Treasurer holding unclaimed cash from thousands in Nevada

The treasurer's office is looking for nearly 2,400 western Nevadans who have a check coming from the state.

According to Treasurer Kate Marshall, each of them has at least $50 coming from the state's unclaimed property account.

Marshall said altogether the state is holding more than $280 million for more than a million property owners.

The money comes from a wide variety of sources including abandoned or forgotten bank accounts, stocks, life insurance policies, unclaimed paychecks, utility deposits, purchase refunds and safe deposit boxes.

"It can be dozens of things," Marshall said. "And people always say, 'Oh, I know where my money is.' But they don't."

She said a prime example is her own father in law whose name she ran through California's unclaimed property database last year. Although he was certain there would be nothing there for him, she said there was a check for $95,000 from his brother's estate.

In another case this year, she said a woman came in with the story of how her husband, on his death bed, told her he had $500 in a safe deposit box. Marshall said when they opened the box, "she about keeled over." There was $55,000 inside.

And a check of this reporter's name turned up an unclaimed $100 rebate on a computer purchase from most of a decade ago.

She said her office took in a total of $82 million this year and has paid out almost $21 million.

That is much more than the $45 million in unclaimed property the state collected last year and near double the $12 million the state paid out. But Marshall said the primary reason is that CitiBank reincorporated in Nevada and Nevada law requires banks turn over an account after three years of inactivity instead of the five years where CitiBank was previously located.

As a result, a large number of that corporation's accounts suddenly became officially unclaimed and were turned over to the state.

Marshall said even if the money was turned over to the state decades ago, the rightful owner can claim it.

"There's no statute of limitations on unclaimed property," she said.

She said, however, there are a couple of rules. The office, she said, doesn't ship checks to certain countries listed as having terrorist links and that all names are checked through the federal government's lists of known or suspected terrorists.

Advertisements are planned for The Nevada Appeal, Gardnerville Record-Courier and Tahoe Tribune this weekend listing the names of those individuals.

Marshall said the list of names is run in the newspaper twice a year. But she said it isn't complete because it only includes names the treasurer's office hasn't put in the paper before.

"You could be in the database but not on this list," she said.

She said people should go to the treasurer's office Web site at https://nevadatreasurer.gov/index.html and click on unclaimed property.

There they will find a searchable database of all those with unclaimed property in Nevada. And there is another link next to it which searches other states for your name.

Contact reporter Geoff Dornan at gdornan@nevadaappeal.com or 687-8750.