As of 13 August 2026, AI can only partly find missing assets belonging to an estate.

What to actually do

1. Hand it to a person

   The route this page recommends

   A person who owns the outcome does this end to end, worth it when the failure is dear.

2. Use a tool built for this

   Second choice

3. Do it yourself

   The distant third

   A chat interface, chat-fluent skill, and roughly 2 hours until you can act on the result.

   How to actually do it

   1. Open the will, grant of probate or letters of administration, estate accounts, recent correspondence and available bank or investment statements, then make redacted copies with account numbers and other unnecessary identifiers removed.
   2. Create a simple list of every known property, account, policy, pension, business interest, valuable item, debt and regular payment, including the document that supports each entry.
   3. Paste the redacted list and documents into the prompt, filling in your role in the estate and the specific gaps you are concerned about.
   4. Ask the chatbot to produce the confirmed-assets table, missing-asset leads, priority search checklist and draft enquiries requested in the prompt.
   5. Check each suggested lead against the original papers, then use official UK records or contact the named organisation only where you have the authority and identity documents it requires.
   6. Record every enquiry, reply and reference number in the checklist, and mark a lead unresolved rather than treating silence or an AI inference as proof that no asset exists.
   7. Send the unresolved leads, ownership questions and any suspected dispute to a UK solicitor before distributing the estate or making a statement that the search is complete.

   Prompt

   Help me investigate possible missing assets belonging to a UK estate. This is not professional advice. Do not decide legal ownership, give probate advice or claim that the estate is complete. Use only the information and documents I provide, and label every inference as an inference. Do not invent accounts, property, policies, values, contacts or dates.
   
   First, extract a table of all assets, liabilities and possible leads mentioned in the material, with the document or statement supporting each item. Separate confirmed assets, possible assets, closed accounts and unresolved questions. Then identify gaps that could indicate a missing bank account, savings product, investment, pension, insurance policy, property, business interest, valuable item, digital asset or debt owed to the deceased.
   
   For each possible lead, give:
   1. why it is a lead;
   2. what evidence is still needed;
   3. the next lawful action in the UK;
   4. who should make the enquiry, such as the executor, a bank, an insurer, a pension provider, HM Land Registry or a solicitor;
   5. a short draft enquiry that does not disclose unnecessary personal data.
   
   Create a practical search checklist in priority order. Include a column for status, date contacted, reference number and reply. Tell me which items I can check myself against official records and which need a solicitor or the organisation holding the record. Warn me where identity, authority, confidentiality, probate or limitation issues may prevent an enquiry. Keep account numbers, National Insurance numbers and full addresses redacted in your response.
   
   Estate context: [executor or administrator status]
   Known deceased person details: [brief details, with sensitive numbers redacted]
   Known documents and information: [paste a list or the redacted text]
   Known property, accounts, policies, pensions, businesses and debts: [list what is already known]
   Known gaps or concerns: [describe the concern]
   
   End with a short list of the five most useful next actions and a separate list of questions to take to a UK solicitor.

   Open it prefilled in ChatGPT or Claude, or copy it into Gemini, which takes no prefill link.