The unclaimed estate

Every state has a pile of money it did not earn and does not want to keep. Florida's is unusually large and unusually well signposted: the Department of Financial Services holds roughly $2 billion in unclaimed property, and says one in five Floridians has an account waiting.

What almost nobody understands is that this is not the same pile as an unclaimed estate. Florida runs two separate systems, under two different chapters, administered on two different timetables, with two opposite answers to the only question anyone asks — how long do I have?

Chapter 717, the unclaimed property system, is the friendly one. A forgotten bank account, an uncashed insurance cheque, a utility deposit, a dividend nobody claimed: after a dormancy period the holder reports it to the state, the state advertises it, and the owner or their heirs can claim it at any time, for free. There is no statute of limitations. The state is a custodian, not an owner.

Section 732.107, the escheat statute, is not friendly. When a person dies leaving an estate and no surviving person entitled to any part of it, that part escheats to the state, is sold, and the proceeds go to the Chief Financial Officer for deposit in the State School Fund. A claimant then has 10 years after the payment to the Chief Financial Officer to reopen the administration and prove entitlement. After that, in the statute's own words, the state's rights to the proceeds become absolute.

Same government, same building, opposite deadlines. The difference is whether the money was lost or whether the family ran out.

What escheat actually does, step by step

Escheat is old — the word describes property reverting to the sovereign when a line of succession fails — but Florida's version is a modern administrative procedure rather than a royal prerogative, and it has been in the current Probate Code since chapter 74-106.

The property is sold and the proceeds are paid to the Chief Financial Officer, who deposits them in the State School Fund. Nothing is held in kind: an escheated house becomes money, and the money becomes school funding.

Then the ten-year window opens. Any person claiming to be entitled may reopen the administration and prove entitlement to the proceeds, within 10 years after the payment to the Chief Financial Officer. It is a probate proceeding, not a form — the claimant reopens the estate and litigates the relationship.

One further provision matters and is the direct connection to the heir-hunting industry. §732.107 permits the Department of Financial Services to distribute the proceeds directly to an attorney, accountant, or licensed private investigator where the entitled person has assigned the right to receive them under a written agreement. The funds must be held in a trust or escrow account at a Florida financial institution, and disbursed to the client within 10 days unless there is a protest. The legislature contemplated that a stranger might be the one who found the heir, and wrote the plumbing for it.

The money left over inside an ordinary probate

There is a third case, more common than either of the above, and it happens inside estates that are otherwise perfectly ordinary: the beneficiary who cannot be found. A named legatee who moved abroad in 1994. A sibling nobody has spoken to. A cheque returned twice.

Fla. Stat. §733.816 tells the personal representative exactly what to do, and it is worth following precisely, because the alternative is an estate that cannot close.

• Sell and deposit. The personal representative sells the unclaimed property and deposits the proceeds, together with any cash already in hand, with the clerk of the court.
• Notice, scaled to the amount. For $500 or less, the clerk posts a notice at the courthouse for 30 days. For more than $500, the clerk publishes once a month for two consecutive months in a newspaper of general circulation in the county.
• Six months, then the state. After six months from the posting or publication, the clerk transmits the funds to the Chief Financial Officer, less the clerk's fees and the cost of publication.
• Into the school fund. The Chief Financial Officer deposits them to the credit of the State School Fund.
• Ten years to claim. A claimant has 10 years from the date of deposit with the Chief Financial Officer to petition the court with proof of entitlement. After that the funds escheat for the benefit of the State School Fund.

The practical effect is that a missing beneficiary does not hold an estate hostage. The personal representative has a statutory exit, and the beneficiary keeps a decade-long right to come and get it. What the beneficiary does not keep is the property itself — by then it has been sold, and what is waiting is a number.

The two billion dollars, and the rules for the people who chase it

Chapter 717, the Florida Disposition of Unclaimed Property Act, runs on an entirely different logic. It is not about failed succession. It is about dormancy.

Property is generally presumed unclaimed after five years without owner-initiated contact or activity, unless the owner shows interest in it. Holders — banks, insurers, utilities, transfer agents — must report annually by May 1 for the preceding calendar year, and must exercise due diligence to locate owners of accounts worth $50 or more, notifying them 60 to 120 days before the report is filed. The department then makes its own cost-effective attempt to notify owners of property valued over $250.

The money is remitted to the department, which retains a working balance for paying claims and administration and deposits the remainder into the State School Fund. That is the sentence that makes people uneasy and should not: the state is holding it, not keeping it. Florida publicises the fact that there is no statute of limitations, and that claiming costs nothing. In 2024, officials reported paying out $323 million to Floridians.

A verified claim goes to the department, which has 90 days to determine it, extendable by 60 days in defined circumstances. For a deceased owner, the claimant is proving a chain — death certificate, letters of administration or an alternative statutory route, and the relationship — which is precisely the work that estate practitioners and, less romantically, professional finders do.

Which brings us to the finders, and to the two sections that govern them. §717.1400 limits registration as a claimant's representative to three groups: licensed private investigators, Florida-certified public accountants, and Florida-licensed attorneys — and prohibits firm names implying government affiliation, so no “Florida State Recovery Bureau.” §717.135 caps total fees and costs at 30% of the amount claimed, requires the department's own forms, mandates disclosure of the dollar amount claimed, the percentage and dollar amount of fees, and the net to the claimant — and provides that an agreement may not be made irrevocable and may not assign any portion of the unclaimed property held by the department. Agreements on any other form are void.