California Is Sitting on Billions in Unclaimed Property
California, one of the largest states in U.S., is currently sitting over more than $5.7 billion in the form of unclaimed property belonging to approximately 11.6 million individuals and organizations. This unclaimed cash is a part of over $ 32 billion unclaimed cash and property held by various states of U.S.
The state of California has enacted Unclaimed Property Law that requires property holders such as corporations, business associations, financial institutions and insurance companies to annually report and return dormant property to the State Controller’s Office.
Unprecedented Efforts
California state controller’s office is putting up never before efforts to reach the owners of unclaimed property. From January 2007 until the end of 2009, the office sent out 3.17 million notices warning owners that their property was likely to be sent to the state. These notices were in addition to the 1.89 million notices sent to the owners informing them that their property had been taken under the state custody.
The efforts have started showing encouraging results. The California State Controller’s Office has been successful in returning more than $1 billion worth of unclaimed property to its owners.
Source of Revenue for the State
In spite of the efforts by the state authorities, California is still sitting over the mound of unclaimed cash and property. The state is looking at this huge cache of money as a source to fill the budgetary deficit of the state as it is certain that a large chunk of this will remain unclaimed forever.
More and more Californians are coming forward to stake their claim over the property that they had forgotten somewhere down the line. Those who are still not taken any initiative to find any unclaimed cash in their name can log on to www.cashunclaimed.com before the treasure vanishes.
