Staten Islanders Have Millions Of Unclaimed Funds From Dormant Bank Accounts, Mutual Funds, Unknown Inheritances Waiting For Them At NY Comptroller’s Office – Are You One Of Them?

Do You Have Unclaimed Funds At NY Comptroller’s Office Owed To You From Dormant Bank Accounts, PayPal Accounts, Real Estate, Mutual Funds, Etc.?

If you are a resident of New York, then certain laws apply to funds that belong to you, but that are held in various accounts, such as bank accounts, mutual funds, and online bank-type accounts (like PayPal, Venmo, Cash App). The laws discussed in this article haven’t changed in over 20 years, and provide for financial institutions and other types of corporations to remand these types of funds to the state once a certain amount of time has passed.

With regard to bank accounts, such as “demand deposit accounts,” savings accounts, escrow funds, credit balances, and other types of accounts, the time period of dormancy is three years. Each year, by June 30^th, all funds that have fallen within the dormancy period must be reported and sent to the state. So, if you have a bank account that you have forgotten about, those funds have likely already been transferred to the State Comptroller’s Office if it has been longer than the required time period.

At Staten Islander News, we had recently learned about the audits available from the Comptroller’s Office, and were stunned to learn that, in Richmond County alone, there is over $122 MILLION belonging to residents of this county. If not you, then maybe someone you know has unclaimed funds that are being held by the Office of the Comptroller.

We asked the Comptroller: “I wanted to inquire if the law was changed regarding Unclaimed Property in New York, or when the law started being enforced (or if it was always enforced).

Local banks and PayPal have told us that the new law requires them to transfer funds to the state if there have been no deposits or activity on a bank account, PayPal account, or other banking type entity for three years.

Can you please tell me what the relevant law is, and when it was revised?”

Here is their answer:

“The law is the New York State Abandoned Property Law, a link can be found on our website https://www.osc.ny.gov/unclaimed-funds/reporters. The law regarding the three-year dormancy period on account balances hasn’t changed in over 20 years.

This link should help you as well: What’s New | Office of the New York State Comptroller (ny.gov)”

We also asked about the total amount belonging to Richmond County residents, “Is it possible to view an audit for Staten Island/Richmond County that reflects these unclaimed funds?  Or is there somewhere else that these funds are reported?”

In answer, they said, “Can you clarify your second question? Are you looking for the total amount of unclaimed funds belonging to Richmond County residents?”

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Upon our affirmative reply, the following chart of unclaimed funds presently owed to Staten Island/Richmond County residents was provided:

“Remember for 2024 that its what we have so far in 2024.”

This is certainly a large amount of funds that residents have waiting for them, but usually they don’t even know about it. Maybe they forgot about an old bank account; maybe their old PayPal account went dormant; maybe they moved away and no longer live in New York. According to statistics from the Comptroller’s Office,

“New York State has $18.4 billion in unclaimed money.

More than 49 million account records remain unclaimed

Every day we return over $1.5 million to individuals, companies, non-profit organizations, and municipalities

$406 million funds paid; 690,000 claims processed (4/22-3/23)”

If you think you might have unclaimed funds owed to you, it is quite a simple matter to find out. Their website says:

• Most claims can be submitted online (osc.state.ny.us/unclaimed-funds)
• More than 10 million searches conducted annually
• No fee to reclaim funds
• Interest is paid for five years on interest bearing accounts—currently it’s 6%
• 70% of claims are less than $100
• In 2023, heirs to a New York estate received $5.9 million from estate proceeds
• Largest amount still unclaimed is approximately $9.2 million for an estate

So, if you are a resident of New York State, or of Richmond County/ Staten Island, you might want to conduct a search to see if there is any money owed to you that you are not aware of. As far as estate proceeds, that is an entirely different matter than a banking institution, and would often be worth more than other types of unclaimed funds. As you can see in the above information, these inheritances can total quite a bit.

If you think there might be unclaimed funds waiting for you, perhaps from a bank account you forgot about, or even in the instance of an inheritance you did not know about, doing a search on the Comptroller’s website is free, and might yield something.

Banner Image: Bag of cash. Image Credit – OpenClipart-Vectors