What Is Unclaimed Money?
While we may think we are good at managing our money, there are many situations where it is easy for money to become unclaimed. The most common of these are getting married and changing your name, moving your address or dying.
When an organisation has funds owing to you, they are not allowed to keep the money. Under the Corporations Act (which specifies the rules an organisation must operate by), these funds must be given to the government within six years.
Of the nine government departments that have unclaimed money trust accounts, one used to try and contact the owners so they could claim it, however about 10 years ago they too stopped telling people. Instead these departments now rely on unclaimed money agents to tell you.
To make it worse, for seven of the nine departments, they have legislation that allows them to take that money after three to seven years to put it into consolidated revenue. After that the funds are no longer available.
It is to these departments that we need to send the right paperwork for as the managers of these trust accounts, they will not pay the money out until they are satisfied that you are the legitimate owner of the funds.
The role of an agent is to notify you of the funds and guide you through the recovery process. Agents do this for a fee which is typically taken from the recovered funds.
