[ajmat]

Context

My father died when I was 15-16 years old. He was an active investor and kept investing in all sorts of shares. In most cases, the shares were jointly held with my mother. This was around 1978. My mother managed to transfer most shares which involved type writers, carbon copies, multiple death certificate copies and snail mail. That time, both fraud and scrutiny was relatively minimal. Around 50% of the shares got transferred but she did not keep up with all this.

Fast forward to 1994, she had relocated to an apartment down the road. Around that time, I moved back to India, opened a big box and found more shares to transfer over and then later on demated them. She never really tracked everything closely. Whatever came her way, she did ensure direct dividend payments. To cut a long story short and to reduce emotional liability, I put my mother onto a financial advisor and everything moved to mutual funds and bonds. Some shares were retained in the demat account or so I thought.

Along comes the governments KYC Missive to verify

1. Name
2. Mobile no
3. Identity
4. PAN No
5. Aadhaar
6. Address
7. Bank Details.

My mother has a very methodical way of getting these done - yes, chuck' em over to me! From all this, it transpired

1. There were shares still not demated but dividends were received.
2. There were shares demated but some additional shares were unaccounted for (but dividends were being received )
3. There were shares where dividends were received but not proper share certificate available due to amalgamation of companies (Tata Tea to Tata Consumer)
4. Then comes the big kicker, a share certificate in my late fathers name jointly held with my mother for a considerable amount and a stack of unclaimed dividend warrants. The address was our old home

How on earth did this happen? As I mentioned, my mother moved down the road and bits and pieces were forwarded by old neighbours, smart postmen etc. Depending on her mood, she tossed them into a file or gave it to me. More the former!

The past few month have been living hell trying to make sense and execute. Am documenting what I have done to ensure no-one loses out on their legacy.

[ajmat]

If you have demated your shares, all is well! The KYC has been sorted by your Demat company for all your holdings. The cases below focusses on those analogue folks who hold physical paper.

We might curse our governments previous, present and future but there is no denying that each successive administration of them have improved governance and security for the individual stockholder by improving governance and security although some glitches remain. When is comes to governance and KYC, it is a single process one needs to follow. Even the forms are standardised. Before one moves on sorting things out, a pre-requisite is to ensure the KYC requirements are met. This involves completing the following:

• ISR-1 Pertaining to your Aadhar, PAN, Address, signature, Bank details. This is the time to make any changes.
• ISR2-Verifying the bank details by the Bank. I kept sending my 80+ year old mother to the bank to get this done multiple times. Be merciless, their wealth is multiplying due to our efforts!
• SH-13- Nomination

You can download these from the respective company website

This is assuming you are the rightful holder.

Before you complete those forms, you have on hand

• Client Master List from your Demat Account Provider and your account details
• Cancelled original cheques. - this is important
• Folio number
• Certificate No
• Distinctive numbers

If you do not have the certificate or folio details - write to the respective registrar. This is assuming you are collecting dividends and some of these details might be on the dividend warrant. They take their time but will respond but might require verification.

Demating a Share Certificate is straight forward. Submit the Demat request form along with the KYC documents and everything will get credited in 2 weeks.

Lets talk abut the messy stuff

1. I don’t have a share certificate for shares less that Rs 10 Lakhs
   
   
2. I don’t have a share certificate for shares more that Rs 10 lakhs
   
   
3. I have share certificate of my dead parent who died a long time ago but my surviving parent is a joint shareholder but the the asset is transferred to the Government

Note - Any unclaimed shares /dividends is credited to the IEPF (Investor Education and Protection Fund) and there is a process to claim this.

[ajmat]

Case 1: I don’t have a share certificate for shares less that Rs 10 Lakhs

Step 1: Complete the KYC documentation and submit to the Registrar. For this, you need to get as many details from past dividend warrants. I was fortunate to find some debenture warrants which held complete information. Wait for the KYC update to be confirmed by email.

Step 2: Write to Registrar with all details informing of the loss of certificate. (Dont be smart and combine Step 1 and 2 together. Registrars cannot multitask due to the volume!)

They acknowledge, block the certificate records and will write back with instructions as follows

Step 3: Please complete and send

Form A - Affidavit on Rs 100 stamp paper
Form B - Indemnity Bond on Rs 500 stamp paper
ISR4 (Service Request for issue of duplicate certificate)

If first holder is deceased, the joint holder needs to complete these in their name as the first holder.

Recommended Resource - edrafter.in - they will procure, print and deliver within a day or two. You pay a premium but save time

Within a month, you will receive a letter of conformation. You then need to follow the Demat process with this letter in lieu of the certificate

You can be smart and shortcircuit Step 2 and provide Form A, B and ISR4, duly filled up while notifying them!

[ajmat]

Case 2: I don’t have a share certificate for shares more that Rs 10 lakhs

This is very similar to Case 1

Step 1 - Complete the KYC

Step 2 - Inform the Registrar of the loss of certificate. Note in this particular case, I did to have the certificate but KYC was complete so they wrote to my mother with the Certificate Details.

Complete the forms A, B and SH13

You will need to follow the additional steps

Step 3: File an FIR - that’s the worst part but most states offer an online lost report filing facility so its all easy. It should be in the name of the person owning the share and authentication via Aadhaar happens. Print out a copy

Step 4: Publish an advert in a wide circulating paper in the city of company's registered office.(format attached) i.e. you cannot put an ad in the Malayalam Manorama for a lost ITC share where the head office is in Kolkata. Go with the Times of India, Indian Express or the Hindu. Enclose the cutting or a print out. Format is attached

Step 5: Forward the documentation to the Registrar

If no one makes a claim within a month, you get the letter of confirmation and follow the Demat process.

However, in my case, I went through the whole process including publishing the notice. I printed out the notice and nipped out from office to court in order notarize the Form A and Form B. Returned from the court, sat down at my desk to prepare documents for despatch and my mother called and says "I found the certificate, it was filed with something else!"

Duh!

Lets just say, my office had never seen me in a pissed off mood until now!

So we informed the registrar about the find, once they acknowledged our notification and we went the demat way.

And now for the Grand Finale

[ajmat]

Case 3 -I have share certificate of my dead parent who died a long time ago but my surviving parent is a joint holder

We had the share certificate. The first thing we tried was to demat along with the KYC details and SH13 form but it came back rejected as the shareholder details did not exist on record. It took a while to realise this as the Demat Account Provider never informed us and kept rejected certificate in a drawer.

Why?

As the dividends remained unclaimed, the monies and the shares reverted to the the IEPF (Investor Education and Protection Fund) and there is a process to claim this. We needed to contact the Ministry of Corporate Affairs. A messy, complex process you would think, not really! There are process issues to work around. This article will tell you how in detail:

Disclaimer. - Workflows change and are all over the place so I might not be accurate

The main issues were in the registration

Go to mca.gov.in




At the top right hand corner end, click on Sign in /Sign Up to get the following console





Click "Register"


Complete claimant details - name and contact details, make sure it matches with the your Aadhaar/pan addresses




You get an acknowledgment. I was not getting anything. I cleared my cache and cookies and it started working. The next stage is to initiate the claim process on the IEPF website.

Login to the MCA website with your new credentials (the user ID is your email address) and select option for VF2 Filing

Select -MCA Services - IEPF-5



You come to another login console (we will come to that in a min!)

And then you get well and truly stuck as it needs to have a 10 digit user id when your email address is much longer. At this point, I would have given up but the amount was too much to lose.

All was not lost, merely log a ticket on MCA portal and provide your PAN number and they will change the user ID to your PAN number. Believe me when I say that the MCA are responsive. One ticket that I had not responded to, they actually called me!

UPDATE: I did a dummy run today with my details. The same issue happened but within 24 hours, I got a notification that my PAN no is my login

Now begins the process.

But before you begin, you need to get a lot of stuff together before you get complete the submission


1: Tabulate and total the dividends in terms of amount and financial year
2: Prepare the signed Indemnity Bond format
3: Get all the KYC stuff along with SH13 completed.


Now get the following together in pdf format and store in a folder

• Aadhaar of all claimants in one document
• Passport/OCI of any foreigners in one document
• Proof - Share certificate, dividend warrants (scan into one pdf document)
• Self attested death certificate
• Indemnity Bond and Surety Affidavit ( it is one document! - Format in this post)
• *Will/Probate/Succession Certificate
• Cancelled Cheque
• *No objection certification from any holder (required if other holders are abroad and you need to credit to someone in India)

Also ensure you have access to the email and the phone of the claimant

*Note Ideally, if there is a joint holder who is a spouse /sibling/parent or child, avoid the will/probate /succession stuff . More on this later

Now it is time to start the submission process

Select IEPF-5 and complete this screen



Make sure you have the right company/subsidiary etc. When you complete this, the name of the Company Nodal Officer, address etc come up. Take a snapshot or note details down. It is very important.



Then fill in the details - Amount and shares or Amount



The shares part is straight forward. The amount part is the tedious one - remember I suggested you compile a spreadsheet




Now its time to attach the files. Check and double check



Complete the Declaration




You will then need to authenticate via phone and email as per Aadhaar (Thank you Nandan and Manmohan for this!)

You then get an SRN no along with this screen. Forgive me but I forgot exactly how the SRN no came - on screen or in the workspace



Please then print out the acknowledgment and the form (I forgot the latter). You are normally expected to download the profiled indemnity form and print it on stamp paper but I found the format and completed it before hand. it is odd since once the application is submitted, you cannot change or add anything. The IEPF process is not clear on this.

Now take all the hardcopies in the list and the application form and send it to the respective company registrar along with the KYC forms. In my case, I sent everything except the form to the Registrar. Fortunately the Registrar found my number on the envelope and called me to send a copy of the form and the KYC documentation. This call was followed up with an email.

I followed up after a couple of weeks later, after internal approvals, he had processed the application and he provided the submission documentation, I then tracked everything on the IEPF website.

10 days late, IEPF reverted with a request for an affidavit as my fathers name was misspelt and a clarification on why I had got my siblings no-objection instead of direct transfer to joint holder. I had gone according to my fathers probate and will. In reality, I could have ignored and merely let the joint holder apply. I completed the documentation and sent to the Registrar


To track your application progress

Go to



Select Track IEPF5 - SRN status

You then get this screen


Log in and fight the Captcha with your eyesight and spell check





You will need to search for the week when you filed the claim



You then get a status

PEVR - Pending E-Verification from Nodal Officer
PAAO - Pending Approval Assigned Officer
PGGM - no idea what this meant but it is one step from approved and I might expect the shares to be credited in 3 months
Approved - you get notified when you reach this status

[Aditya]

Thread moved out from the Assembly Line. Thanks for sharing!

[kiranknair]

Excellent thread. Been there, done that. Retrieving shares from IEPF is a long process (don't assume that you will get it in 3 months as mentioned). I had submitted the application for retrieval of shares of Godrej Consumer to IEPF on February 23rd 2023. The Nodal officer at Godrej cleared the same within a week as the application and supporting documents were perfect. However IEPF process was very slow and the status was in PENDING status for many months. Finally, on October 2023, I got an email that the SRN has been approved from IEPF authorities. And finally the shares got credited into my demat account on January 25th 2024. Took more than 11 months from the date of filing the application.

[careind]

For any issues in interfacing or having grievances with any central government department, one can try using pgportal.gov.in.

It had worked out for me in the past with multiple ministries and though the process would be slow, there would at least be some traction and a sense of urgency in the slowness of the government machinery.

[chennai-indian]

Excellent thread. I'm also going through the same for getting shared in my dads name who passed way 15 years back to my account. I had to, on top of all this get a heirship certificate by going to court etc. It is a long process

[ajmat]

Originally Posted by kiranknair

Excellent thread. Been there, done that. Retrieving shares from IEPF is a long process (don't assume that you will get it in 3 months as mentioned). . Took more than 11 months from the date of filing the application.

Thanks for this info. I am keeping an open mind on this. The Registrars need to clear things fast since they face penalties but not the Government. How long did it take you to figure out the process?

Originally Posted by careind

For any issues in interfacing or having grievances with any central government department, one can try using pgportal.gov.in.

It had worked out for me in the past with multiple ministries and though the process would be slow, there would at least be some traction and a sense of urgency in the slowness of the government machinery.

With IEPF, I guess, it is a case of when and not if!

Originally Posted by chennai-indian

Excellent thread. I'm also going through the same for getting shared in my dads name who passed way 15 years back to my account. I had to, on top of all this get a heirship certificate by going to court etc. It is a long process

Glad this is of help. I could not find any articles on this anywhere. You read it here!!!

[careind]

Originally Posted by ajmat

With IEPF, I guess, it is a case of when and not if!

What I meant was that, if in the normal way it takes 10 months of not knowing where to follow up or whom to follow up with or what is the status quo, it would take only a month or 2 of that same state if you raise grievances based on your pending application.

Just ensure that you wait for a fair amount of time ( 4 or 5 weeks?? ) before raising grievances, else it could be shot down.

[aashishnb]

Thanks for starting the thread.

Shares are transferred to IEPF if a shareholder does not claim (receives by way of direct debit or depositing cheque) dividends for a continuous (focus on continuous) period of 7 years, and there is a process to claim it back which requires a fair bit of paperwork & time.

The paperwork is onerous as they have to make sure its going back to the right person (owner or legal heir of owner).

As a lot of people are very busy in their normal lives & more importantly, values of these shares are not huge, nobody bothers with the efforts.

There are various individuals / financial advisors, who provide this service to shareholders. Basically, they'll do all the running around, paperwork, etc. for the owner & charge a fee. Usually, the fee is a % of value of the shares, but again, mutually negotiated.

[ajmat]

Originally Posted by aashishnb

As a lot of people are very busy in their normal lives & more importantly, values of these shares are not huge, nobody bothers with the efforts.

There are various individuals / financial advisors, who provide this service to shareholders. Basically, they'll do all the running around, paperwork, etc. for the owner & charge a fee. Usually, the fee is a % of value of the shares, but again, mutually negotiated.

In my case, the value was something I could not overlook. There were a few shares not worth the value of the stamp paper so I did not bother.

I did get a call from someone claiming I had a bunch of unclaimed shares. They went to the old house and were directed to my mothers new place. I spoke to them and asked them to name a script. They said Titan.

My father died in 1978. Titan was established in the early 80's - Go figure! I later traced some other certificates. The IEPF process is meant to cut out the middle man with direct authentication. The website clearly calls out that intermediaries are not required.

[jeetumg27]

Thank you for this thread. I have started this process multiple times but given up due to the sheer amount of patience and follow up needed. I will give it a try once again following the above process to the T. Thank you again.

[ajmat]

Originally Posted by jeetumg27

Thank you for this thread. I have started this process multiple times but given up due to the sheer amount of patience and follow up needed. I will give it a try once again following the above process to the T. Thank you again.

Never give up! Please assemble the documents required and follow the process