LOUISIANA, USA — Wednesday is National Unclaimed Property Day. Currently, there are more than $671 million unclaimed in Louisiana, plus more than 94 million unclaimed shares.
According to the Louisiana Treasurer’s Map of Available Property, most of the cash is in Orleans, Jefferson and East Baton Rouge parishes.
“Unclaimed property” is anything like refund or payroll checks, oil royalties, utility deposits, dormant bank accounts, or safe deposit box contents that never made it to their rightful honor or heir.
Before it’s claimed, all of that money sits in a trust fund owned by the state. The state can spend the interest it makes in the meantime.
Now – the good part – how to see if you’re owed money:
Go to Treasury.LA.gov. Click on ‘unclaimed property’, and then click ‘get started’.
All you have to do is type in your name or business name. You can narrow the search by adding cities and zip codes of places you’ve lived.
If there’s money out there for you, the website will tell you the general range of how much you’re entitled to. To get that cash, you fill out a claim form to prove your ownership. It could take up to 90 days to become yours.
Other states have unclaimed property databases too. if you’ve lived somewhere else, you can go to Unclaimed.org and see if somewhere in your past, some cash was trying to make its way back to your wallet.
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