Where to look for what they left behind
There is no single list of what a person owned. There are separate official places, each showing a part. Choose what you are looking for to see where to go and what to do there. You use the portals yourself, so we never ask for names, PAN or numbers.
What are you looking for?
- Bank deposits. Savings, fixed deposits, forgotten balances
- Mutual funds. Folios held with fund houses
- Shares and dividends. Holdings, and dividends left unclaimed
- Insurance. Policies and money an insurer holds
- Tax and income records. The trail the tax department keeps
5 places to look
UDGAM: unclaimed bank deposits
Search for deposits that have gone unclaimed, across many banks at once.
What you need
- Their name and date of birth
- Your own mobile and email
What to do there
- Open the UDGAM portal. It is the Reserve Bank's own portal for searching unclaimed deposits.
- Register with your own name and mobile number. RBI's FAQ says a user registers with their name and mobile number. The portal has a user manual that explains the steps.
- Search for the account holder. Enter their name and choose one or more banks. Add any one or more of: PAN, driving licence number, voter ID number, passport number or date of birth. If you have none of these, you can type their address instead.
- Read what comes back. The results include the claim and settlement process of each bank that has something.
- Claim from the bank, not from UDGAM. The portal only searches. RBI says an unclaimed deposit can be claimed only from the bank that holds it.
What it cannot tell you
- Anything at a bank that is not on the portal. RBI's FAQ says 30 banks were on it on 4 March 2024, covering around 90% of unclaimed deposits by value.
- Accounts that are not unclaimed. It searches unclaimed deposits and accounts; it is not a list of every account a person had.
Income-tax portal: register as the legal heir
Register as the legal heir of a deceased taxpayer, so you can act for them on the e-Filing portal.
What you need
- Their PAN
- A death certificate
- Proof you are a legal heir
- Your own mobile and email
- An e-Filing account of your own (a user ID and password)
- The deceased's date of birth and the other details the request form asks for
What to do there
- Log in to the e-Filing portal with your own account. The manual lists your own user ID and password as a prerequisite.
- Start a request. Go to Authorised Partners, then Register as Representative Assessee, then Let's Get Started, then Create New Request.
- Choose “Deceased (Legal heir)” and fill in their details. Enter the deceased's PAN, date of birth and the other details it asks for.
- Upload the documents. Upload a copy of their PAN, a copy of the death certificate and your proof of being a legal heir, as in the checklist above. The portal also takes a letter of indemnity, which is optional. If the death was before 1 April 2020, the FAQ asks for a request letter giving the reason, and a copy of the related order or notice.
- Confirm with the one-time codes. A code goes to the mobile number and email on your own e-Filing account.
- Wait for approval. The manual says the request is processed within 7 days, and that you are told by email and SMS.
- Switch to the legal-heir role. Log in with your own details. In the profile section, switch to representative assessee (as legal heir).
- See what the portal shows for them. Look in the e-File menu for the Annual Information Statement (AIS). It gathers what has been reported about a taxpayer, such as tax deducted, tax paid, refunds and reported financial transactions. The pages we read do not say whether an heir can open it, so treat this as something to check.
What it cannot tell you
- It shows what has been reported to the tax department. It is a tax record, not a list of everything a person owned.
Bima Bharosa: unclaimed insurance amounts
Ask insurers whether they hold unclaimed money on a policy you already know about.
What you need
- Their name and date of birth
- A policy number, folio number or old statement
- Your own mobile and email
- The district, state and pin code on record for the policyholder
What to do there
- Open the Unclaimed Amount Query form. It is on IRDAI's Bima Bharosa site.
- Fill in the policyholder's details. The form asks for the policyholder's name, mobile number, date of birth, district, state and pin code. PAN is optional.
- Add the insurer and the policy number. Choose up to five insurance companies and enter the policy number or numbers. The page marks these as required.
- Agree to share the details, and confirm. You consent to the details going to the insurers only to identify unclaimed amounts. The form then asks you to confirm with a one-time code.
What it cannot tell you
- It does not find policies you do not already know about. The form asks for the insurer and the policy number.
IEPF: unclaimed shares and dividends
Claim shares and dividends that a company has passed on to the Investor Education and Protection Fund.
What you need
- A policy number, folio number or old statement
- Documents showing you are a legal heir, as the company asks for them. IEPF's FAQ has a question on exactly which, but we could not read its answer.
What to do there
- Work out which company's shares or dividends may be there. Look in their statements and papers for company names, folio numbers or demat details, and for dividends that stopped arriving. The IEPF pages we read do not describe a search by name, so the company or its registrar is the place to ask.
- Fill in Form IEPF-5 online. This is the IEPF Authority's claim form, for shares and for amounts.
- Print it and send it with your documents. Send the printout and the other documents to the company's Nodal Officer at its registered office.
- The company and IEPF check the claim. The company sends its verification report to IEPF within 15 days of receiving the claim. IEPF checks the documents, then transfers the shares and the refund amount electronically.
What it cannot tell you
- Anything a company still holds itself. IEPF's process is for what has been transferred to it.
The monthly mutual fund statement (CAS)
Find the consolidated statement in their email. It lists their mutual fund folios, and demat holdings, across fund houses.
What you need
- Access to their email
What to do there
- Search their email for “consolidated account statement”. AMFI says a CAS is sent by the 10th of the following month, for a month in which there was a transaction. The soft copy (e-CAS) goes to the email address on record.
- Look at who sent it. The registrars CAMS and KFintech provide e-CAS, and the depositories NSDL and CDSL issue it for investors whose PAN is common to both.
- Note every fund house and folio. A CAS lists purchases, redemptions, switches and systematic transactions such as SIPs, across the folios that share one PAN, with opening and closing balances. It also shows holdings in demat form.
- Ask each fund house, or its registrar, about transmission. KFintech's guidance names the forms. Form T3 is for a nominee or legal heir, and what is needed depends on the value.
What it cannot tell you
- A month with no transactions may produce no statement, so a fund they stopped using can be missing.
- It lists mutual funds and demat holdings. It does not show bank accounts or insurance.
Short guides
- Where to look for what someone left behind. There is no single list of what a person owned. Here are the kinds of trail to follow, a sensible order to try them in, and what finding nothing does and does not mean.
- The monthly statement that lists their mutual funds. If you can open their email, one consolidated statement can name every fund house they used. Here is what it is, who sends it, and what it cannot tell you.
- The tax statement that gathers what was reported about them. The Annual Information Statement collects what has been reported about a taxpayer. It can point to institutions you did not know about, but a legal heir needs to register first.