Home Public Services Unclaimed Property

Unclaimed Property

En español | 中文 | Sa Tagalog

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 2007, that practice ended when the Legislature passed and the Governor signed my reforms that removed the laws, roadblocks and red tape that prevented me from reuniting Californians with their property. I am pleased to report that our reforms show progress in reuniting rightful owners with their unclaimed property.

Within the first week of being able to provide notices to owners regarding 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 aggressively finds and tracks down property owners to reunite them with what is rightfully theirs. As a result of our reforms, this past fiscal year, we were able to send out 2.5 million notices — more than double the 1.2 million notices we sent during the past decade.

I want Californians to know that I am putting them first. But there is much more work to do, and I will continue to improve the State’s ability to put property back in the rightful owner’s hands. I am sponsoring comprehensive reform legislation to restore interest paid on claims; to protect owners of safe deposit boxes by prohibiting financial institutions from sending them to the State if the owner has other active accounts and requiring banks to hold onto inactive boxes for five years instead of the current three; 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.

I will continue to pursue reforms to the Unclaimed Property Program and invite your suggestions and support along the way. My intent is to restore the public’s confidence that their lost property will be safeguarded by the State until property owners can claim what is rightfully theirs.

Sincerely,

JOHN CHIANG
California State Controller