Unclaimed Property
Money a state is holding for someone who stopped being reachable.
Banks, insurers, employers, and utilities are required by law to turn over accounts that have gone dormant. The state holds the money indefinitely, waiting for the owner to appear.
What counts as unclaimed property
- Dormant checking and savings accounts
- Uncashed payroll checks and vendor payments
- Insurance policy proceeds and refunds
- Utility and rental deposits
- Stocks, dividends, and brokerage balances
- Refunds and overpayments never collected
You can often claim it yourself. For free.
Every state runs an official unclaimed-property program, and searching it costs nothing. If the property is listed in your own name, at an address you can prove was yours, and you have identification and the state's claim form — file it yourself. You do not need us. We will say so if you call and that is what we see.
We do not run a state program, we are not connected to one, and we do not want anyone to think otherwise.
When it is not that simple
Cases come to us when something in the record does not line up, and the state cannot be satisfied with a form and a driver's license.
The address is old
A record showing an address you left in 1998 is not proof that the account is yours. The reviewing office needs a documented link between the person in front of them and the person in the file — and that link has to be built out of records.
The owner has died
Then the question is no longer whether the money is owed. It is who inherits it, and how that is proven. See how we handle heir and estate research.
The name is common
If four people in the state share the name on the record, the burden is on the claimant to show which one they are.
The owner is a business
Dissolved, merged, renamed, or simply inactive — a business can still be the listed owner of an account, and establishing who now has authority to claim it is corporate research.
A claim was already denied
A denial usually means the file was incomplete, not that the money was not owed. The work is figuring out what was missing.
Our fee
For unclaimed-property matters, our fee is 10% of the amount actually recovered. If nothing is recovered, you owe us no fee. Full terms are set out in a written agreement you sign before any work begins. See fees in detail.
No Social Security number, bank login, card number, gift cards, cryptocurrency, wire transfer, or remote access to your device — not on this site, not by email, not by phone. If someone claiming to be from ZMelt asks for any of them, it is not us. Call (319) 850-4215.
Talk to us
A first conversation costs nothing and commits you to nothing. If we think you should handle it yourself, we will tell you.