Unclaimed Assets and charities

Coins and notes At present it is impossible for charities such as Cancer Research UK to trace all assets left to them as legacies. If a person dies leaving undiscovered assets, and has left a percentage of their estate to charity in their Will, then their chosen charities miss out on their share of the value of the unclaimed assets.

Since efforts to release unclaimed assets in this country have always been extremely limited, we expect that the majority of such assets will have belonged to people who have now died. One in seven of all people that die leaving valid Wills leave legacy gifts to charity. So it is reasonable to assume that charities are owed a significant proportion of the total value of unclaimed assets in the UK.

The Dormant Bank and Building Society Accounts Bill is crucially important to the UK’s charity sector because it will affect the amount of money available for charities to carry out their vital work.

However, existing proposals focus on the distribution of unclaimed assets and less on the crucial first step of reuniting charities with what is rightfully theirs. Moreover, the legislation does not require financial institutions to make data more easily accessible to the general public. This means that it will be difficult for charities to trace lost assets belonging to deceased estates.

The Dormant Bank and Building Society Bill moved to the House of Commons on the 27th February 2008 and we are awaiting a date for Second Reading. Unless this appeal by the Unclaimed Assets Charity Coalition is heeded, this Bill could represent a huge missed opportunity to right a significant wrong.

The coalition is calling for the Bill to include a reserve power for a register of dormant accounts, to enable charities to search across bank and building society accounts in order to be able to identify which institution holds unclaimed assets which they may have been left. The coalition is not calling for the release of any data not already publicly available. It is only asking for a cost-effective and secure system to be set up, to help charities establish whether there is a match between publicly available information and any institution which may be holding unclaimed assets in dormant accounts in that specific deceased person’s name.

The banking and building society industry has launched a new online tracing scheme, however we believe it is problematic because it:

only covers dormant bank, and building society accounts, and the NS&I database (and does not include other financial asset types such as shares, pensions etc)
is much less straightforward to look for lost bank accounts than it is to search across building society accounts and the NS&I database
is not clear whether the scheme incorporates different types of bank accounts (e.g. internet banking accounts)
is not transparent about the search process and is not clear about what records are included or how far back records are held

At the moment, there is no requirement for individual institutions to take part, and charities are currently unable to search across a range of banks if they are not sure which institution is holding a lost asset.

That is why our preference remains for the creation of a register of all unclaimed assets, which would enable charities like Cancer Research UK to continue our vitally important work and ensure people’s final wishes to leave a part of their estate to charity is respected - in full.

The coalition has produced several briefings during the Bill’s passage through parliament. The Lords Third Reading briefing is the latest version. The coalition was cited extensively in the Lords Third Reading debate and will be briefing MPs in advance of Commons Second Reading.

In June 2006, the Unclaimed Assets Charity Coalition was formed. This is a group of 57 national and local charities and charity-sector umbrella bodies.

The UACC is working to ensure the charity sector’s need to access lost legacy funds is considered by Government in its work on unclaimed assets. Cancer Research UK provides the secretariat to this coalition.

February 2008: Lords Third Reading debate

January 2008: The Lords Committee Stage briefing

August 2007: Letter to the Guardian from Cancer Research UK

June 2007: A response to the Treasury consultation on ‘A UK Unclaimed Assets scheme'

February 2007: Submission from the Unclaimed Assets Charity Coalition to the Treasury Select Committee’s Inquiry into Unclaimed Assets within the Financial System

June 2006: Unclaimed Assets Charity Coalition update press release

For more information please also read our Frequently Asked Questions about unclaimed assets. or contact us.