The state of WA has spawned some of the world wide web’s biggest names. Even Bill Gates, the United States’ richest man, hails from Medina, WA and his company, Microsoft, is based in Redmond. Amazon.com, Classmates.com, Whitepages.com and Marchex also make WA their home. The fact then that more than one and a half million residents are owed more than 700 million dollars in unclaimed money in WA State is ironic, sense searching for unclaimed property and money can be done on the web from the comfort of their bedroom or the local Starbucks.
According to the WA State Dept. Of Revenue web site, typical unclaimed money includes abandoned insurance proceeds, bank accounts, bonds, stocks, safe deposit box contents, mutual funds, uncashed payroll, utility and phone company deposits, traveler’s checks, insurance, and other financial assets. Unclaimed property doesn’t include most tangible assets such as vehicles and real estate. State Law requires insurance companies, banks, credit unions, government entities, retailers, corporations, and utilities to turn WA unclaimed property and money over to the state if their owners can not be located after three to five years (depending on the item). The State’s Unclaimed Property Law states: “State law protects unclaimed property until it can be returned. There is no time limit for filing a claim and rightful owners or their heirs can claim property reported since 1955. The state may auction the content of safe deposit boxes, however, if not claimed within five years.”
WA was the very first state to have a streamlined system for claiming lost property and money. As a matter of fact, the WA State Dept. of Revenue recently received the Award for Outstanding Management and Organizational Initiative for its ‘Unclaimed Property E-Claim System’. The amount waiting to be reunited with their owners still exceeds 500 million dollars however, despite the unclaimed money program being implemented to seek out more owners of WA unclaimed money and that makes claiming easier for them.
The problem may lie in a handful of factors – the fast paced lifestyle we live in today, the idea people have that piles of paperwork are necessary when dealing with the government, and plain disbelief. The more people jump from spouse to spouse (changing last names), jump from job to job, change addresses, the more likely they are going to lose track of some of their financial assets like inheritances from a relative that had passed away or tax refunds from the IRS. Even people who are aware of the possibility that they could have unclaimed money in WA and other states might not bother performing a search at all thinking it’s not worth the effort.
The Unclaimed Property Division collects more than 55 million dollars in lost or abandoned assets each year in WA State and that amount snowballs with each passing year. Study up on all the various ways to search, how often to search, and where to search and get started finding money you could have coming ASAP! Who knows? For once, the government could owe you money this time instead of the other way around.
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