How to check for unclaimed money for Michigan residents
Anyone missing $1.8 million?
That's the value of the highest item of unclaimed property from an individual Michigander, a slice of the over $2 billion currently held by the state's Unclaimed Property division.
The division is managed through the state Department of the Treasury, which returned $116.7 million in unclaimed assets to rightful owners in the most recent fiscal year. While claimable assets are listed for individuals and entities like businesses and organizations, Terry Stanton, the Treasury's state administrative manager for unclaimed property, said the bulk of unclaimed assets are from people.
"We hear from folks saying, 'I really need this, I'm going through some struggles, my property taxes are due, my rent is due,'" Stanton said. "It's heartwarming to be able to help people out and make sure that we're getting the money back to the right person."
The money usually comes from uncashed checks like forgotten refunds from a utility, a credit balance, money left in an inactive bank account past a typical dormancy period of three years, a period of time determined by Michigan's 1995 Uniform Unclaimed Property Act. By law, the institution must attempt to contact the owner before reporting the property as unclaimed to the state, which then takes custody until the rightful owner submits a claim.
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Only properties valued at $50 or more are posted on the website. Stanton said the amount of smaller properties, some only pennies, is just too large to include in a database with the more significant balances. The average claim pays out around $2,000, though business claims are typically much larger than individual assets.
The timeline for returning money after a claim depends on the property, with claimants in the simplest cases seeing a check in hand within a couple of weeks. More complicated situations, like claiming property for a deceased relative or bankruptcy proceedings, enter gray areas with further required documentation and months of bureaucratic process.
A number of Lansing-area institutions have unclaimed funds in the database, including Sparrow Health System, McLaren Greater Lansing, Michigan State University and Lansing Community College. Stanton said the dynamic with obviously known entities is interesting, as the process requires active participation and documentation from the claimant.
"We do outreach and we will send a letter to an individual or business saying, we believe that we have property for you, please go to our website and check it out, but we never hear from them," Stanton said. "We can lead a horse to water, but we can’t make them drink, right?"
Some entries in the database represent physical unclaimed items from abandoned safety deposit boxes, typically precious items like jewelry or gold bars or other heirlooms: wedding dresses, a silver necklace appraised at $10,000, baseball cards signed by Joe DiMaggio and Ted Williams. The items are cataloged by the Treasury and kept in a limited-access, secured property room in an undisclosed location.
While there's no time limit on claiming property, tangible items in the possession of the state for longer than a few years are usually auctioned off after an appraisal, with the equivalent value still remaining claimable.
"It's all just property, " said Stanton, a baseball fan whose mind was blown that someone could forget those cards. "We've got to handle it."
Do you have unclaimed funds?
Anyone can search for unclaimed funds, either belonging to an individual or business, through the Department of Treasury's online database at unclaimedproperty.michigan.gov/app/claim-search to begin filling out a claim.
Customer service representatives from the Treasury are also available at 517-636-5320 from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. on weekdays to begin the claim process for the caller.
It's worth giving it a try: a January 2022 search shows the Lansing State Journal currently has two unclaimed balances, each ranging from $100 to $250.
Contact reporter Annabel Aguiar at aaguiar@lsj.com. Follow her on Twitter @annabelaguiar.
This article originally appeared on Lansing State Journal: How to check for unclaimed money for Michigan residents
