Unclaimed Property Blog

It could be good news, if you know ahead of time or it could be bad news, if you end up stranded.

Your credit card company may be one that monitors your spending habits. Then you take a trip somewhere out of your ordinary route. The vacation of a lifetime could become a nightmare.

You want to pay for a purchase using your credit card and it is denied. You only have this credit card with you. You try to call the 800 number, this does not go through because you are now in a foreign country where the 800 number is invalid.

Were you aware that you have a score for bankruptcy? Read on for details.

You probably already know about your credit score. That’s the number that creditors use to say yeah or nay on loans, increase your your credit card limit or perhaps prevented you from the lowest interest rate on your dream car. Well there’s another scoring tool you should know about. This one is called the bankruptcy risk score.

This little secret has been kept hidden from consumers for nearly 20 years.

So if you have a score what were you graded on? Your ability or likeliness to file for bankruptcy.

You often see or hear about people being reunited with their money. You never think it could happen to you, but it can. Read on for a North Carolina story.

The North Carolina State Treasurer’s office is holding more than $500 million in unclaimed property.

Bill Isley, much to his astonishment was told the state had approximately $3,650.00 for him to claim. The money was from a sport utility vehicle he sold more than 10 years ago.

Per Isley, the transaction just got misplaced, he moved on into a new job and things just got lost in the shuffle. This is the typical scenario for lost money.

This is different, the city recognized a mistake and is now correcting the error. This is happy news for about 5,000 property owners in Port St. Lucie.

Two million dollars sits inside a bank vault in Fort Pierce, waiting for its rightful owners to make their claim.

Three years ago a judge ordered Port St. Lucie to repay owners of 45,000 vacant lots $14.4 million in storm-water utility fees. To date $2 million remains unclaimed, either because the recipients cannot be found, they lost their checks or simply forgot to cash them.

Sometimes the things you do not know can hurt you. What is your bankruptcy IQ? Read on for some information that may help increase your understanding of bankruptcy.

Bankruptcy isn’t something you like to think about, but you may find yourself considering it at some point in your life. How do know if it’s the right thing for you?

Let’s start with information on what it is. Bankruptcy is a federal court process that helps individuals and businesses repay their debts under the protection of the bankruptcy court (Chapter 13 Bankruptcy) or wipe their debts out altogether (Chapter 7 Bankruptcy). When you file for bankruptcy, an automatic stay goes into effect which prohibits your creditors from taking action to collect the debt without the approval of the court.

There are very important things one should know about copying a will. The following information may be useful to you so you should continue reading.

Did you know that when you are copying an original will you would never remove the staples. Why? If the original will appears to be tampered with, its validity may be questioned in probate court.

In most towns there is someone that is looking for people that owe money and looking for people who have lost money. Wayland, MA isn’t any different. Read on for some laws that the state imposes on found money.

Town Administrator Fred Turkington works to track down Wayland residents who owe taxes to the town while Treasurer Paul Keating is doing just the opposite.

Each year Treasurer Keating is required by law to try to locate people whom the town owes money, individuals and businesses who never cashed checks the town has written.

When you read about people claiming cash you may wonder “How could they lose it?”. This news may add to your concern since we are talking about a baseball team able to claim money the state is holding.

According to the Boston Herald, the Boston Red Sox will be claiming $7,288 in abandoned property that Massachusetts State Treasurer Tim Cahill is holding for the team.

This is the type of story you would like to see in the headline news regularly. A young woman doing a good deed has found cash.

Trista Wright was spending her spring break helping others by cleaning out hurricane-damaged homes when she discovered some unusual papers among the debris.

She started raking the unusual papers out of the air conditioner vent. Looking at it she thought it was garbage and decided to shovel it up, changed her mind and bent down to pick it up. Upon further inspection she discovered it was a stack of $100 bills; and then more and more kept coming. The unofficial count puts the cash at more than $30,000.

Kentucky has given the answer to that question. It came about because some Kentucky tobacco growers have unclaimed money waiting for them in state coffers.

In June, as part of the Phase II Tobacco Settlement program, checks totaling more than $863,000 were returned to the state. Approximately 5,000 checks were returned because no forwarding address was left, the forwarding address had expired, the recipient was deceased or the post office box was closed.

The checks were among 164,000 — totaling $114 million — that were sent out.

The June checks will expire this year (June 2006). If their recipients do not collect, the money will go into an unclaimed property fund. After three years, the state may spend the money.