Everyday, as a Senior “Inbox” Manager, I learn something new and awhile back it was the word “escheat.”
The World English Dictionary defines escheat as, “the reversion of property to the Crown in the absence of legal heirs.”
Today it means the reverting of property to the state or some state agency usually because they can’t find the person the property belongs to for whatever reason.
I learned this word in the course of working with an 80-year old client because the state of Georgia was about to take ownership of over $125,000 worth of stock because when my client moved 3 years earlier, she didn’t changed her address with the investment company and my client hadn’t responded to the company’s repeated attempts to contact her through the mail.
I was able to write a letter to the investment company and provide documentation that my client was in fact still alive and entitled to her property.
There are many seniors out there who could be in this situation because they have no family to help them keep up with their paperwork. Seniors could be missing out on very important information that comes in the mail because they’re too overwhelmed or they just might not understand what their documents say.
The really sad part is that billions of dollars go unclaimed every year from stocks, insurance policies, or bank accounts that people lose track of or simply forget they have!
I found an excellent article from Fobes written by Geoff Williams that outlines the best ways to go about trying to locate unclaimed money and property.
Click How to Find Unclaimed Money and Property to read the full article.
And don’t forget: Senior Partners can help too!
By being a regular presence, we can help monitor mail and information that comes to a senior; and make phone calls, on their behalf, to clear up confusing issues. And finally, we can be the ones calling on these resources if a senior thinks they have unclaimed property somewhere.
So claim what’s yours and never experience the state escheating property from you!
