The state of California’s unclaimed money program takes in approximately $300 million every year. What’s it to you? Well, if you or anyone you know is or ever was a resident of the Golden State (or ever had any type of business dealings, whether you knew it or not), a chunk of that massive pile of Cali missing money could easily be yours!
Under the state of California unclaimed property (or escheat) law, lost money such as forgotten checking and savings accounts, uncashed checks and money orders, mineral deposits, salary checks, cash and stock dividends, state of California unclaimed tax refunds, gift certificates, and other assets are passed along to the Treasury Dept. if their owners don’t locate them within a certain time period. This ‘dormancy period’ varies widely from state to state, but in Cali it is 3 years. These abandoned assets then go to the CA unclaimed property div, where they stay in the state’s general fund until returned to the rightful owners. This is where state officials who handled Cali unclaimed cash were criticized recently. Seems that they have been all to happy to locate and collect the lost funds from the various establishments holding them but showed less interest in contacting the actual owners in the Cali unclaimed money database.
One of the primary reasons for the government’s inability give back forgotten cash to residents, they claim, is that they can’t be tracked down. Problem is, who would think that people like Angelina Jolie, ZsaZsa Gabor, Gerri Halliwell, Victoria Beckham, Keanu Reeves, Brad Pitt, Adam Sandler, Marlon Brando and Jennifer Lopez could be hard to find? Their names and the names of several other famous people are just a few of the names in the Cali missing money list and yet they have not heard from the officials in the California Unclaimed Money Division. They are all owed checks for lost assets by Cali ranging in amount from hundreds to the thousands in Ms. Jolie’s case. This proves once again Cali state employees’ interest in holding this cash in the general fund for them to balance the budget deficit for as long as they possibly can. In fact, there was a recent ruling by a federal judge on CA abandoned assets, saying that the state was not making enough of an effort to locate the rightful owners and for a while halted the ability of the state to take and hold it until a new policy of reuniting it with the rightful owners has been adopted.
The total amount of unclaimed money in California averages five billion dollars annually - imagine the amount of interest that accrues for the state! Sacramento attorney Bill Palmer who has battled in many cases involving CA unclaimed money, said the state’s program was intended to be a lost and found of sorts for Californians. Instead, it has been turned into a profit generating ‘business’ in recent years.
The hold on the seizure of property by California has recently been lifted and the new CA State Controller, John Chiang, is making extra efforts in the form of widespread reforms in improving how his office deals with CA unclaimed money. There’s still a great need though for Californians and residents of all other states across the U.S. to learn about the presence of these monies and on how to do a thorough search for them.
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Treasurer delivers unclaimed check - Topeka Capital-Journal
Overland Park resident Gail Brown got a visit from Santa Claus on Friday. Well, actually it was state Treasurer Dennis McKinney. But he came bearing a gift. Specifically, a check for $78,666. It was unclaimed property from Brown’s mother’s retirement …
Kansas Treasurer Dennis McKinney plans visits to reunite people with unclaimed money - fox4kc.com
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