How Accounts And Properties Become Abandoned Or Missing

You, as well as most other Americans might not have any idea that right now the Federal and State governments are holding onto millions of dollars in abandoned and missing property.  To find out if you are the rightful owner of some of this property, it is first important to understand where this property comes from. If you think it is possible that you may have left property or money behind somewhere along the way, you’ll find the process to actually search for missing property to be a very simple one.

Where Abandoned Property Comes From

How people lose property is the biggest question officials get when they’re asked why the government is holding onto so much missing property. Abandoned property can come from almost anywhere like bank accounts that people have left behind or even safe deposit boxes that haven’t been opened in years. Other times it comes from inherited property or maybe a will that was left behind naming a sole inheritor. Abandoned property can even come from and most commonly does come from storage units that haven’t been opened in years or possibly decades as well.

When this property becomes abandoned, it doesn’t just go away. It gets collected, usually by the state or federal treasury office. Some treasury offices seek to turn this abandoned property into liquid money by holding missing property auctions. These auctions will then make it easy for the treasury department to keep track of the abandon property money, as opposed to the property itself, and the money can then be returned to the rightful owner when that person comes forward.

I have always had mixed feeling about the government making the final choice to sell the property because money is easier to track. What if it was something that was lost or misplaced but was in the family for generations and was supposed to be continued being passed down? Wouldn’t it kill you to know you inherited an age old family heir loom but it was sold before you ever laid eyes on it? On the other hand, who wants to be left with other peoples junk, in some cases regardless of the value?

How to Collect Your Missing Property

If you think there is a chance that you could have missing or abandoned property waiting for you out there, all you have to do is search using your first and last name. This will be your first free search and it will yield results in your name (potentially), as well as results in variations of your name. This is to make sure no stone is left unturned.

If you do have missing property waiting for you, you can claim it with a simple letter or phone call. That is how easy it is to claim abandoned property once it’s found. So start searching. You never know how much you’ll find or what you’ll find when you search for abandoned or missing property in your name.