Legal Love Letters: Unclaimed estates
List of unclaimed estates - April 2020
From: Bona Vacantia and Government Legal Department
The Unclaimed estates list is published in a Comma Separated Values (CSV) file format.
This acts like a spreadsheet and although it can be opened in any text editor it is is best viewed in a spreadsheet application, such as Microsoft Excel, Google Docs or Google sheets.
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If you are looking for a particular estate you can search by using Ctrl-F in your browser, text editor or spreadsheet application.
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The list is updated every working day and newly advertised estates appear at the top of the list.
After one day of publication, new estates drop into the rest of the list in alphabetical order.
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Any estates where the Bona Vacantia division (BVD) no longer has an interest, for example, when a claim to an estate has been admitted, will be removed daily.
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Estates where the 30 year time limit from the date of death has expired are also removed.
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BVD provides as much genealogical information as it holds on its files, subject to its obligations under the Data Protection Act and any other legal requirements.
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If a field is blank then BVD either do not hold the information or it may only be held in paper files stored off-site.
download the list
Who to contact
The Government Legal Department handles bona vacantia in England and Wales (except in the Duchies of Cornwall and Lancaster).
What Bona Vacantia does
‘Bona Vacantia’ means vacant goods and is the name given to ownerless property,
which by law passes to the Crown.
The Treasury Solicitor acts for the Crown to administer the estates of people who die intestate (without a Will) and without known kin (entitled blood relatives) and collect the assets of dissolved companies and other various ownerless goods in England and Wales.
BVD is part of the Government Legal Department.
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