Unclaimed Property Laws in Canada

Unclaimed Property Laws in Canada

While the majority of unclaimed money held by the governments can always be claimed by the rightful owners there are some places where this is not always the case.

One such place is in Canada the unclaimed property office known a The Bank of Canada holds unclaimed balances of less than $1,000 for thirty years. The unclaimed balances are transferred to them by financial institutions after they have remained unclaimed for 10 years. As such, if you have a unclaimed balance in a bank account you forgotten that is less then $1,000, you have 30 years to make a claim for it once it got transferred to the Bank of Canada. Balances are transferred to the Bank of Canada once a year, on 31 December. Anything more than $1,000 claims can be made at any time. The time frame does not expire. Once the 30 years are up and the balance in the unclaimed account is less that $1,000, the unclaimed money goes directly to the General account for Receiver General for Canada, which can amount to millions of dollars after 30 years. The previous amount was $500 but was then changed the the new amount of $1,000

Approximately 1.3 million unclaimed balances, worth about $496 million, were transfered to the Bank of Canada in 2012. Of that, 93% of unclaimed balances were under $1,000.00

In 2012, the Bank of Canada paid $17.4 million to the unclaimed account holders.