Unclaimed Property Blog

Unclaimed money is not just something that Americans have. Our neighbor to the North also has the dilemma of returning money to rightful owners.

In this case we are looking at one bank, the Bank of Canada. It was reported that as of January 1, 2006 the bank was holding 854,000 dormant bank accounts totalling $270 million. The largest single account has a balance of $423,598.58.

With amounts of money like that you may wonder how someone would forget about it. There are sudden deaths where the relatives have no knowledge of this account. The bank does not have a current address and therefore cannot contact the rightful heir. The most common reason for an abandoned account is the owner relocates and does not inform the bank of the move.

Unclaimed property is the topic for some of England’s largest charities. Money is sitting idle and charities are in need of funds. What to do? Read on to find out what they are planning.

Some of England’s largest charities have formed an independent body which is set to announce plans for a “social investment bank” . The purpose of this group is to take over hundreds of millions of pounds lying in dormant bank accounts.

The exact plan will be unveiled on July 12, 2006 as part of an interim report by the Commission on Unclaimed Assets. The Commission is reviewing how dormant funds could be distributed to charities if the assets are not reclaimed by their owners.

Tobacco farmers were once given a settlement to no longer raise tobacco. If you thought that all the money was given out, think again.

In the fall of 2005 the Treasurer’s Unclaimed Property Division received payment under the Master Settlement agreement (MSA) between the major domestic cigarette manufacturers and 46 states. This is money that had gone unclaimed for several years.

Further looking into this uncovered that there are about 1,300 farmers in Kentucky who have not claimed all they were due from the tobacco settlements.

Indiana is once again making more attempts to contact people that have unclaimed property. The state does want to give this money back to the rightful owner.

For various reasons money does get turned over to the state. The laws on unclaimed property vary from state to state as to what is to be turned over to the state and the time limits to turn in unclaimed assets.

In Indiana financial institutions and other holders are required to turn over assets of accounts that have had five or seven (depending on the type of account) years of inactivity. After 25 years, unclaimed funds become subject to the general fund.

You may have seen legal notices in local newspapers, your mail box may hold a letter of invitation and the internet entices you to do it. What is it? It is a search for unclaimed property or money. Some research was done and here follows basic information on unclaimed property.

Well, it is true! There are billions of unclaimed dollars sitting in state coffers waiting for rightful owners to be found.

Are you thinking, it’s probably a scam or highly unlikely that any amount of the billions could be yours?

It seems as if there isn’t enough money to go around sometimes. The flip side to this is that there is money sitting waiting to be claimed. Read on to find out how the Capitol is uniting the people with money.

For over 25 years, the district has accumulated $250 million in unclaimed property. About one-fifth of the owners are found each year.

Locked in an electronically secured vault on K Street are mounds of items that are now handled by the District of Columbia Department of Unclaimed Property. The property has come from banks, corporations, trading companies, hospitals and nursing homes, all required by law to send the city items whose owners have left behind and not come forward to claim.

The Canton Illinois police tried to give the $267.00 back to its owner. They attempted to return the money for about 17 years.

Brian Campbell was arrested on Feb. 27, 1989. He was convicted on charges of unlawful use of a weapon and unlawful possession of marijuana.

During the arrest police confiscated all his property, which is standard procedure. Campbell was also wanted on a burglary warrant in Indiana, where he had lived at the time. When Canton police sent him to Indiana to faces charges there, they forwarded all his property except the $267 he had been carrying in cash.

The three major consumer credit reporting agencies have designed a new credit scoring system.

Equifax, Experian and TransUnion announced that the new credit scoring system called “VantageScore” was a direct result of market demand for a more consistent and objective approach to credit scoring. VantageScore is aimed at simplifying the loan process for both lenders and borrowers.

Until this agreement the agencies used their own proprietary formulas to create their own scores. This complicated scoring as each lender dealing with a consumer’s application for a credit card or a mortgage might have to reconcile three widely different scores.

Florida is currently promoting giving away $1 billion. Is this for real?

Are you one that seeks lost treasure? Ever comb the beaches for lost money? In Florida there are people looking for and finding lost treasure.

Florida’s Chief Financial Officer Tom Gallagher, who oversees the Department of Financial Services’ Bureau of Unclaimed Property department, has returned nearly $300 million, since 2003, in cash and property to current or former Floridians.

The bureau is currently holding accounts valued at more than $1 billion, and the owners or heirs can claim it for free by logging on to www.fltreasurehunt.org or by calling 1-88-VALUABLE (1-888-258-2253.)

New York has money to give it’s residents. Read on to find out how much and where the money is and even how you can claim yours.

This fiscal year New York is expected to recover about $150 million in unclaimed property, state Comptroller Alan Hevesi said recently. Unclaimed funds currently total $7.2 billion.

What is this unclaimed property? It is funds which have not been claimed or are considered abandoned. The sources include old bank accounts, telephone or utility deposits, uncashed checks, insurance benefits and policies and wages. These assets are sent to the comptroller’s office, which then searches for the rightful owner.