Part 2 of 8: Beneficiary Tracing: A Guide for Legal Professionals
How the Intestacy Hierarchy Works
When someone dies with a valid will, the executor knows who the beneficiaries are. The will names them. The task is to find them.
When someone dies without a will, the starting point is different. The administrator may not know who is entitled at all.
Intestacy is governed by succession legislation in each Australian state and territory. The rules vary between jurisdictions, but the structure is broadly consistent. The law establishes a fixed order of priority that determines who inherits and in what proportions. There is no room for personal wishes, informal promises, or assumptions about who the deceased would have wanted to benefit. The legislation decides.
In most jurisdictions, the hierarchy follows a predictable path. If the deceased had a spouse or domestic partner and no children, the partner typically inherits the entire estate. If there is a spouse and children from the same relationship, the spouse usually receives the whole estate. If there are children from a previous relationship, the estate is divided between the spouse and all children. Where there is no surviving spouse or children, entitlement passes to parents, then siblings, then grandparents, then aunts and uncles, then cousins. If no eligible relative can be identified at any level, the estate passes to the State.
For our clients, the complexity often begins at the point where the hierarchy moves beyond the immediate family. Tracing a surviving spouse or known child is one thing. Tracing a half-sibling the deceased never mentioned, or a cousin in another state, is a different undertaking entirely.
When Intestacy Creates Complexity
Partial intestacy adds another layer. A person may have a valid will that deals with some assets but not others. The will might distribute the house and savings but say nothing about a superannuation death benefit, a recently inherited property, or a business interest acquired after the will was written. The assets not covered by the will are distributed under the intestacy rules, which means the administrator may need to trace beneficiaries who were never contemplated by the will at all.
One of the most difficult scenarios we encounter involves minor beneficiaries. Children do not hold electoral roll records, property titles, phone numbers, or any of the standard data points an investigator relies on. If the entitled person is a child, the search effectively becomes a search for their parent or guardian, often with minimal identifying information.
Following the Trail
We once worked a matter where the only information available was the first names of two children. No surnames, no dates of birth, no address. Through our search techniques, a single social media post was identified made by their father. From there, we traced the father and eventually spoke with his wife, who confirmed the children were the individuals connected to the estate. The family had known the deceased but had no idea he had passed away.
In another matter, we were instructed to locate the daughter of a deceased person. The child had moved to the Philippines with her mother after her father passed away when she was an infant. Nearly twenty years had passed. We located an obituary notice from the time of his death, which mentioned the mother's name. From there, we identified both the mother and daughter through social media posts, confirmed their full names, and coordinated an international trace in the Philippines. Contact was made and the beneficiary was successfully reached.
Cases like these require creative approaches and a willingness to follow indirect leads. They also highlight a reality of this work: the people entitled to an inheritance often have no idea they are entitled. It falls to the administrator, and by extension the investigator, to reach them.
It is also worth noting that illegitimate, ex-nuptial, and adopted children are treated the same as biological children under Australian succession law. A child the family may not know about, or may not acknowledge, can hold the same entitlement as any other child of the deceased.
For administrators, the practical question is not whether these people are entitled. The law is clear on that. The question is how to find them when the deceased left no contact details, no address book, and no indication that they existed.
That is the work we do. And in Part 3, we look at why the executor's obligation to conduct reasonable enquiries is not just a procedural formality, but a matter of personal legal exposure.
Ready to hire a Skip Tracer? At Skip Tracing Australia, all our skip tracers are licensed private investigators, insured, and highly experienced. We assist law firms, businesses, and individuals with ethical, lawful, and effective location services.
Reach out today to discuss how we can help you locate the person you're looking for.
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