SIOUX FALL, S.D. (KELO) – The South Dakota State Treasurer’s Office is currently holding more than $1.2 billion of unclaimed property that’s available to be claimed by people who live or have lived in this state.
Unclaimed property doesn’t refer to abandoned houses but rather it’s abandoned property or accounts within financial institutions or companies.
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“And the reason we get that, at the end of the day, is there’s a dormancy period, a dormancy law, with holders, financial institutions, that says if they can’t locate the rightful owner of a property in a three year time period then it’s considered abandoned or unclaimed property and gets turned over to the state and it becomes our job to return it at the end of the day,” South Dakota State Treasurer Josh Haeder said.
The list of unclaimed property types range from abandoned savings accounts and refunds to unredeemed gift certificates or insurance payments. But it also includes non-money items.
“We also get items from safety deposit boxes. So we get some fascinating things,” Haeder said. “We’ve gotten gold teeth, we got a woman’s ashes before. You know, some of the more heartwarming things that don’t have a dollar value but have a high intrinsic value. You know, we found World War II letters, love letters and things of that nature. We try not to destroy those, we try to give every effort to return those as well, along with the money that’s owed to people.”
To find out if you have any unclaimed property available to you, all you have to do is go to cash.sd.gov and search for your name. If you find a match, you can file a claim for free.
“You know, the most important thing is, is to make sure you’re going to cash.sd.gov. And I say .gov and I emphasize that because some folks will go to like a .com website that’s advertised on a search engine and they may charge a fee to get their unclaimed property back,” Haeder said. “South Dakota never charges a fee for them to claim their unclaimed property. There’s absolutely no cost.”
Unclaimed property can be claimed forever, so children and heirs could even claim unclaimed property of someone who has died by providing the right documentation.
