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Author: American Refund Services There are many private Asset Recovery companies and Professional Tracers that will offer to help you locate your unclaimed or abandoned property. Some of these firms will try to charge you a 20-35% contingency fee for the recovery of the lost asset.
Do your homework. In addition to regularly checking in our databases, check all old financial records including brokerage statements and tax returns. Pay special attention to securities with dividend reinvestment plans of companies that have gone through a merger or acquisition.
Asset Tracers specialize in Pre-escheat securities, Court funds and unredeemed government checks. They obtain these records from cooperating Companies as holders, Transfer Agents and by searching Court records before the asset is scheduled to be transferred over to appropriate custodian government agency. This way the Tracer can avoid both any licensing requirement and the finder fee cap imposed by most states' Unclaimed Property Statutes - ie) 10% once the property reaches the government for safekeeping.
In other words, if contacted by a Tracer you can be certain the asset is likely approaching the end of its 'dormancy period' and will be transferred (escheated) over within the next 6-9 months or less. If you can wait you may be able to locate the unclaimed asset yourself. If situation warrants that you don't wish to wait, try to negotiate a lower fee. Remember, that once the asset is transferred to a government agency and you still cannot locate it, the Tracer's fee is likely to be capped at 10%.
NOTE: If the Tracer cannot give you the exact value of the unclaimed asset, it likely is a security of some sort. If you decide to employ his services, you may wish to pay him the fee without him/you selling the security and paying his fee from the proceeds. There maybe capital gains consequences - check with your accountant.
One must also consider that most states will sell a security that is transferred to them and credit the owner's account with the proceeds. So if one waits too long, an unclaimed security will be sold eventually thus creating possible tax consequences and foregoing any appreciation and future dividends.
Also keep in mind one may have to search other states for your unclaimed property. Per a 1995 Supreme Court ruling Texas vs New Jersey, if the address of the owner of the unclaimed property is unknown or a foreign country then the property is transferred to the state in which the holder is incorporated. Start with states such as Connecticut, Delaware and Illinois that are headquarters for many large publicly traded and financial service companies.
It is often possible to locate the name of a lost asset by going through old financial documents, including brokerage statements and tax returns. Be especially vigilant for securities with dividend reinvestment plans, and for those companies you have owned that have merged or spun-off shares within the preceding five years.
Mutual funds often conduct their transfer operations in-house. Contact all mutual funds you've owned, regardless of whether they've been sold or not. (You may be entitled to unpaid dividends or distributions that were payable before the shares were disposed of.)
If your search fails to turn up the asset, you may want to try to negotiate a lower fee. If they know you have the information necessary to eventually locate the asset yourself, they're much more likely to accept a lower amount. And the closer it gets to the end of the dormancy period, the more motivated they become!
Never consent to anything other than a contingency arrangement, whereby payment is made after the funds are recovered.
Some companies, particularly those that deal with securities, will offer to liquidate the asset and deduct their fees from the proceeds. One should carefully evaluate the decision to sell stock, however. If it has appreciated significantly, you could be liable for payment of capital gains tax - check with your accountant!
Asset Tracers and Heir Finders obtain records of missing owners from holders before the funds are actually turned over to the government safekeeping at the end of the dormancy period. By doing so they escape fee and licensure limitations imposed by many states. Furthermore, because the assets have yet to be reported, they will not show up in state missing owner databases.
In most cases the abandoned asset should eventually (after passage of the dormancy period) make its way to a state unclaimed property office. Then it becomes a relatively simply matter to find it and make a claim.
You simply contact every state where you (and any deceased family members who may have made you a beneficiary) have lived or worked, and search using all versions of your name, including maiden and previous married names, middle names, initials, even nicknames and common misspellings.
One complication you should be aware of - thanks to a 1965 decision of the U.S. Supreme Court, it may be necessary to check the state of incorporation of the holder. The Court ruled that in circumstances where there is no owner address on file, unclaimed funds go to the holder's home state. For many publicly traded and financial services companies this would be Delaware, New York, Massachusetts or Illinois.
In evaluating the pros and cons in dealing with finders, one must balance the cost of waiting against the recovery fee to be paid. Lost interest and fluctuating stock prices can dramatically affect value of an investment over a period of time.
If the cost of waiting is too great, or if you simply would like to have the money now and are not willing to turn over a large chunk of the money to a professional, you must make a proactive effort to find the asset yourself. To do this you need to go to the same sources from which the Asset Tracers and Heir Finders get their information.
Even with the Internet's largest unclaimed property database of more than 50 million records. If you are unable to locate the asset and are in need of special assistance, please contact us at US-Unclaimed Money. Our staff has years of expertise in locating hard to find assets.
Sites such as http://www.US-UnclaimedMoney.com , http://www.Unclaimed-Databases.com and http://www.Asset-Recovery-Service.com are divisions of American Refund Services Inc. As the Internet's premier sites for unclaimed assets and property, their goal is to assist the millions of citizens to locate and to claim their lost money without paying exorbitant finder fees.
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