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Welcome to the State Controller’s Office
Unclaimed Property (UCP) Program Web site

Fellow Californians:

For two decades, misguided State laws restricted my office from contacting the owners of what amounted to more than 80% of all unclaimed property accounts sent to the State.  In August, that practice ended when the Legislature passed and the Governor signed my reforms that removed the laws, roadblocks and red tape from reuniting Californians with their property.

On October 18, a federal court in Sacramento lifted an injunction because of the reforms that provide for the Controller’s Office to adequately notify owners that, unless claimed, lost property will be transferred to the State for safekeeping.

Within the first week of being able to provide notices to owners of their State-held valuables, we sent notices to 99,086 Californians urging them to claim their property.  Without the new laws, we would not have been able to send 77,078 of these letters.

Furthermore, our reform efforts re-established a unit that will aggressively find and track down property owners in attempts to reunite them with what rightfully belongs to them.  In the first four weeks since our reforms took hold, more than 3,100 owners of lost, forgotten or abandoned property will be returned that would not have happened without long-overdue statutory changes.

I am pleased our reforms both satisfied the court, and coupled with common sense administrative changes, show progress in reuniting rightful owners with their unclaimed property.

I want Californians to know that I am putting them first, and there is much more work to do.  I will continue my work to make sure the State is moving quickly to put their property back in their hands where it belongs.  I also have sponsored comprehensive reform legislation (SB 919 by Senator Mike Machado) to restore interest paid on claims and impose strict penalties on banks, utility companies and other businesses that fail to comply with the law and notify their customers of unclaimed property they are holding.

There are additional reforms I plan on pursuing.  Among the reforms, I seek to cut the time it takes to review and make a determination on property claims in half.  Current law provides that most lost or abandoned property transfer to the State after three years of inactivity.  I would like to extend this timeframe to provide owners with more time to notify their account holder of their intent to maintain their accounts, while still balancing the impact of holder fees which may draw down the account values.  I want to protect owners of safe deposit boxes by prohibiting financial institutions from sending them to the State if the owner has other active accounts.

I remain confident that these measures will greatly improve the unclaimed property law and restore the public’s confidence that their lost property will be safeguarded by the State until Californians claim what is rightfully theirs.

Sincerely,

JOHN CHIANG
California State Controller

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