Individuals and companies occasionally lose track of the money they own, for example, bank accounts, shares, superannuation investments and life insurance policies. This may happen because of a change of address, a change of name, a change of employer, a move overseas and, sometimes, just plain oversight.

 

Where this happens, and the financial institution or previous authority is unable to locate the owner of the money, the money is considered “lost”. In most cases, lost money is transferred to a Government trust account and remains there while it is “unclaimed”. What may interest you is that, if owners of this money do not step forward, this money is then taken up as Government revenue. In most cases this is the inevitable fate for lost money unless the correct owner steps forward to claim their lost money.

​

What makes this process even more difficult is that each State in Australia has separate laws relating to lost funds and various institutions responsible for lost monies unique to that State (with their own set of individual claiming rules and procedures). This can make this process very difficult as small mistakes can lead to a much more difficult return process later and may require months of assistance in order to complete the claim.

​