Relatives located to share fortune
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Your support makes all the difference.RELATIVES OF a Scots millionaire who died intestate last year have been found, investigators revealed yesterday.
London-based genealogists Title Research said the identities of everyone who was entitled to a share of Helen Lowe's pounds 7m estate were known, but not all had been located.
Miss Lowe, who died weeks before her 100th birthday, was a former businesswoman in Edinburgh. Publicity surrounding the unclaimed fortune led to hundreds of phone calls and inquiries on the Law Society of Scotland's website. A 77-year-old woman claimed she was a relative after seeing Miss Lowe's picture in a newspaper.
A spokesman for Title Research, Tom Curran, said: "We are confident we know the overall position of all the people who are entitled to a share of the estate. Matters will be finalised in due course." He added that the company had examined the claims of everyone who had written to it, including claims from Australia and South Africa. "We re-create a family tree and superimpose the rules of succession. We identify everyone and we then find them. We work systematically and we wouldn't miss anybody," he said.
The estate will stand at about pounds 4m after inheritance tax is deducted.
Miss Lowe, who was born in Berwickshire, was the first woman in Scotland to qualify as a chartered accountant. She started a business in 1928 but friends say she only began focusing all her talents on her career after the death of her sweetheart during the Second World War.
Her fortune is believed to have resulted from shrewd investments in property as well as shares.
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