When a person dies they may hold a range of assets. These are normally property, bank accounts and life policies. Often we come across individuals who hold shares and investments as part of their assets when they die. Culturally, holding shares in Ireland is not as common as in other jurisdictions such as the US and holding shares is relatively novel (say over the last 50 years or so). Most people’s interaction with publicly quoted shares tend to be a relatively modest investment. Those who have a greater interest in investing tend to have a portfolio manager and those shares are held either through the manager or other set structures. For many retail shareholders their investments tend to be on the smaller scale. Notwithstanding that, these are assets that must be administered as part of dealing with a person’s estate and their affairs after they die. Normally when dealing with shares you deal with a specialist organisation whose role is to manage the registers on behalf of quoted companies. The three main operators in Ireland of such entities are Computershare, Equiniti and Link. These three organisations are the middleman between the person administering the estate and the listed company. In relation to shareholdings, these shareholdings can be in Ireland but many in Ireland also invest in public companies that have their listing outside of Ireland. In that case those are treated as non-Irish assets or foreign assets for the purpose of estate administration. The procedures of dealing with each of the middleman share register companies tend to be cumbersome, with lots of different administrative steps to go through as part of the process. In particular one will need to ensure that the executor’s identity and that of the persons receiving the shares are properly verified to meet the anti-money laundering obligations of these third party registrars. If you are administering an estate you need to stick with the process and be tenacious in dealing with such bodies as there can be a good deal of to and fro in dealing with such entities. It is the obligation of an executor to ensure that these shares are properly administered and that the wishes of the deceased are carried out.
We hope this helps and for more information go to info@kerrywills.ie.