August 31, 2008

Locating Unclaimed Property in CA – Part 2 of 2

(Part 2 of 2)

One of the primary reasons for the inability of government to return forgotten money to residents, they claim, is that they cannot be located. The problem is, would would ever think that people like Angelina Jolie, ZsaZsa Gabor, Gerri Halliwell, Victoria Beckham, Keanu Reeves, Brad Pitt, Adam Sandler, Marlon Brando and Jennifer Lopez could be hard to find? Those names and the names of a number of other celebrities are just a few of the names in the Cali missing money list and yet they have not been contacted by the officials at the California Unclaimed Money Division. They are all owed checks for forgotten funds by Cali amounting from hundreds to the thousands as in the case of Angelina Jolie. This proves once again Cali state officials’ interest in keeping this money in the general fund for them to balance the budget deficit for as long as they possibly can. As a matter of fact, there was recently a ruling by a judge on CA abandoned assets, saying that the state was not making enough of an effort to locate the rightful owners and for a while halted the state’s s ability to take and hold it until a proper method of reuniting it with the actual owners was enacted.

The total amount of unclaimed money in CA averages five billion dollars annually – imagine the amount of interest that accrues for the state! Bill Palmer, an attorney in Sacramento who has battled in numerous cases involving CA unclaimed property, sad that the state’s program was intended to be a lost and found for residents of California. Instead, it has been turned into a profit earning ‘business’ in recent years.

The hold on the seizure of property by California has now been lifted and the new CA State Controller, John Chiang, is making greater efforts in the form of sweeping reforms in improving how his office handles California unclaimed property. There’s still a dire need though for Californians and residents of all other states across the U.S. to be informed about the presence of these funds and on how to do a thorough search for them and take back what belongs to them.

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Treasury database may find lost IRA – The Times-Picayune – NOLA.com

Treasury database may find lost IRA
The Times-Picayune – NOLA.com, LA - 13 hours ago
It's possible your long-lost IRA eventually will show up in the state's unclaimed property database. The database keeps track of money that is rightfully …

Comptroller hands Buffalo hospital unclaimed funds – Newsday