The caps table
A finder's fee is not whatever the letter says — in the states that regulate it, it's whatever the statute allows, and agreements over the line can be void. Here are the caps we verified against primary sources, the waiting periods that void early agreements, and the honest math on what a percentage costs at real claim sizes.
| State | Finder cap | The law | The catch that voids agreements |
|---|---|---|---|
| California | 10% | Code Civ. Proc. §1582 | Invalid if signed before the property has been with the Controller 1 year, or if it charges before the claim is approved and paid; the agreement must disclose the free direct-claim address |
| Florida | 20% per account, never more than $1,000 total per account | Fla. Stat. §717.135 (current) | Void if signed within 45 days of the property appearing in the state's database (§717.1381) |
| New York | 15% | Abandoned Property Law §1416 | Must be on the Comptroller's form, notarized, with the bold disclosure that claiming is free |
| Arizona | Up to 30% | AZ Dept. of Revenue program rules | Applies to property held more than 2 years; finders act as licensed private investigators |
| Other states | Many states cap finder fees in the 10–15% range or regulate the agreements; we publish a figure only where we've read the primary text — the rest are flagged unverified in our dataset rather than repeated from secondary lists | When in doubt, the state's own program site states its rule | |
A correction we publish openly: older web sources (and an early draft of our own research) put Florida at 15%/25% — that text was repealed before 2005. Current §717.135 is 20% with the $1,000 per-account ceiling. Logged on the correction log.
| Claim | At 10% | At 15% | At 20% (FL: capped) | Filing yourself |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| $1,000 | $100 | $150 | $200 | $0 |
| $10,000 | $1,000 | $1,500 | $1,000 (the $1,000 ceiling binds) | $0 |
| $40,000 | $4,000 | $6,000 | $1,000 per account | $0 |
| $100,000 | $10,000 | $15,000 | $1,000 per account | $0 |
The checker runs this math on your amount and your state, and puts the avoided fee in your result in dollars.
Rarely, but not never: a finder who locates an heir nobody could find, in a claim the family didn't know existed, has created value — at the capped rate, on a compliant agreement, signed after the waiting period. What never makes sense is paying a percentage for a claim you already found, in a state whose forms you can complete, at an amount where the kit's $39 or an attorney's hour costs less than the percentage. Compare all three doors with real numbers — the kit page does it in a table.
Run your own claim. The free checker takes your state, your relationship, and your amount — and returns the probate-skip verdict, your document chain in order, the signatures you'll need, and the finder fee you'd avoid. Run the checker →
The pages above are the map. The kit is the paperwork: the per-state checklists, the Table of Heirs worksheet, the letters that line up every heir's signature, and the chapter for the state's reply.
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 →