All then all I had to do, was wait for Philip to come home,

to get his signature.

The name Leonora Phelps meant nothing to Philip

and it intrigued him as a keen family historian.

My wife, daughter and I have looked into

her side of the family on occasions,

and this was an opportunity being presented to us

to try and find out a little bit more about my own.

Philip is Leonora's first cousin, once removed,

but he never met her, or even knew she existed.

It seems at some point, her parents moved to London for work,

and although they later returned to the Birkenhead area,

they failed to rekindle a close family connection.

That lady is an unknown quantity to me.

Coming up...

..it turns out that while Leonora

was enjoying her career, her cousins were struggling to make ends meet.

Things became extremely difficult.

Could you be in line for an unexpected windfall?

In the UK, the Treasury has a list of over 2000 estates,

that over the years, have baffled the heir hunters

and still remain unclaimed.

This is money that could have your name on it.

These estates can stay on the list for up to 30 years,

and each one could be worth anything

from £5000 to many millions.

Today, we're focusing on three names from the list.

Could they be relatives of yours?

Gwendoline Annesley died in May 2005, aged 91.

She lived in Streatham, south west London.

Her surname is extremely rare,

and according to the last census,

just 250 people in the UK share it.

Despite this, all efforts to trace her heirs have failed.

Or did you know Stanley Sampson?

He died in August, 2006 in Dorset.

His surname is very common to the South West,

and if no heirs are found for his estate,

the money will go to the Government.

Or how about Cissie Madeline Endicott?

She died aged 84 in Bognor Regis, West Sussex.

Born in 1919, the records show she never married.

If the names Gwendoline Annesley,

Stanley Sampson or Cissie Madeline Endicott mean anything to you,

then there could be a windfall on its way.

Heir hunter Saul Marks of Celtic Research

took on the case of Leonora Phelps in 2010.

She had died the previous year, aged 81, leaving no will.

It seems she was a glamorous and very well-loved lady.

She was immaculate. Her hair, her make-up, her clothes.

And just a general warmth.

Saul quickly tracked down his first heir, Philip Roland.

Philip and his wife Barbara were gobsmacked by the news.

In thinking about it, I was so surprised.

I never, ever thought this would happen to me.

This happens to other people.

Saul traced Philip through his grandfather Ralph,

who was listed in the census as a shopkeeper and a milk dealer.

My grandfather ran his own business.

It was a dairy business in Birkenhead, which he'd built up.

It was in the times when the corner shop was very much the focal point

for everybody in the district.

It was a very different era.

Before supermarkets, the corner shop was an important institution,

at the heart of a community.

Everything they needed for each day,

they could buy at their local shops.

Food was fresh.

Didn't have refrigerators.

So especially dairy goods of all sorts,

they would need to shop daily.

The sight of the family's business is now bricked up

and has been converted into housing.

In Philip's grandfather's day, he not only ran the shop,

but he also bottled and distributed milk to the Tranmere community.

It was a hard life, and eventually it took its toll.

My grandfather died when my father was ten.

He'd been very lucky.

He'd gone to the local grammar school,

and unfortunately he had to leave,

and he took the business over

when he was about 14, maybe 15 at the most.

He worked from then through to when he was 68.

And to the best of my knowledge, he never had a day off.

Leonora and her cousin Ralph's careers could not have been any more different.

She worked for the large corporate company,

whilst Ralph was a fiercely independent self-made man.

The Roland family were very well-known in this local area.

They were rooted in the local community.

But hard work and a family's reputation meant nothing

in the face of changing times.

The corner shop was about to be dealt a death blow by the big businesses.

Then perhaps the first supermarket opened in the area,

and little local places started to close down.

The corner shops of this country certainly suffered greatly,

sadly, because they always had something to offer

even if it was only for somebody to come in and have a chat.

Leonora's cousin Ralph, Philip's father,

eventually sold up the corner shop.

And by that time, he'd also sold his milk round

to a large corporate dairy.

Whilst just down the river Leonora was at the forefront of a new era

of the modern workplace, her cousins certainly were not.

Big business had changed Ralph's way of life forever.

Although he had found Philip relatively quickly,

Saul still had plenty of heirs to find.

Philip gave me the contact details for a first cousin of his father's.

And they gave me some more information, which led me

to his brother and led me to various other cousins.

Saul made light work of the maternal line and quickly found

and visited another ten heirs to Leonora's estate.

But his job was far from over.

He still had heirs to find on the paternal side.

So using the birth, death and census records, he set to work.

On the paternal side of this family, the father of the deceased

was one of three children.

So it was a much smaller family to have to deal with.

And there were three cousins of the deceased on that side,

each of whom will inherit a share in the estate.

One of those cousins was the daughter of Leonora's paternal uncle Norman.

Gillian is a first cousin, and still remembers the first time

her husband answered the phone to Saul.

He said, "The phone has just been ringing, and it's Celtic Research.

"And they really want to know about Leonora.

"She died last year,

"and you are one of the few people that might have memories."

I was absolutely amazed.

It had been a long time since Gillian had heard that name.

I lost track of her movements so long ago. It's like another lifetime.

I'm really sad about it now, to think that she was alive until last year.

Um... I could have been in touch.

The last memories Gillian has of Leonora go back to her childhood.

I last saw Leonora when she and I were both bridesmaids

for her sister Barbara.

I was ten, so that's quite a few years ago.

I had very little to do with Leonora during our growing up years,

because she was probably ten years or more older than I was.

Also, our fathers had started from Gloucestershire

and all migrated in different directions.

Like others, Gillian remembers Leonora as a beautiful, vivacious

and bubbly character. But sadly, she was never really known by her true family,

the family that now will inherit her estate.

So far, we've found between 15 and 20 heirs.

And there are a few branches we're still working on, so there may be more.

For heir Gillian,

the whole experience has brought the importance of family

into sharp focus.

It's sad really, when people have relations...

..perfectly fit and able, and travel is so easy these days,

whereas it used to be difficult.

We ought to try more to keep in touch.

Howard Whittles also died with no known family in 2010,

aged 71.

And he didn't leave a will.

Friends remember him as an intelligent, active man.

Howard really was a very nice person.

-Sadly missed.

-Yes, I miss the walking and miss his company.

He was very good company.

He died leaving an estate worth a quarter of a million pounds

and heir hunting company, Fraser and Fraser,

have taken on his case.

Try working to see if you can get old addresses.

Partner Neil Fraser got the case through a reporter

who works for the firm, and not from the Treasury.

This means the estate isn't public knowledge

and in the world of heir hunting,

that's a very good thing.

At the moment it's a case which we probably aren't going

to have a huge amount of competition on.

We don't think any other research firm knows about it.

With the help of his team,

case manager David Pacifico found that Howard had eight siblings,

and he's learnt that some of the Whittles family had become estranged.

She told me that she had last contact with Howard

at the funeral of their father,

which was in 1971.

So, we're talking nearly 40 years ago.

As more information comes through,

the team are able to start piecing Howard's life together.

He joined the army in 1958, aged 20,

and served in the Coldstream Guards

for nearly ten years.

It was a job that would have satisfied any young man's

taste for adventure.

They were posted to Kenya.

It was "Keenya" in those days,

and from there, they had the commitment in Bahrain,

and Zanzibar where there was trouble, to restore law and order,

so really, one would join to see the world.

They saw plenty of it and I know from that tour,

everybody in that battalion very much enjoyed their time

out in that part of the world.

Howard would later leave the army with glowing references

from his former employers.

His final report, which would have been from the First Battalion,

shows how very conscientious Mr Whittles was

and it reads that, "He has worked as a senior clerk in the Orderly Room

"with a great deal of responsibility.

"He has proved himself an extremely efficient, intelligent and able man.

"He is hard-working and very reliable.

"He is strongly recommended to any civilian employer."

And I would just say, that perhaps not every man, on leaving,

would necessarily have been given that reference.

Could Howard's life in the Army, which took him all around the world,

help explain why he had become estranged from his family?

In the office, David and Alan have little time

to contemplate such questions.

Although there's no competition on the case,

the team are currently playing catch-up.

You didn't show me this list before. I'd like to have seen that list

so I could have questioned him about the names, but anyway,

can I leave that with you? I'd better go up to... Thanks.

A last-minute discovery by the team has revealed

that Howard may have had two more siblings than they first thought.

They're now racing to see if these siblings are still alive,

or if they had children who would be entitled to a share of the estate.

There were two other siblings of the deceased,

an Iris, who died as a child,

and a Stewart, who actually got married and had two children.

Alan has been trawling through the records,

looking for details of these additional siblings,

and any of their descendants

who could be entitled to a share of Howard's £250,000 estate.

He's found that Howard's sister Iris died as an infant

and his brother Stewart died in his '50s, leaving two children.

David has a number for one of these children,

Howard's nephew, and he's going to try and set up a meeting.

Hello, Mr Whittles?

I'm sorry to trouble you. I'm speaking from Central London.

I represent a company of probate researchers called Fras...

Sorry?

Um, when did they speak to you?

Oh, dear.

It seems the team no longer have exclusive access to the case

and the pressure's on. The time they lost

by missing two of Howard's siblings could now come back and haunt them.

I'm going to speak to Bob Barratt.

We'll have to do it without a fee, I've no option.

'Bob, hi.'

We've got competition on this case.

This is a disaster for the team. They could now lose the case.

It's strange they contacted him first.

Competition on it now.

A case they thought was free of competition is now wide open.

In future, when you say you've got a list, show me the list.

Although the competition have spoken to heirs, it doesn't look like

they've sent anyone out to meet them,

so Bob gets straight on the phone to Howard's nephew.

My colleague, I think you've been speaking to,

-David Pacifico's asked me to give you a call.

-'Right.'

And I think he was envisaging that we might meet later on this evening.

-'That's OK, if it's OK with you.'

-Yeah, sure.

It's good news for the team.

The nephew has agreed to meet with Bob,

and in the world of heir-hunting, that's half the battle won.

A face-to-face meeting

will greatly increase their chances of getting a signed agreement.

But partner Neil is still wonder what happened to their exclusivity.

There is always the possibility that they have told a rival firm

and they have got their fingers in two pies.

Right now, though, this is the least of the team's worries.

David is realising just how serious the situation has become.

The competition has already started calling the siblings he's found.

Right, they left you a contract of...?

How much percentage, may I ask?

For the heirs, competition means that the companies

may compete for their business,

offering commission deals at a lower rate than normal.

But for the time being,

David and his team are one step ahead of their rivals.

Bob's arrived for his appointment with Howard's sister,

and he's meeting her brother at the same time.

Afterwards, Bob has good and bad news for David.

She'd already been contacted. I've left our paperwork with her.

When was she contacted?

It seems other companies have also been in contact with Howard's sister.

She's reluctant to sign an agreement

until speaking to the rest of her family.

David now knows the competition are hot on his heels

and are directly competing to be the first to sign up the heirs

to Howard's £250,000 estate.

-I've spoken to the one in Bridlington, by the way.

-All right.

-I did 10.30 to 11.00 tomorrow morning for you.

-Oh, excellent. That's fine.

Everything now hangs on Bob meeting the rest of the family members.

It's all go.

Bob hotfoots it to his next visit...

another sister of the deceased.

And unlike his colleagues,

he seems to be enjoying the cut and thrust of this chase.

A bit of competition never does any harm.

Bob's first appointment wasn't as successful as he'd hoped

and he didn't come away with a signed agreement.

Now though, he has another chance with the sister in Sheffield

and after that, he'll be trying to meet Howard's nieces and nephew.

But unfortunately, his visit to the second sister doesn't go as planned.

The competition in this case has put doubt into the relatives' minds.

She also wants to speak to the rest of the family

about which company to go for before signing on the dotted line.

Now I'm going back to Sheffield to see a nephew of the deceased,

Howard Whittles', and his sister Fiona or Samantha, I'm not sure,

I think she uses both names.

Then that'll be it for the day

and I've got to then find a hotel to spend the night.

Bob finally arrives in Sheffield.

-Hello, Mrs Haythorne?

-Yes.

-Bob Barrett from Fraser and Fraser.

-Hello.

-Thanks very much.

..And gets straight down to business.

The only one I really know is Derek and he had a son called Stephen.

-And he's still alive anyway so..?

-Yeah.

And was living in Sheffield the last time you knew?

Yeah, the last time, yeah.

And Howard?

Once at his dad's funeral.

Well, my grandad's funeral.

-He wasn't married as far as you were aware?

-No.

It seems a face-to-face meeting has paid off.

Even though their aunts and uncles are thinking about whether to sign to Frasers,

Howard and Fiona are happy to do the paperwork with Bob.

It's the result he's been waiting for all day.

-Thank you.

-Thank you for becoming our clients.

THEY LAUGH

-Nice to meet you.

-Thank you, and you.

-Bye-bye.

-Thank you.

-Cheerio.

It's a fantastic result at the end of a long, tiring day.

For Howard's niece and nephew, it's strange to know they are

heirs to the estate of a man they knew so little about.

I don't think I've even seen a photograph of him unfortunately.

But it just seems a bit... You know...

Strange to be in this situation when you've never met somebody.

It doesn't feel right somehow but...

That's the way it goes.

The next day, Bob is back on the road,

on his way to meet the final heir.

He still only has half the signatures he set out to get.

Now I'm off to Bridlington to see an heir.

Fingers crossed that she signs an agreement with us.

Fortunately, the meeting is a success.

Although she'd also been contacted by a rival company,

she's happy to sign an agreement with Bob

and he can't wait to break the news to David.

She's very impressed with our company,

thinks everybody's treated her very nicely,

and signed an agreement with us.

In the office, David also has some good news of his own.

It seems the personal touch has paid off.

By the way, I've made contact with one of the people you saw last night.

-Oh, right.

-They want to go with us, all two of them.

Excellent, I thought they would.

This is what Bob's been waiting for. His hard work hasn't been in vain.

In just two days, the team have managed to find six heirs

to Howard Whittles' £250,000 estate.

And five of them have signed agreements.

Partner Neil is happy with the result.

It's obviously starting to pay off now.

He's getting to see all the beneficiaries.

David's starting to wind up the research,

everything's coming together, I think, quite well.

Howard may have drifted apart from his family,

but they will now all benefit

from the substantial amount of money he left behind.

His £250,000 estate will be divided between his brother, sisters,

nieces and nephew.

To his close friends, Howard will be remembered as a man

whose passions in life were a good walk and a game of cricket.

Very popular with everybody in the club.

A fantastic guy to have in the side.

And as I say, looking back now, some 20-30 years on,

I guess he was a real asset to the club.

If you would like advice about building your family tree

or making a will, go to:

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