Pennsylvania Treasury’s ‘Lost Contact’ standard becomes law

The state General Assembly recently approved a bill amending the state’s Unclaimed Property Law to make the Pennsylvania Treasury’s internal ‘lost contact’ policy into standard law.

The law aims to protect consumers from having investment accounts incorrectly reported as unclaimed property.

“The last thing we want is to receive unclaimed property that isn’t actually lost,” Pennsylvania Treasurer Joe Torsella said. “While we’ve set records for the amount of money we’ve gotten back to taxpayers, the best thing to do is to keep it in Pennsylvanians’ hands whenever we can. We’re proud to have worked with legislators to put Treasury’s internal policy on a lost contact standard into law, to make sure property is only coming to us that is truly lost.”

Pennsylvania law requires businesses, government agencies and nonprofit entities to report unclaimed property, such as abandoned bank accounts, forgotten stocks, uncashed checks and the contents of safety deposit boxes, to the Treasury. The Treasury acts as the custodian of the unclaimed property until it can return the property to its legal owner.

The new law requires a double threshold to be satisfied for investment accounts before they are considered “abandoned and unclaimed.” The holder must have lost contact with the owner, and the owner must not have had any contact with or activity in the account for three years.