Transfer Of Shares On A Shareholder's Death

When a person who owns shares in a Bermuda company dies, the person's shares must be transferred into the name of his or her beneficiary. This is true whether the shares are in a local company, or in an exempted company.

The requirements for making such a transfer are normally set out in the constitutional documents of the company, which provide guidance to the company's board of directors about what they must do in order to facilitate such a transfer.

For example, a company's by-laws sometimes provide that: "On the death of a shareholder, the 'estate representative', shall be the only person recognised by the company as having any title to the deceased's shares." In such cases, the estate representative is the only person who may sign the share transfer form on behalf of the deceased shareholder in order to record the details of the new shareholder in place of the deceased.