How to Find Unclaimed Property: The State Might Owe You Money!

Ever heard of a little thing called “escheatment”? Yeah, me either. They’re a common result of class action lawsuits, you know the ones if you’ve ever had cable television: you may be entitled to financial compensation for mesothelioma.

I remember thinking that the infomercials concerning the Boy Scouts were especially dark. But, without dead eyeing the void too much, escheatment is what happens for all those hundreds (or thousands) of people that are entitled to compensation, but never file a claim.

Fundamentals of Escheatment

The money awarded in a class-action lawsuit, if unclaimed, is sent to their state’s treasury, and held in a dormancy period (anywhere from 1 to 5 years or longer), until it’s, I’m sure you guessed it, absorbed by the state.

Knowing this is not just a fact, but a law, let’s not think of the eons of grey money that private enterprise has poured into state coffers for “misconduct”, never to reach the intended and legally-awarded recipient, and it’s called justice served.

Knowing that at a certain level (think bank level) allowing misconduct, and then “imposing the harshest of penalties” is really just collecting money for state governments off the top of wild corporate consumer abuse. You can think of it as the vig, for those familiar with the concept.

Let’s just shelf all that, after all, we’re here to collect, right? Correct. And that’s the first point.

Fastest way to end the government taking your legally-awarded money for the abuse of bank executives? Collect it. Kick in the door, file that claim, and get that check courtesy of good ol’ USPS.

Easiest place to start your search is a website like missingmoney.com, you can type in your name, and zipcode and quickly determine whether you hit for any lists. If you have a Pennsylvania address like me, you’re unfortunately not going be able to search this directory.

The good news? The PA Treasury directory is pretty easy to search. Front page, click “unclaimed property”. Two wild facts that jump out on the page:

1. There is nearly 4 billion dollars in unclaimed property to be collected in the state of Pennsylvania.
2. 1 in 10 Pennsylvania residents has unclaimed property waiting for them.

So if you, like me, happen to have unclaimed property held by PA State Treasury, here are your next steps:

1. Create an account on the treasury website. (This makes filing claims much faster).
2. Once logged in, search for your claim again and add it to your cart. (It is FREE to file a claim, don’t worry!)
3. Complete the claim process, and you’ll be emailed a PDF or given the option to download it.
4. IMPORTANT: YOU NEED TO SIGN THIS DOCUMENT AND UPLOAD IT TO COMPLETE THE PROCESS.
5. Now you wait. — Update: Approximately two months to approval.
6. $$$$$$$$

Although I didn’t have to, it looks like you can file for multiple properties on one claim to cut down the overall number of claims you’ll have to make or checks you’ll have to wait for. Start to finish the whole process took less than forty-five minutes, that includes writing this article alongside filing my claim.

There is a bit of confusion in the instructions on whether you can digitally upload the signed documents or you have to mail them. I’ve chosen to digitally upload them, and if that’s an issue, I will update this article.

I highly encourage you to search the database, as not only did I find unclaimed property for myself, but I found at least 10 cases of unclaimed property among my family members. That’s a lot of money that the people you love are missing out on.

Last note, if there is unclaimed property listed for deceased family members, the legal heir to that family member’s estate is eligible to file a claim for that property.

So do me a solid, do yourself a solid, and do the people you love a solid and send this link around. There may be some money waiting for you that you don’t even know about!