Does British law require a tax or fee to be paid to receive…

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You do not have to pay a tax in the UK to receive your funds in the US and although there could be bank transfer fees, they would come out of the estate itself and would not be something you would be expected to pay out of pocket.

There is a very popular scam called the "same surname inheritance scam." The Nigerians invented it generations ago in the days before the internet, and it is as popular now as it was then.

Scammers make countless phone calls and send thousands of emails and letters out every day in the hope that they find someone who believes he may actually have a missing wealthy relative somewhere and who will take the bait.

If you receive such a message and follow it up you will be told that the money is yours but that you will first have to lay out money for one reason or another to collect your inheritance, usually by Western Union or MoneyGram. That's the #1 sign of an inheritance fraud. They usually couch it as taxes or transfer fees, and because scammers invariably prey on people in foreign countries, they count on the fact that you'll take the word of some so-called "barrister" that this is the way things work in the UK. You can end up spending tens of thousands on legal and other sort of fees to pay for requirements and get certificates that won't be worth the paper they are printed on because none of them are real. And of course, you'll never see an inheritance because it's not real either.

Heirs never have to pay a cent to collect an inheritance. The estate pays its own expenses and only after everything is paid out is the remainder distributed to the heirs.

Lawyers have to be licensed to practice in their country. If you are not convinced that this is a scam, please give me the name of the "barrister" I can tell you if he really is a practicing legal professional in the UK.

If you do already think this is a scam, cease all contact with the "barrister." Do not send him any money and do not send him any sensitive personal identifying information. If you do, they can use it to commit identity theft or to perpetrate further scams in your name.

Any time someone you don't know or some company you have never dealt with contacts you out of the blue to tell you that you have come into a windfall beyond your imagination, but that first you have to wire money out and/or reveal unnecessary sensitive personal information in order to collect it, it's a scam.