Couple die 24 hours apart and leave Cadbury shares in limbo

Bernard and Clara Kempson lived in Lancashire and spent many decades together, they had a baby girl a few years after tying the knot. With both passing away so close to one another, the terms of their Wills meant that their daughter, Lesley, would inherit their legacy.

The value of the estates was made up of many parts, and whilst the administering solicitors could deal with most, the North American shares owned by the Kempson couple proved difficult.

As Fraser and Fraser have worked with intestate and testate cases, we often see UK residents holding various American shares such as health care company Johnson & Johnson, investment management firm Invesco, Kraft Heinz and IBM.

The solicitors in this case had long been trying to arrange a Medallion Signature Guarantee as the shares needed to be transferred and sold to complete the administration of the Kempsons’ estate. We were able to arrange the signature guarantee which enabled the transfer to take place and the executor effectively sold the holding worth £43,000.

*Cadbury was acquired by Kraft Foods Inc. (April 2010.) Kraft Foods Inc. later completed a demerger of its North American grocery business and the name was changed to Mondelez International Inc.: the demerger also resulted in shares in the subsidiary company Kraft Foods Group Inc. (October 2012)