Company Origins and Future Plans

TPR was founded by Richard Davies in London in 1995. Initially, research concentrated on documents available from UK archives and statutorily available registers. The assets being discovered tended to be forgotten investments, dormant bank accounts, and inheritances.

Even in the early days, although all the unclaimed property was located in the UK, tracing the original or new owners often involved an overseas connection. Within the first two years, we had already returned assets to clients in Canada, France, Belgium and Malaysia.

In 1998, meetings with lawyers in Malaysia led to the suggestion that TPR should commence operations in Asia. Malaysia, in particular, has an Unclaimed Monies Act: but there was no major firm involved in tracing the owners of such unclaimed money, and helping to reclaim it.

By 2001, TPR was incorporated in the UK, Malaysia, Singapore, Australia and New Zealand. The groundwork is now being done to extend operations into Africa : with lawyers being appointed initially in South Africa, Kenya and Zambia.

The principal offices, however, remain in London and Kuala Lumpur.

In 2002, in the UK, there was a major revision of Land Law. For some time, TPR has been considering how to deal with the many instances of forgotten and unowned real estate in the UK. In 2003, TPR Land Ltd was formed to specialise in this sector.

TPR Land - which deals exclusively with forgotten real estate in England and Wales - is based in Whitstable, Kent, in the south of England.

Over the coming year, we expect to see further developments in Africa, discovering assets lost in the first half of the 20th century; and we shall be revisiting India, to review the availability there of archive registers of ownership.