Abandoned assets worth millions go unclaimed - bizjournals:

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“We cannot fathom how that happens, but a lot of timees customers move and they lose track oftheir money,” said vice president of Central Pacific’ s operations and administration department. “Sometimes, they may be elderl people, and if they are incapacitated their children may not know wherde theitems are.” Financial institutions and other holderds of abandoned property are required to report theirf findings annually, after five years of dormancy, to the statr ’s Unclaimed Property Program, whicb returns property to rightful owners for The most common typesx of property are savings and checking safety deposit box warrants, stocks, refunds and insurancw proceeds.
Beginning July 1, the Unclaimexd Property Law will chang e to help parties keep better track ofabandones property. The new rules, passed in the 2008 legislative session, will allow owners of interest-bearing accounts to receive interest on propert submitted to the program afterJune 30. The ruless also require financial institutions, when reportingb abandoned property, to segregate interest-bearingy funds from noninterest-bearing ones. In addition, holders of abandoned property must submit notarized affidavits to theBudget Department, stating that writtehn notices have been sent to owners of unclaimee property worth more than $50.
“Previously, we didn’ft have information on whether theywere interest-bearing or said Scott Kami, an administrator in the unclaime d property division. The state’zs unclaimed property fund has grownto $140 million since the Despite the state government’s fiscal challenges, the fund is protectefd by law and cannot be reallocated to otheer state departments whose budgets were cut this year. In the most recenr fiscal year endingJune 30, 2008, a totalp of 9,748 claims worth $5.9 million were returned to rightful owners. So far this fiscal year, as of May 15, approximatelyy $4.
95 million has been Honolulu resident Marty Schiller recently learned that Oceanic Time Warne Cable owedhim $220. The money sat unclaimed for seven years. “I simply did not know the moneyg existed or was owed to said Schiller, owner of The Schille r Agency. “The [Budget] Department’sa staff was wonderful. They walked me through, step by on how to claim the Monetary payouts are easier to return than safety deposigtbox items, which are kept in a “ver overburdened vault full of boxes,” Kami said. A feather lei, vintagd cameras and jewelry are among the abandoneds safety depositbox contents.
Once, a womah who “had personal challenges in her life,” waitedf a few years beforew claiming her silverware fromthe department. Another womanh recently retrieved a coin collection belonginhg to her late Thebudget department’s outreach team, comprisiny a half-dozen state employees, regularlyt appears at public venues to educate the public aboutr lost property. The public-private partnership is a major component ofthe program, say those Every November, banks and other accoun t holders give the state a list of which are then advertised in local newspapers in Marcn of the following year.
Accounts that aren’ft claimed by mid-April are notedd and sent to the state in Mayfor safekeeping. “sA lot of people, believe it or not, are foreignera who come to Hawaii to open an accountthinking they’ll have funds here,” said Scott Takahashi, vice president for the legal and custod y department at Bank of Hawaii. “And they forgegt about it.”