What if someone told you that you have won the lottery? Well, we might have some good news for you: you may be sitting on a small fortune (or maybe a big one) without knowing.

Here’s a recent case we had. A man in his sixties came to us claiming that his late mother gave him a $2,000 check that was never cashed. This uncashed check had a date that was about 10 years old. We contacted the issuing bank in New York, and the bank sent us a claim form that we could submit to the New York Unclaimed Funds Office in Albany.

We submitted the claim, and lo and behold, the New York Unclaimed Funds Office sent a list of items that were listed under this person’s name that he never knew about. There was an abandoned CD that his late mother had at the same bank where his name was listed as In Trust For. The total CD amount was over $20,000. It took us a while to claim it back (obviously there is a process where one must submit certain documents to prove lawful ownership), but after some months he received a check for the entire amount, plus interest.

You could be in the same situation. Someone could have listed you as the In Trust Person without you knowing, or you may have simply forgot to cash a check or had a bank account that was inactive for a couple of years, and you forgot all about it.

All of these ‘forgotten’ items assets are sent to the respective state where the issuing payer was domiciled at the time of payment or account opening.

You may also be the owner of real estate property or some other valuable asset. Someone might have left you some inheritance and you were never informed.

If you would like us to conduct a detailed search across several Abandoned Property databases to see if your name, or the name of any of the people who are close to you, comes up, then contact us for more details.

This blog post was published in the monthly Newsletter for October. It contains a trove of useful information.

It will be free until December 2022, and then by subscription only.

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Thank you for visiting taxandpension.com, and we hope to see you again soon! We look forward to serving you in the future.