When someone passes away, there may have been money which they had in their possession, but never cashed in the check – like what happened with the late Aretha Franklin. It was recently discovered that the late Queen of Soul had uncashed checks accumulating to at least a million dollars. Surely this isn’t your everyday monetary value that you’ll find uncashed from a decedent. It doesn’t mean though that there are never any checks which were never cashed when it comes to the every day decedent. It may have happened to someone you know or knew. Then the question becomes, what happens with these uncashed checks? Do they still have any value, or are they null and void? Darren Findling explains what happens.
As Darren explained in the video above, if a check was never cashed in, it doesn’t mean it’s null and void. Instead, it goes to the Unclaimed Property Division. This goes there as what was known back in the day as an “escheated fund,” but known better today as “unclaimed property.” Any business, banking institution, payroll checks from a business, insurance monies that are distributed, but never cashed doesn’t just disappear. So what happens to it? The money is made available for the property owner to claim. The money is required to be sent to the State of Michigan’s Unclaimed Property Division, where it is to be held at the Treasury Department under the Unclaimed Property Act. So let’s say you are the property owner who becomes aware of this and you want to get that money. How do you do it? There’s an application that can be filled out in order to get the monies returned. Often, unclaimed money is found to be sitting idly in the Unclaimed Property Division for many years. The reasons as to why it may be there for so long. It could be that it’s not known to the property owner that there’s such money existing, or that they don’t understand how to go through the process of claiming this money.
If you have questions regarding unclaimed money property or any probate related issues, give The Probate Pro a call at 877-YOUR-FIRM. Our team of attorneys and support staff will be glad to work with you in order to make sure you can claim what is yours – whether you knew about it or not.
