Unclaimed Money in the Courts
Leave a commentJune 10, 2009 by Rochelle
Today I discovered a whole new area where unclaimed money is being held — the bankruptcy courts. Bankruptcy is a long and drawn out process and many people simply give up hope of getting anything over the years it takes to unload assets and divvy up the proceeds among all the creditors.
But eventually it does happen. By then, many of the creditors have moved or are outside the jurisdiction of the court. The courts simply don’t have time to chase them down and tell them about their share of the liquidated assets.
Many courts publish a list of assets waiting to be claimed. The list may be accessed by a search engine on the court sites, much like the unclaimed money sites run by the states. Or, the court may publish a pdf file with a list of all the claimants and what they’ve been awarded. Or the court may simply provide a phone number or snail mail address for inquiries.
I spent some time looking over these lists and discovered that many of the creditors are banks, leasing companies, and other businesses that provide services to businesses.
As Obama distributes goodies to all the banks, wouldn’t it be sensible for someone to alert the banks of the assets waiting for them in the court system? And wouldn’t it be nice if the banks would say thank you for the windfall by making a donation to a non-profit in their community?
Hope someone in the banking world is listening.