I have inherited an Estate, circa £1.4m in value, where everything is passing by survivorship from first death to surviving spouse.
All assets are owned jointly (including a Tenants in Common property which is left absolutely to the surviving spouse and joint legal owner, therefore removal of the restriction and the deceased joint proprietor will suffice) with the exception of modest sole shares in Rolls Royce Holdings plc (LSE) and Keurig Dr Pepper Inc. (NYSE).
EQ are content to encash the RR shares without a Grant. The Keurig Dr Pepper Inc. registrar however requires a Medallion Stamped Grant of Probate to encash circa £1,500 of shares.
My client has stated “just leave them” - obviously I can’t do this as it would not completely administer the Estate. He is, however, concerned that the cost of encashment would exceed the receipted funds - again, not unreasonably. He has therefore instructed me to donate to charity, advising that his late wife used to donate regularly to WWF.
I have spoken to ShareGift, who cannot accept the shares as they are fractional. They have also advised that there is no longer an organisation in the USA which accepts low value gifted shares.
Can anyone advise a low effort way of disposing of these shares from the Estate? For ease of reference, Keurig Dr Pepper Inc. are headquartered in Delaware.
Dear Michael,
The easiest and cheapest way for you to deal with the issue is to wait as if dividends remain uncashed for about 3 years (sometimes 5 years) it is likely that Computershare will escheat the shares to Delaware. Delaware Unclaimed with then sell the shares and sit on the cash for evermore until claimed. Once the shares have been escheated to Delaware, you / the Executors can then complete the Forms with Delaware Unclaimed and recover the monies.
Delaware is very difficult to deal with, so be warned, but you will not have Medallion Guarantee issues although the Claim Form will probably have to be notarised.
Otherwise, you will simply have to bite the bullet and go through all of the usual procedures to have the shares transferred to the Executors / the Beneficiaries after which you can sell the shares through a local stockbroker who is familiar with selling USA shares (our brokers do this for us all the time). The problem is the cost of doing so, from which you might receive £100 net after all the fees and expenses have been paid.
Yours sincerely,
Peter Double / Probate Resealing Services
Slightly infuriatingly, in one sense, the deceased’s husband (now sole beneficiary & executor) did receive correspondence a couple of years ago, so he advised me, stating that the shares were about to be escheated to the state of Delaware as dividends had been accruing and were unclaimed. He responded on behalf of his wife to state that she did not wish this to take place.
Obviously, in retrospect, he is somewhat frustrated with that decision made with the best of intentions.
I suspect that the most efficient way of substantially administering the Estate will be to encash / transfer all EWLS assets and advise that the USA holdings of Keurig Dr Pepper Inc. remain outstanding, obtaining an indemnity from him as the PR that he will deal with these as he sees fit.
Dear Michael,
Your proposed indemnity is I believe the best way for you to pass the buck to the Executor, and not have you further involved. The Executor has only to do nothing and let escheatment happen; and then collect the monies from Delaware, which is a cheapest option, but this will also as mentioned be testing his patience as regards getting things done and the monies paid to him by Delaware.
Yours sincerely,
Peter Double / Probate Resealing Services.
Mindful that Cadbury PLC, from which Dr Pepper was demerged in 2008, was a widely held investment, I wonder how many other holdings may have been subject to escheat.
As a US firm, Dr Pepper will have paid dividends in Dollars and, if dividends are paid by cheque, the costs of paying them into a UK bank account may be close to, or even exceed, the sterling value.
There may therefore be many estates where the Dr Pepper dividends have remained “unclaimed” in these circumstances and the shares subject to escheat.
If it is known (or perhaps merely suggested) that a client held Cadbury shares, and there is no evidence of the continued holding of Dr Pepper shares, it seems to me that if enquiries are made in Delaware, there might be an additional asset due to the estate.
Paul Saunders FCIB TEP
Independent Trust Consultant
Providing support and advice to fellow professionals
You are correct. One of the problems as you mention, is that the dividend cheques were so small that after bank charges and exchange rates were taken into account, it did not make sense for the shareholder to cash the same in the UK, and so the shareholder just ignored the dividend cheques and left the monies to be escheated to Delaware.
The escheated monies now simply remain in Delaware until collected by (usually) the Executors.
It is always worth seeing if any monies have been escheated to Delaware as sometimes when the shares have also been escheated, and several years have passed the claim can be several thousand ponds at the end of the day.