Here’s how to get it

JAMES RUSSELL | Contributing Writer
james.journo@gmail.com

Pharmaceutical company Sanofi Aventis owes Dallas Voice $968.

The Voice is among the millions of Texans, businesses, non-profits and states agencies owed money, according to the Office of the Comptroller of Public Accounts, the state’s tax assessor and collector and repository of unclaimed funds.

“Like a lost and found” is how Kevin Lyons, a spokesperson for the comptroller’s office, described the division, which was implemented in 1963. State statute requires entities report unclaimed funds to the state after five years.

Dallas Voice has compiled a list of a local organizations and businesses owned by LGBTQ people or serving the LGBTQ and HIV/AIDS communities with claimable funds, which include PayPal fees, utility bills, insurance claims, forgotten bank account funds, rental deposits, mineral rights and myriad other tangible property.

As of December 2019, about $600 million in unclaimed funds are waiting for Dallas County residents, and $300 million is there for Tarrant County residents. Statewide, around $3 billion in funds are waiting to be claimed.

The high number can be attributed to no statute of limitations for filing claims.

“That means the state could hold onto funds for decades,” Lyons noted.

All 50 states, Washington, D.C., the U.S. Virgins Islands and Puerto Rico have resources to claim property, thanks to these escheatment laws. These laws, the name deriving from Latin for “to fall out,” date back to medieval England, according to the Unclaimed Property Professionals Organization, and, in the United States, are philosophically rooted in the time-held American tradition of private property rights.

“Under English common law, any lands held ‘by tenure’ (i.e., occupied by someone other than the owner) were returned to the feudal lord upon the death of an heirless tenant.”

In 1954, the U.S. Commission on Uniform State Laws debuted the first model unclaimed property law. Since then, the law has been revised, first in 1966 then in 1981 and again in 1995. These revisions added other forms of property, such as gift cards, and stiffened penalties for failure to comply.

According to the Securities and Exchange Commission, states use the unclaimed funds to sell the securities in escheated accounts and treat the proceeds as state funds.

“When a former account owner makes a valid request, however, the states will normally provide the former owner with cash equaling the value of the account at the time of escheatment. This amount of cash does not include any dividends or interest covering the time after escheatment,” according to the federal agency’s website.

These laws are state-based and not federal, however, creating a patchwork of state laws that makes compliance and reporting difficult.

Texas, for instance, does not display small properties under $25, and money orders, cashier’s checks and gift cards are often reported with no name at all.

But if you can dig, the property is waiting. All you have to do is go online to ClaimItTexas.org. There, claimants can type in a name, including names of individual or businesses, and see listings that are exact matches or those close to it.

The same person could be listed under various names. For example, Robert Frederick Smith could go by Bob Smith, R.F. Smith or R. Smith. The location is sometimes but not always included, making the process more difficult.

Name differences can easily be verified by submitting additional info, such as a Social Security number and proof of ownership. But transgender and gender non-conforming people may have a harder time verifying the property, even if it is rightfully theirs. Because not everyone’s name or gender marker corresponds to the identification on record regarding these unclaimed funds.

Texas law makes changing one’s identity more difficult, so using a passport, driver’s license or any approved legal document required to receive funds may not be enough to approve the claim.

“If it’s in their dead name, they have a problem,” said Karri Bertrand, a family law attorney at O’Neil Wysocki Family Law in Dallas.

“You shouldn’t have to keep your old identification. It’s not your ID anymore, and [using old ID] could be fraud.”

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Organizations, businesses due unclaimed funds

1851 Club: $34.50
AIDS Arms: $404.51
AIDS Food Pantry: $50.00
AIDS Healthcare Foundation: $438
Ahi Sushi: $32.43
Black Tie Dinner: $3,879.60
Broadway Baptist Church: $45.50
Bruce Wood Dance Company: $62.99
Cathedral of Hope: $55.00
Caven Enterprises: $243.98
Celebration Community Church: $160.75
Collin County Gay and Lesbian Alliance: $43.39
Club Changes: $203.87
Dallas Voice and Voice Publishing Co.: $1,241.00
DIFFA: $113.34 (A listing for $70 for a DIFFA could not be confirmed as no location was provided.)
Gay and Lesbian Alliance of Dallas: $360.93
Gay and Lesbian Fund for Dallas: $104.57
HIV Prevention and Consulting: $745.90
ilume and ilume Park: $3,384.28
Legacy Counseling Center: $268.48
Lesbian Gay Democrats: $537.08
Log Cabin Republicans of Texas – Dallas: $73.99
Lost Souls Rugby Club: $78.55
Marquis at Cedar Springs: $443.70
Oak Lawn Clinic: $295.33
Oak Lawn Community Services: $3,980.87
Oak Lawn United Methodist Church: $405.84
Resource Center: $1,014.06
Tarrant County Gay and Lesbian Alliance: $490
Texas AIDS Rides: $300
Tanqueray Texas AIDS Ride: $434.82
Transgender Education Network of Texas: $600
Turtle Creek Chorale: $40.67
Women’s Chorus of Dallas: $416.81