Cash in on Unclaimed Property

Imagine finding out you have cash just sitting in a box waiting for you to come pick it up.
You’d go pick it up, right?
News Three’s Kelly O’Connell went to a secret place that holds all the unclaimed property in the state of Georgia.
Tonight we show you how to claim it and what you could be missing out on.

It’s like a dream come true; collector items, jewels, coins.

“It’s like a treasure chest,” says Kelli Miller with the Department of Revenue.

Treasures, yes, but it’s actually the vault of unclaimed property.
All of the contents could belong to you, or anyone who lives or lived in the state of Georgia.
 
“It’s not our money, it’s theirs and we want to give it back to them,” says Miller.

There’s over $800 million worth of cash and deposits in the vault plus the value of all this property.
The Department of Revenue says the majority of unclaimed property comes from forgotten savings accounts, abandoned safety deposit boxes and unknown wills.

“We’ve had claims that are up towards one million dollars and some at ten dollars,” says Miller.

Every box comes into the vault and every item is logged.
One box had baseballs signed by Mickey Mantel and Nolan Ryan.
Not every box is full of baseball history; most are full of bank statements, passports, wills.
Even though you may not recognize some of the names it’s still history…to someone.
   
“When you find the one box that has all memories in it, that’s fantastic, because then you get to peek into someone’s life,” says Miller.

Some may be yours, so how do you cash in?
First, you need to see if you indeed have unclaimed property.
You can check by simply going online at http://www.dor.ga.gov.
From there, pull down the forms option…
Click here on unclaimed property…..then search.
To search, just put in your last name and the city you live or lived in.
If your name pops up, click it and fill out the form.

“Once we get it we put it into our system and we have a special software that tracks down people from addresses 10 to 15 years in the past, we are excited because it gives us a whole new way to reach owners of property,” says Miller.

If there’s a possibility that the items belong to you, the Department of Revenue will send you a claim form.
You will need to send a copy of your social security card and license with that claim.
They look through 65,000 claims every year but only about 5,000 of those actually match up to the property.
Making sure they get the right item to the right person takes close to 12 months.
“Its memories that are in there and that’s why it’s so important for us to get them back,” says Miller.

Lately they’ve been busy; Miller says because of the economy, more people are claiming property.

“They’re more aware and they realize that they need the money, we have it and they say lets go get it,” says Miller.

There is no timeline on the unclaimed property- it can stay in the vault as long as it takes to find the owner and it never becomes property of the state.
The Department of Revenue says it will never cost you anything to claim your property, they say beware of anyone offering to get your property for a fee.
You should check in every state you have ever lived in to see if you have unclaimed property, the average amount of a claim is $1,000.