KeepUP™ Blog

Amounts owed to you (unclaimed property) can go unclaimed for a myriad of reasons.  Your company could have moved locations.  They could have changed their process or contact point for payment receipt.  A check could literally be lost in the mail.  Once those items are lost and go unreconciled they turn in to unclaimed property. Unclaimed property can be funds held by a state/jurisdiction resulting from statutory escheat requirements or they can be outstanding balances held by a government entity (that will never be escheated) until you or your organization come forward. 

Whether your unclaimed property is held by a state unclaimed property department or government entity, it is important to know there are two ways to get your property; search and claim it yourself or utilize a Third-Party Recovery Firm.

A Third-Party Recovery Firm is a company who assists owners in the identification and recovery of unclaimed property.  For the most part, Third-Party Recovery Firms will contact your organization about funds they have located.  If you or your organization has decided to utilize a third-party to recover unclaimed property it is important to consider the following checklist:

Jurisdictions in which you do business may possibly be holding your company's abandoned or unclaimed property. You might not even know it's there. Unclaimed property is often generated unintentionally. Most companies have more dollars lying out there waiting for recovery than they realize. 

A majority of states operate and maintain their own searchable websites for property in their custody.  The states that don’t maintain their own website, may engage with a third party to manage their search process.  States looking to maximize the exposure of their properties will manage their own search platform while also publishing their items on a third-party search website.

The process for identifying and recovering unclaimed property has shifted and morphed for as long as unclaimed property compliance has existed. Decades ago, the process required contacting the states directly to locate any unclaimed property that was available or scouring the local paper for a list of items that could be held in your name. With the inception of the internet, the recovery of unclaimed funds has been made simpler. However, funds owed to you may not always be housed in easily searched sites.  Consequently, there has been a profusion of newly created corporate asset recovery firms that indicate they can help you recover “hard to find” unclaimed property.  However, companies should always check the bona fides of any firm making extravagant recovery promises to eliminate the possibility of fraudulent/improper activity.

The opportunity for your company to find and recover unclaimed property has never been greater than it is right now.  According to the National Association of Unclaimed Property Administrators, in 2016, $3.24 billion was returned to the rightful owners by jurisdictions and $7.76 billion was collected by those same jurisdictions.  It is widely thought there could be over $40 billion in unclaimed property held by the states and jurisdictions. However, states are not the only source of unclaimed property; cities, counties, and foreign countries could also be holding your company’s property.  Given this substantial amount of unclaimed property, states and third party locators alike have increased their efforts to assist individuals and corporations in the recovery of their lost property.  The question is how do you find your property and what are the steps to recover those item.                                                   

How do you find your property?                                                              

All states and jurisdictions offer on-line portals to search and locate your assets.  Some states run their own portals posted on their own state site.  Other states utilize a third party website such as MissingMoney.com.  Whether the state runs their own site or outsources to a third party, these are usually the quickest means to locate your property. 

For unclaimed property not held by the state, many other locations such as a city or county do not maintain websites where you can easily search.  One of the most efficient means of locating unclaimed property held by cities or counties is to call any location where your company may operate to see if any outstanding funds exist.  Because these locations are seldom regulated by state unclaimed property departments, funds could be sitting in any one of the thousands of such locations.