As general thing, I'd says Solicitor+Death Certificate+Police Report should give you access to govt info eg Inland Revenue (Tax Office) etc .
Ideally, it would to be the named Executor of his will if found, otherwise the police would probably back you up.
I'm sure this happens a lot.

Sorry for your loss.

Thanks for reply & condolances.

OK. Something's come up on this.

The dead guy had a mobile phone, with potentially useful data in putting his life together. Somebody has it - it rings! It's been switched off and switched on this afternoon. So someone has it and is charging it

Is there any way to locate the thing, short of police involvement? The police aren't keen. The cell tower ping wouldn't yield much, but presuming it's giving location data, it should be possible to get a little closer.

In answer to the next question, no I presume it hasn't got Israeli malware installed that I know of. The dead guy wasn't worth it.

An iphone has an app Find My Iphone and Android phones have a Find My Device app. Both are preinstalled on newer phones. The owner would have to be enabled the phone Settings for it to work. Iphones can be located through iCloud but that requires the user name and password to log in to the account. I don't know if Android has this capability. A family member or attorney could contact the local phone company I would think.



https://www.consumersearch.com/techn...1-44c9beb95dbc

https://www.consumersearch.com/techn...1-44c9beb95dbc

Now that is interesting and points back towards my earlier post. Found these for you, and yes you can:

https://www.techwalla.com/articles/hidden-phone-number

https://www.deccanherald.com/special...pp-719277.html

If its an iPhone and you can guess his iCloud password then use find my device....Android has a similar feature via gmail account.

Phone company may do this for you, or they may require a court order.

I would expect it would be necessary to get a court order to get the information from the phone company. A family member would likely need to prove their relationship and would need a death certificate.

Yeah. My son is acting as next-of-kin. The real next of kin is having her breakdown in Hungary, and his parents are simple farming folk in their eighties. They don't need to know his phone still rings.

As a P.S. to this:

An old mobile phone was found, and some calls were made. It transpires

• The guy's apartment is co-owned by an ex-girl friend who never put anything towards it, purely because he put her on at the time, and neglected to take her off. But she gets it now.
• People who knew him say that dying might actually have been a good career move. The guy was involved in more than one unwise land deal which went south. He wasn't a good investor. Any claimant to the estate may actually find they inherit more liabilities than assets.

Given the state of his tangled affairs the various next of kin would not benefit by getting any closer to the truth.

Sorry this is late, but have you tried looking up the probate records?

https://probatesearch.service.gov.uk/

https://www.gov.uk/applying-for-probate See also the links on the side of the webpage.

I do not know if someone non-British would have a probate record or not.

You can also obtain details of who owns his flat, although perhaps you know that already.

https://www.gov.uk/search-property-i...-land-registry

If it has now been sold, it is possible to get historical details.

No matter. It's over & done with at this stage.

His widow is totally unable for stress. I knew the guy myself, but he had some un-diagnosed & untreated mental disorder - bipolar or schizophrenia.

The wife wants nothing out of his death - ever. She wants to recover, and won't, imho unless her attitude changes. An English solicitor is dealing with the parents, and is doing probate; and all has gone quiet on that front. It's a sad business.