For families settling what a death left behind

Someone you love died. The state may be holding their money.

Every year, banks, employers, and insurers hand states billions of dollars that belong to people who have died — forgotten accounts, final paychecks, insurance payouts nobody claimed. The states returned $4.25 billion in fiscal 2025, and roughly 1 in 7 people has property waiting. Searching is free, and we will point you to the free official doors ourselves. The hard part starts after you find it: the state demands a chain of documents — a certified death certificate, proof of kinship generation by generation, an authority paper — and most families stall somewhere in that chain while finders offer to "help" for a percentage the law caps. This site computes your chain before you start: whether you can skip probate, which papers in which order, who else must sign, and what a finder would take in dollars.

Run the free checker

No login. Nothing uploaded. Ever.

Start with the checker

Before you order a single certificate or sign a single form, you deserve the whole map: the verdict, the chain, the signatures, and the fee math — for your state, your relationship, and your amount.

What will the state demand from YOU?

Tell it the state holding the money, who you are to the person it belongs to, and roughly how much it is. It answers with the four things families actually get stuck on: whether you can skip probate, the documents in the order the state wants them, who else has to sign, and the finder fee in dollars you keep by filing yourself. No login, nothing uploaded; it runs on this page, in your browser.

We never ask you to upload a death certificate, an ID, or any document — not here, not anywhere. Anyone who asks for your state-portal password while offering to "help" with a claim is running a scam.

The three ways families get stuck

The chain

The documents, in the state's order

A certified death certificate. Your ID and Social Security proof. The deceased's Social Security number — which the family often has to request from the Social Security Administration first. Then kinship proof for every generation between you and the deceased. Miss one rung and the claim sits. The document chain, explained →

The authority paper

Proof you're allowed to be paid

Under your state's small-estate cap, an affidavit may do. Over it, the court decides. California measures the cap by the date of death; Texas runs a four-step tier ladder; New York wants a Table of Heirs with no blank lines. Your state's rules → · The Table of Heirs →

The percentage

The finder's letter

"We found money in your family's name — sign here and we'll recover it for 15%." Finders are legal, capped, and almost never necessary: the state pays the heir directly, free. What the caps are, and when a signed agreement is void: Read the letter first → · The caps →

The honest triage, up front: if your claim is simple — your own name, or a small amount with you as the only heir in a state that takes heir claims online — the checker will tell you "This one is simple. File free. You don't need the kit." And it means it: the official search doors are MissingMoney.com (the states' own endorsed search) and your state's site, both free. The kit exists for the claims that are not simple: many heirs, old deaths, two generations of certificates, a state demanding a Table of Heirs.

First — whose hands is the money in? This site is about money held by a state (the unclaimed-property programs). If instead a company is holding your money — a marketplace or payment platform sitting on your balance — that's a different fight with different doors: our sister site MoneyFrozen is built for it. If a state treasurer or comptroller holds the money, stay here.

Why the state won't hand you the map

States hold this money in perpetuity in most cases — the right to claim doesn't expire, but the proof decays: certificates get harder to order, heirs scatter, addresses vanish. No state publishes the family-side playbook: which cap your amount falls under, which tier of proof your state demands, which heir's missing signature is freezing the file. That silence is the finder's business model — a percentage of money the state would have paid you directly, free, for the same forms.

This site is the playbook, computed from primary sources: the statutes, the administrative rules, the states' own claim guidance — every rule stamped with its source and the date we checked it, and every cell we could not verify flagged as unverified, in plain sight. One discipline, stated up front: we never file for you, we never touch your money, and we never ask you to upload a single document. The state decides who is entitled. We organize the paperwork.

Included in the $39 MoneyLeftBehind Kit

  • The per-state chain checklists: the exact document ladder for your state and your relationship, in order — which certificate, which form, which signature — with the state-specific rungs (Texas's tiers, New York's Table of Heirs, Florida's all-beneficiaries rule) built in
  • The Table of Heirs worksheet: the fillable family map New York, California, Ohio, and Minnesota work from — every class, no blank lines — with a worked example of the hardest case, the heir nobody can find
  • The heirship-affidavit walkthrough: how to write it, who may witness it, where it must be recorded, and how Texas's four tiers decide which paper your amount needs
  • The sibling and co-heir coordination pack: the letter to send your relatives, what each person must sign and send back, and the signature-collection tracker that keeps one slow cousin from stalling the whole family's claim
  • The vital-records ordering guide: how to order certified death, birth, and marriage certificates — who is allowed to order each one, what ID it takes, the fastest door in each state, and the fees to expect
  • The deficiency and rejection recovery chapter: how to read the state's 'we need more' letter, fix the exact gap (wrong certificate, stale court letters, a missing generation), and resubmit so the claim lands the second time
  • The address-chain module for your own money: proving you lived at addresses from twenty years ago and bridging name changes — the hard end of own-name claims
  • The finder-letter decoder: got a letter offering to 'find' money for a percentage? Read this first — the legal caps by state, the waiting periods that make some agreements void, and the free direct route that makes the letter worthless
  • The probate-skip decision worksheets: affidavit vs. summary administration vs. full probate, state by state, with the math run against your state's cap — including California's date-of-death bands
  • The claim-tracking calendar: filing dates, the state's published decision window, and the follow-up letters at the right intervals — plus the records to keep until the check clears
Get the $39 MoneyLeftBehind Kit

One payment, yours to keep. We never file for you and never touch your money — you file everything yourself, with the state. See everything inside the kit →

What families ask at 2 a.m.

Can I get in trouble for claiming this money?

No — claiming money the state holds for your family is a normal, legal process the states run on purpose. What gets people in trouble is claiming money they are not entitled to, or signing with a finder without reading the caps. The full answer, with the real risk lines, is on the trouble page.

Is this legitimate? Are you the state?

We are not the state, not a finder, and not a government office — we are a publisher (CLEARDEAL LLC) selling a $39 information kit. The claims themselves are filed by you, free, at the official doors. How to verify every word of that is on the legitimacy page.

My parent died years ago. Is it too late?

Usually not. Most states hold the money indefinitely — there is no claim deadline in most states. What decays is the proof: certificates, addresses, living witnesses. The older the death, the more the chain matters — and the checker handles old dates (California's cap, for example, is read from the date of death, so a 2019 death is measured against that era's figure, not today's).

There are five of us. Who gets paid?

The state pays each heir their share, and typically wants every heir's signature (or a court paper) before paying anyone. One heir cannot quietly collect for everyone. The coordination problem — who signs what, in what order — is what the kit's co-heir pack is built for.

The money was shares of stock. What do I actually get?

Usually cash for the value on the day the state sold the shares — not the shares, and not today's price. States sell escheated securities, and the appreciation after the sale is gone. The honest version is on the sold-shares guide.

What does the kit cost, exactly?

$39, once. We never file for you. We never touch your money. We never take a percentage. We are never a subscription. The full contents and the honest comparison against finders and attorneys are on the kit page.

Facts checked Oct 20, 2026 against primary sources: the California Probate Code and Judicial Council form DE-300, the Texas Estates Code and 34 TAC §13.9, New York's SCPA and Abandoned Property Law, Florida Statutes chapter 717, and NAUPA's fiscal 2025 reporting. Every rule on this site carries its source; cells we could not verify are flagged as unverified, on the page.