If you’re trying to find unclaimed mortgage refunds, you’ll need to start off by knowing that there is not a central source to look for unclaimed money that the government might owe you. To start with, you’ll want to search for unclaimed money and property in the states where you have lived before. Then you’ll want to check for unclaimed funds from bank failures and unclaimed deposits from closed credit unions. You can also search for unclaimed or undelivered tax refunds or a refund from an FHA insured mortgage. Lastly, another space where you can check for unclaimed money is through back wages, pension money, and life insurance funds.
For businesses and others that are trying to find unclaimed money, again, you can’t find it from any centralized source. Here are ways that you can search for unclaimed money to see if you have assets somewhere.
- Search for unclaimed money in the state where you reside. Businesses will often send money to unclaimed property offices if they are unable to locate the owner of the previous property. Start by looking for unclaimed money in your state’s unclaimed property office to see if there is anything in your name. You can also search using a multistate database by searching by your name, which is especially useful if you have lived in more than one state. You’ll also need to verify how you want to claim your money, which is based on state rules that dictate how you prove you’re the actual owner of the unclaimed assets and how you can claim said assets.
- Search for money from employers. You can also look into unpaid wages that the department of labor can recover back pay for you if your employer broke labor laws. You can also look for unclaimed money from pensions from former employers from companies that either went out of business or ended a defined pension plan.
- Search for money from insurance companies. You can look at the Department of Veterans Affairs database to see if there are unclaimed insurance funds from the VA that is owed to current or former policyholders or beneficiaries. You can also see if there are FHA insurance refunds because if you had an FHA insured mortgage, you might be eligible for a refund. Those refunds are issued by the Department of Housing and Urban Development. You’ll need to look through the HUD database with your FHA case number to see if there is anything in your name on record.
- Search for money from tax refunds. You might also be eligible for a tax refund from the Internal Revenue Service if you overpaid on your taxes.
- Search for money from banking and investments. When there is a bank failure, you can search for unclaimed money from those failed institutions. The same goes for failed credit unions that may also have money. The Securities and Exchange Commission shares enforcement cases where a company or person owes investors money. You can also look into replacing a savings bond that was lost, stolen, or destroyed.
