All about unclaimed property

By NANCY PARADIS

© St. Petersburg Times, published July 2, 2000

I have received letters from two different companies regarding the same "lost funds." Is this a scam? I did live at Loma Linda Way back in the early 1980s while going to school and living with my parents. I am now married, and my last name has changed, but I could provide proof of both name and address. I will not, however, give out any personal information until I get the green light from you. Jodi Davidson

Response: The companies are legitimate, so you can safely use either to help you claim any money due you that was turned over to the Comptroller's Office. However, you are not required to use a third party to claim unclaimed assets.

But first, what is unclaimed property, where does it come from, how do you find out if you are entitled to any, and what should you do if you are?

Unclaimed property can be any financial asset that appears to have been unclaimed or abandoned by the owner for one or more years. Most unclaimed property comes from dormant accounts in financial institutions, insurance and utility companies, safe deposit boxes and trust holdings: all the things that can easily be forgotten or overlooked when someone moves or dies. Businesses are required to try to locate the owner of the property, but if they are unsuccessful, the unclaimed or abandoned property and the owner's name are turned over to the state, generally after a set period of one to five years.

Unclaimed money is deposited into a state school fund and used exclusively for public education, but there is no statute of limitations on making a legitimate claim to the money or property, regardless of the amount. According to the Department of Banking and Finance's Web site, it is holding more than $537-million in unclaimed property and an additional $37-million in securities (unclaimed shares of stock and mutual funds).

Not all unclaimed or abandoned property is in the form of money or securities, however. The state's tangible unclaimed holdings include watches, coins, jewelry, stamps, historical items and other miscellaneous articles. Unlike intangible property, such items, generally safe deposit box contents, are eventually auctioned off.

The Comptroller's Office tries to locate the rightful owners through Internet searches, driver's license matches and credit bureau searches. It also publishes a list of recently reported names as an insert in all major Florida newspapers several times a year.

To determine whether you are due unclaimed property, see if you answer yes to any of the following questions:

Have you moved and not given your forwarding address to everyone who might owe you money? Have more than five years passed since your last withdrawal from or deposit to a bank account? Have you retired or changed jobs and not picked up your final paycheck? Have you stopped paying on an insurance policy? Have you forgotten to pay the rental fee for a safe deposit box? Have you not received back a deposit from a utility, cable or telephone company after discontinuing service?

If you answer yes to any of those questions, you may be due unclaimed property. Call the department's unclaimed-property hotline at (888) 258-2253, or (850) 488-7777 outside Florida. Inquiries may also be faxed to (850) 488-9728 or mailed to the Department of Banking and Finance, Unclaimed Property Section, 101 E Gaines St., Tallahassee, FL 32399-0350. The address for e-mailed inquiries is

funclaim@mail.dbf.state.fl.us. The department's Web site, http://www.dbf.state.fl.us, allows individuals to search the state's database and provides links to the unclaimed-property pages of other states and agencies.

Driveway cracks up

I am writing to ask for advice and/or assistance regarding the driveway of my 6-year-old home. As with most houses in our area, as time went on and the Florida sands shifted, our driveway developed cracks. However, while other homes in the development suffered cracks that remained cracks, six months ago our cracks developed lives of their own and separated vertically from each other by as much as 2 inches. We contacted our builder, who in essence said tough, we should have told him during the first year. Nothing in our warranty on the home mentions concrete on driveways, but it does mention structural problems.

We brought in a contractor to see if the sunken areas could be fixed and pavers placed on the driveway to undo the aesthetic decay of our home's entrance. He said the only thing to do was replace the driveway, since he felt the proper fill had not been used at the time of construction. He maintained that he could hear the hollowness throughout the driveway, not only at the affected areas.

Are there any regulations for the pouring of concrete regarding fill, etc.? If so, does that mean we can sue the builder and/or its subcontractors for this shoddy, substandard work? If I take movies that show hollow areas with no reinforcement as the men rip up the old driveway, can I use this to prove the builder's liability? The builder has since left our area and appears to care less what problems any former customers have. This is not a sinkhole, but "cracks" doesn't do it justice. Joan Reinhart

Response: We suggest that you contact your insurance company first. This was the advice we gave another reader who suspected she might have a sinkhole and didn't know what to do. She reported back that her insurance company handled everything.

With regard to whether there are any regulations governing the pouring of concrete driveways, you will have to check with whichever building department, county or city, has jurisdiction in your area to find out. If the problem is due to faulty construction, and you will probably need to have this confirmed in writing by an expert, then your only recourse may be through the courts. Good luck.

Action solves problems and gets answers for you. If you have a question, or your own attempts to resolve a consumer complaint have failed, write Times Action, P.O. Box 1121, St. Petersburg, FL 33731, or call your Action number, 893-8171, or, outside of Pinellas, (800) 333-7505, ext. 8171, to leave a recorded request.

We may require additional information or prefer to reply by mail; therefore, readers must provide a full mailing address, including ZIP code. Names of letter writers will not be omitted except in unusual circumstances. Letters may be edited for length and clarity.

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