Got a letter offering to 'find' money for a percentage? Read this first.

Why you got the letter

When property reaches a state, the owner's name and last-known address become a public record (in California, after one year). Finders buy or pull those lists and mail the families they can identify — widows, children, grandchildren — offering to recover the money for a percentage. Nothing about the letter means the money is hard to get. It means the record was easy to read. The same search the finder ran is free for you at MissingMoney.com and your state's site — start there, and you'll likely find the exact property the letter is about within minutes.

What the letter doesn't say

• The state pays heirs directly, free. The finder's entire job is the claim form and the document chain — paperwork, sold for a percentage of your family's money.
• The fee is capped by law in most states — 10% in California, 15% in New York, 20% in Florida with a $1,000-per-account ceiling, up to 30% in Arizona. A letter quoting above your state's cap is quoting an unenforceable fee. The full table: how much do finders charge.
• Some agreements are void from the start: signed too early (Florida: within 45 days of the property's database listing; California: before the property has been with the Controller a year), charging before the claim is approved and paid (California), or hiding the free direct route the law requires them to disclose (New York's form carries it in bold 12-point type).
• The percentage comes off the top — including money that was never in doubt. On a $40,000 claim, even a "modest" 15% is $6,000 for the same forms.

The probate cousin — a bigger percentage, a different letter

Separate the two industries: unclaimed-property finders (capped, above) and probate heir hunters, who approach heirs of estates in court and commonly charge 20–50% — about a third on average — of an heir's share. A documented case took 33% of six grandchildren's shares: $68,126 for locating people the court's own file largely identified. If your letter is about an estate in probate rather than state-held property, the caps above may not apply at all — which is exactly why the letter deserves a slow read and, on large estates, a lawyer's hour before a signature.

What to do instead (five minutes)

1. Search the deceased's name at MissingMoney.com and the holding state's site. Find the property.
2. Run the free checker — it prints your chain and computes, in dollars, the fee you'd avoid at your state's cap.
3. If the claim is simple, file free and keep 100%. If it's hard — many heirs, old death, big amount — compare the finder's capped percentage against the $39 kit and an attorney's flat hour, and choose with the numbers in front of you.