There’s an unclaimed estate in BC worth $1.9 million and it could be yours

Someone in BC has a $1.9 million estate waiting for them to find, plus there are millions of dollars worth of unclaimed assets in the province and a part of that could be yours!

According to BC Unclaimed Property Society (BCUPS), there is now approximately $149 million in unclaimed money from dormant accounts in British Columbia.

BCUPS said that every year there’s millions of dollars of unclaimed assets, and that they are the “lost and found” for those assets.

The unclaimed money could come from sources like dormant credit union accounts, unpaid wages, pension funds, estates, overpayments to debt collectors, or proceeds from municipal and provincial courts.

Most unclaimed accounts in the society’s database amount to between $300 and $500.

The organization searches for the rightful owners, and even got $717,209 into the hands of claimants last year—but $4,070,621 still remained unclaimed.

“People lose track of their funds for a number of reasons,” said Alena Levitz, executive director of BCUPS. “People tend to move around a lot, change jobs frequently, or simply forget to close an account.”

The (possibly) great news for you is that BCUPS has a free online database where people can search to see if they have unclaimed funds available.

Here is unclaimed property in BC by the numbers:

• $148,933,709 – Total amount of money sitting in dormant accounts in BC waiting to be claimed
• $4,858,925 – Amount of unclaimed funds BCUPS received from financial institutions, companies and organizations in 2020
• $1,035,932 – Amount of money returned to verified claimants in 2020
• $106,789,525 – Total amount of money from dormant accounts BCUPS has received since its inception on April 1, 2003
• $18,514,588 – Amount of money from dormant accounts BCUPS has returned to rightful owners since its inception, representing
• $48.4 Million – Funds BCUPS has transferred to Vancouver Foundation for charitable purposes since its inception
• $1.01 Million – Largest amount claimed. An outstanding estate claimed in July 2019
• $1.9 Million – Largest dormant account in BC waiting to be claimed

After 10 years of money going unclaimed, the society donates a portion to local charities.

Last year, BCUPS transferred $6.98 million to the Vancouver Foundation to support community and social programs such as Ecotrust Canada and the Victoria Child Abuse & Counselling Centre.