1.3 Million Garden State Dwellers Owed New Jersey Unclaimed Money

Residents of the Garden State pay some of the highest property taxes in the country- as much as twice the amount paid by residents in the other states. Once can’t help but wonder then why a significant number of NJ homeowners have neglected to claim their property tax rebates. Quite puzzling specially during times like these. A WCBS news report says 200,000 Garden State dwellers have NJ unclaimed money from property tax refunds worth a whopping $200 million! You think that’s a lot? That’s only a fraction of the total New Jersey unclaimed money pile in the State Treasury owed to 1.3 million people!

Aside from tax rebates, New Jersey unclaimed money comes from comes from numerous other sources like forgotten bank accounts, uncashed salary checks, insurance benefits, stocks and bonds that have been languishing, unused gift checks, even items from abandoned safe deposit boxes. People, specially if they’ve been working numerous jobs and have had several addresses tend to lose track of mailed checks or notices from banks and financial institutions. Businesses and companies that haven’t located the owners of lost money and property after a ‘dormancy period’ have to hand them over to the State for ‘safekeeping’ as stipulated in the National Unclaimed Property Law. The citizens’ lost money is kept in the State Treasury until the rightful owners come around to file a claim. The State also holds outreach programs to try to let people know about New Jersey unclaimed funds. Last year, the NJ State Treasury unclaimed property advertising campaign reunited some 36,000 residents with $85 million of their missing money.

The economic conditions in the US is a bit gloomy right now and the fact that there is an estimated $33 billion worth of State unclaimed property across the country is quite ludicrous if you think about it. Fact is, not enough people are checking for unclaimed funds because most Americans aren’t even aware they might have state unclaimed property in their name. Doing an online unclaimed money search can do wonders for Americans whose wallets have been yearning for contents during these tough economic times.