When Frank Bergmann recently received mail from a small savings bank in Emsland, he was surprised. Since thirty years, he learned there, he has a savings book at the institute. Now the savings bank changed its small print, so the writing. If Bergmann had not received mail, he would not have known until today that someone had opened an account there for him as a child. "And that's what happens to me," says Bergmann. As an heir broker, he researches who owns the property that people leave behind after they die. Often Bergmann has to find out how much there is to inherit. And that alone is already a challenge.

Inheritors often do not know which banks had the deceased's assets. Savings books are lost, there are no records of current accounts. For decades, money has been on the bench belonging to the heirs, but they had no idea. Institutions then speak of "non -reportable assets" because they do not have a message about who it belongs to. Often, the deceased changed their name or address years before their death, causing contact to be severed.