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COLUMBUS, Ohio—Now that Ohio lawmakers have passed a 10-year time limit on recouping their unclaimed funds held by the state, a group of GOP legislators is now trying to make it easier for people to claim their money. House Bill 480, introduced late last month, seeks to create a “fast-track” claims process for people with less than $1,000 in the state’s unclaimed property fund, reduce documentation and notarization requirements, and allow a dead person’s heirs to obtain unclaimed funds in his or her name without involving a probate court, among other things. Some of these moves have already been put in place by the state’s unclaimed funds office, in response to the deluge of claims they’ve received after lawmakers voted last summer to raid $1.7 billion from Ohio’s $4.8 billion unclaimed property fund, as well as have the state keep any money going forward that sits in the fund for more than 10 years. Your feedback matters Have you filed to get unclaimed funds from the State of Ohio? If so, how easy or hard was it to get your money? The unclaimed money taken by the state will go to subsidize stadium projects, including $600 million for a new Cleveland Browns stadium in suburban Brook Park. This new legislation, which has been in the works for years, wouldn’t change the state’s new ability to seize unclaimed funds. Rather, it just seeks to streamline the process for people to get their money while they can. How to get to unclaimed funds For decades, banks, insurance companies and other institutions have been required to turn over to the state all money from inactive accounts, old safe deposit boxes, and uncashed checks and insurance policies – among other assets – that no one has claimed after three to five years. Stories by Jeremy Pelzer Ohio congressman blames mystery group for swastika flag in office Why was a U.S. flag with a swastika hanging in an Ohio congressman’s office? Sherrod Brown blows past Jon Husted in U.S. Senate fundraising battle To file a claim, applicants need to submit a variety of documents proving their identity, address, Social Security number, and ownership of the assets they’re seeking to reclaim. Claim forms for more than $3,000 must be witnessed, signed and stamped by a notary public. When people with unclaimed funds die, their heirs must submit probate court documents showing, among other things, that the applicant is administrator or executor of their estate. While some Ohioans have found it fairly easy to reclaim money from the fund, others have found it to be a bureaucratic nightmare – especially when it comes to finding the required documents needed for money from transactions that are several years, if not decades, old. Earlier this year, the state’s unclaimed fund division – part of the Ohio Department of Commerce – overhauled its website and payment processing system earlier this year. As a result, claims processing times have fallen from three months or more to as little as two weeks, division superintendent Akil Hardy told WEWS-TV last month. Related story: Check to see if you have money in the state’s unclaimed property fund The Ohio Department of Commerce, which oversees the unclaimed property fund, has also stopped ordering pages-thick inserts in newspapers around the state listing the names of people with money in the account. Instead, the department is now purchasing print and online ads urging people to search for their names in the state’s unclaimed fund database. What’s being proposed House Bill 480, introduced by Republican state Reps. Bill Roemer of Richfield and Mike Dovilla of Strongsville, is designed to make it easier for people to reclaim their money. It would: Create a “fast track” process for claims totaling less than $1,000, under which the Department of Commerce must accept any one of several different types of documents as proof of their address, including a utility bill, paystub, or email correspondence. Make it easier for surviving family members to get unclaimed funds in their deceased loved ones’ unclaimed funds, names, by no longer requiring probate court documents to be submitted in such cases involving $1,000 or less. Raise the minimum amount of unclaimed assets that businesses must turn over to the state’s unclaimed property fund, from $10 to $25 (though businesses could still report smaller amounts voluntarily) Simplify the penalties people and businesses must pay for not reporting or underreporting customers’ unclaimed funds to the state. Specifying that at least $25 in cryptocurrency (such as Bitcoin) held by Ohioans that goes unclaimed for at least five years must be turned over to the state’s unclaimed property fund. It also would require that cryptocurrency be sold at the time it’s turned over to the unclaimed property fund – meaning the state would hold onto the money from that sale, not the cryptocurrency itself. Allowing unclaimed funds notifications to be emailed to Ohioans, rather than just by mailed paper notifications. What lawmakers say While Ohio lawmakers’ solution to find $600 million in state support for a new Browns stadium has drawn a lot of attention to the state’s unclaimed property fund, Roemer said he’s been working for years to find ways to streamline the process for Ohioans. “These commonsense changes will make it easier for Ohioans to recover funds that are rightfully theirs, especially in cases where the amount is too small to justify expensive legal or administrative hurdles,” Roemer said. Most of HB480’s reform measures were first proposed in a 2021 bill by then-state Rep. Derek Merrin, a Toledo-area Republican. Merrin’s bill passed the Ohio House but died in the Senate, in part because it would have put unclaimed state income-tax return money in the unclaimed property fund. Roemer said state tax officials were worried that such a move would result in fraudsters flooding the state’s unclaimed funds office with bogus income-tax claims. This new bill doesn’t deem old income-tax refunds to be unclaimed funds. Dovilla signed on as cosponsor of the bill after the Browns stadium proposal led him – like thousands of other Ohioans – to check the state’s website to see if he had any unclaimed funds. While Dovilla found he had about 94 cents’ worth of unclaimed funds, he said he was surprised when he applied for it to find that he had submit a variety of paperwork and jump through other hoops to get his money. “It was a higher pain threshold than I was willing to allow for myself to get back less than a buck,” Dovilla said. “It’s serving as a disincentive or discouragement to people who might think, ‘Oh, this is an easy process. I just fill out a form online, and my money comes back.’” It remains to be seen whether HB480 will fare any better than Merrin’s bill four years ago. However, Ohio House Speaker Matt Huffman, a Lima Republican, told reporters last week that while he hasn’t read HB480, he sympathizes with the bill’s goal of making it easier for people to get their unclaimed funds from the state. “I think the unclaimed fund system, for a lot of folks, has been a mystery,” Huffman said. “And folks have said to me, ‘There’s $40 there, but I have to fill all of this out (and) go get it notarized.’ And for some folks, it’s just not worth their time to go get that $40. But they should be able to access that more quickly.” What’s changed Until recently, the state has held onto unclaimed assets indefinitely until someone filed to get them. Right now, the fund holds about $4.8 billion, according to unclaimed funds office spokesman Franklin Freytag. That amount has swelled in recent years; between July 2023 and July 2024, the fund received $528 million and paid out about $149 million, according to the Ohio Capital Journal. But in early June, the Republican-controlled state legislature inserted language in the new state budget raiding $1.7 billion from the fund to subsidize pro sports stadium projects, including $600 million for a new Cleveland Browns stadium in suburban Brook Park. The budget language also states that, going forward, any unclaimed funds held by the state for more than 10 years will be permanently seized by the state to use for future stadium projects. It remains to be seen whether the state’s takeover of unclaimed funds in this way will survive a pending legal challenge. But in the meantime, the publicity surrounding the changes has led to a sharp uptick in the number of people filing unclaimed property claims. Between June 1 and Sept. 20, the state’s unclaimed funds office received 511,820 claims, according to Freytag – almost as much as the 554,795 claims the office received in total during the previous fiscal year. Freytag, in a statement, said if HB480 passes, state unclaimed funds office staff will continue working, to the best of their ability “to get unclaimed funds back to their rightful owners as quickly, efficiently and securely as possible.”
