(Part 2 of 2)

Each type of asset can be classified as "unclaimed" once it has been determined to be abandoned. To be deemed abandoned, the asset must sit inactive for a period of 1, 2, 3, or 5 years, or in certain cases, 7 or 15 years (for money orders and traveler's checks, respectively). Usually though, 1-5 years is the assumed dormancy period for most of these monies. After the dormancy period has gone by, the holder is required to pass the missing money along to the state, which then holds on to it until the rightful owner is able to track it down.

The reasons that it is difficult to reunite unclaimed property with the rightful owners are numerous, but they generally all come down to a lack of understanding about where and when to search. While a lot of sites may claim to be "official" or insist they offer a complete database, only a handful actually provide legitimate listings, and even the official state records are quite unreliable. Once an asset is handed over to the state, an employee at the state has to manually add the record in to the missing money database, but this is not done right away, so it's good practice to do a search often. Additionally, because of all the differing dormancy period lengths, a person might perform a search on a given day and then end their search if they found no claims, when if they had just checked back the year after they might have found a large claim that just happened to have a longer dormancy period.

When searching for lost money, there is a bit more to it than just plugging a name in to the search box of any old site. Issues that hinder rookie searchers are easy to circumvent, but the majority try to go out on their own and are unable to find money that belongs to them, which is why the totals get bigger continually all across the country. Investing a little time studying expert search techniques can greatly increase the odds of filling our wallets with money we didn't even realize we had.

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This post comes from Brandon Ballenger at partner site

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