TALLAHASSEE, FL. (WTXL) - Close to $1Billion in unclaimed property have been returned to its rightful owners in the past four years.
According to Florida's Chief Financial Officer, 12 million accounts totaling over $1Billion in assets are yet to be claimed. Once a safe deposit box has been abandoned for three years, banks send the contents to a state vault in Tallahassee, where items are held for another two years in a vault before being auctioned off.
The state keeps track of unclaimed paper assets such as bank accounts and stock dividends. According to Rick Sweet of the CFO's Division of Accounting and Auditing, the vast majority of what goes unclaimed are small financial amounts people tend to forget about.
It's estimated that one in five Floridians has some type of unclaimed property. The average amount returned to someone who does have an unclaimed account is a couple hundred dollars.
To check and see if you have any money coming to you, visit the website www.FLTreasureHunt.org.
