The Delaware Office of Unclaimed Property is returning more money to state taxpayers.
The Office of Unclaimed Property launches its annual MONEY MATCH check program which helps residents receive unclaimed funds quickly and securely.
The office expects to return over $1.2 million in unclaimed property directly to almost 10,500 Delaware taxpayers through the MONEY MATCH program.
Unclaimed property includes money left in old bank accounts, uncashed paychecks, unused balances on gift certificates, unreturned utility deposits, uncollected insurance payments and forgotten stocks and dividends.
After a certain number of years businesses are required to turn over these funds to states if contact is lost between the property holder and the property owner.
Kyle Pritchard is State Escheator and Director of the Delaware Office of Unclaimed Property.
"The purpose of the Unclaimed Property Office is to try and reunite individuals with their lost funds, lost accounts. If you have an account balance anywhere in the state we want to make sure where we're able to reunite you with us and do anything we can, and by leveraging the new technology we have today, we're able to match data. Some of the data we have is not fully accurate or incomplete, and we're able to match certain things up and make sure that it goes to the right loaners and return the property to them."
You can search for unclaimed property at unclaimedproperty.delaware.gov.
But Pritchard notes that’s not necessary.
"We match the data that's already within the Division of Revenue System. We ensure that it's the actual data match and everything is compliance and accurate, and then we see the amount of the claims that are processed and anything that has a claim that's matched up with the data that we have available. Then we're able to issue those claimants to the individuals throughout the state."
If you have unclaimed property in other states, you can search missingmoney.com.
