Are you a missing heir ? 

Are we looking for you to give you $$$$ ?

Suffolk County Register of Probate Richard Iannella is actively looking for missing heirs to money held in special accounts at the Registry. Iannella describes these accounts and who can claim the funds held in them in the interview below:

How did the Registry of Probate come to be in charge of this money?

The funds are held in what we call ‘custodial accounts,’ and they ended up in the jurisdiction of the Registry because of legal action that took place at one time or another in our court – like the probating of a will, holding of money in escrow because of a divorce or other dispute, or holding onto funds left to a minor who can receive the money once they come of age.

What kinds of accounts are there?

In some, like ‘minor accounts,’ inheritances were left for children to receive once they turned 18. Somehow, though, the word never got to these people that the money was theirs once they came of age.

Most of the cases are those where people left money to relatives, descendants or friends when they died, but the executors of the will couldn’t find these heirs when it came time to settle the estate. In a few cases, even the intended heir had passed away, and therefore, wasn’t available to receive the funds. There are also cases where people leave money but have no heirs at all. In order to ‘close out’ the will and complete their responsibilities, the executors left the money with us. We are now responsible to maintain the account and find the potential heirs.

How much has been given out thus far?

Overall, we’ve given out almost $50,000 ($46,590 to be exact) to the rightful heirs. Just about all of this money has gone to minors who had money left for them but didn’t realize it until we made contact with them.

How much still remains to be distributed?  

All in all, there’s a little more than $700,000 to be distributed to the rightful heirs once we find them...or they find us. 

In one instance, $3,000 left to each of three grandchildren three decades ago has more than quadrupled, and each heir is now due nearly $13,000. Very few of these cases involve small dollar amounts. In fact, there are thousands of dollars due to many of the individuals that we are looking for.