The Maryland Comptroller's Office holds unclaimed property records on hundreds of thousands of accounts, which are worth hundreds of millions of dollars in total.
Many people don't realize that they have money owed to them from unclaimed property. This property can come from safe deposit boxes, bank accounts, stocks, bonds, uncashed checks and wages, insurance policies, trust funds and utility deposits, among other things. The rightful owners may be unaware that they are the heirs to property from deceased relatives, or financial oversights may have resulted in unclaimed assets.
Any items that go unclaimed for three years fall under the jurisdiction of the Comptroller's Office.
The Comptroller's Office attempts to locate owners through newspaper ads, media campaigns, mass mailings and outreach programs, but it is still quite common for unclaimed property to go overlooked by owners who wouldn't know that there was property to look for in the first place.
If property owners cannot be located within the allotted timeframe, any physical property is sold at auction and the resulting funds are held for the owner. There is no statute of limitations and owners can claim their property or funds at any time.
According to Kim Frum, a spokesperson for the Comptroller's Office, more than $61 million in claims had been honored by the state between January 2007 and April 2013 -- including $54.3 million in fiscal year 2012, spread over more than 50,000 claims in that year.