UK firm that finds owners of unclaimed assets plans to open a Dublin office, writes Laura Slattery

All over the world, people are losing coins down the back of their sofas. But plenty of money is also left lying around in forgotten bank accounts, savings certificates, life assurance policies and pensions, seemingly unwanted and without purpose.

"Quite a significant amount of our money, we just lose," says Tim Marshall, managing director of the Shareholder Partnership, a UK-based company that helps financial institutions hunt down the rightful owners of unclaimed assets.

Under the Dormant Accounts Act 2001, financial institutions are required to make a reasonable effort to contact the holders of accounts on which the customer has made no transactions for a period of 15 years or more.

The Act applies to current accounts, deposit accounts, savings certificates and savings bonds held in financial institutions such as banks, building societies and An Post.

Separate legislation applies to unclaimed life assurance policies: policies that have a lump sum payable at the end of a fixed term are deemed to be unclaimed if the insurance company does not hear from the policyholder within five years of the policy expiring. For open-ended policies, a 15-year period applies.

But people move on. They change address, they change their names, they leave the country and they die - sometimes they do all four.

If the financial institution can't contact the customer, the money in the account or policy will be transferred to the State's Dormant Account Fund, which is managed by the National Treasury Management Agency.

The Department of Community, Rural and Gaeltacht Affairs distributes the money to social and community projects aiming to ease poverty and social deprivation, support people with disabilities and help people who are educationally disadvantaged.

"It's okay to use it for social good, but is everything being done to track down its rightful owner and return it to them before it goes to the Government?" asks Marshall, a US expat living in the UK.

The company plans to open up an office in Dublin over the coming months and is currently negotiating deals with Irish financial institutions that would give the company access to their database of unreachable dormant account holders.

It already has such deals with financial institutions in the UK, who pay the company for its services.

The advantage for the financial services provider is that they get to reactivate the account.

"We get the mandate from the financial institution and they've already taken their own internal measures to contact people, but we are specialists in going that stage further and turning over every stone," says Marshall.

The firm, which has global links to genealogy specialists in the UK, Australia, South Africa, the US and Canada, trawls through public records houses, probate offices, parish registries and other family history archives in their search for missing account holders or their beneficiaries.

Some of the people it contacts are living in Ireland, having emigrated to the UK decades ago and later returned home, leaving a forgotten asset behind.

The next of kin or beneficiaries of people who emigrated to the UK but have since passed away may also be living in the Republic.

The company says it has a growing army of self-styled "Miss Marple" freelance investigators who track down beneficiaries, using telephone skills and specialist software.

In around 40 per cent of cases, the owner of the asset is deceased, while the average age of account holders who are still living or their beneficiaries is 62.

"When you are dealing with the older generation, you need to use different communication techniques," says Marshall.

"Sometimes there is memory loss - unfortunately, when you get older, things tend to slip through the gap."

The company's work involves a degree of hand holding as well as the initial tracing.

It might sound strange to someone who longs for a rich relative from an obscure corner of their family tree to bestow on them a five-figure sum, but people who are told that they are due an unexpected windfall from some dusty savings account tucked away in an overseas building society don't always effusively thank the bearer of good news and break open the champagne.

For very good reasons, an out of the blue phone call or letter promising cash can trigger suspicion.

"If you tell someone this €1,000 is yours, they think it must be fraud and you are trying to scam them," says Marshall.

The approach can also bring up old memories for beneficiaries who may have been estranged from the now deceased dormant account holder. Often, there is a good reason why people lose contact, he admits.

As the disparity between the wealth of men and the wealth of women was more deeply entrenched in the past, the firm unsurprisingly encounters a gender divide when it comes to the handling of money matters.

"We frequently track down the spouses of people who have died, and they are often women, because of their longer life expectancy. Traditionally, the female in that generation never really looked at the finances. They knew there was a main account, but there may have been second or third accounts or share certificates that they knew nothing about," says Marshall.

The average windfalls are not life changing."To be honest it is an 80-20 rule, with 80 per cent less than €600. The average would probably be €300-€600. But about 20 per cent of the amounts are above €1,000."

People who think they have a dormant bank account or life assurance policy should contact the financial services provider at which they hold the account or policy.

If the financial services provider no longer exists or has changed its name or address, the Irish Bankers' Federation (IBF) keeps an updated register of contact details, while the Irish Insurance Federation (IIF) does the same in respect of life assurance companies.

Even if the proceeds of the account are transferred to the Dormant Accounts Fund, there is no time limit on account holders or their next of kin reclaiming the money at a later date.

Some €214 million of lost money is currently lodged in the Dormant Accounts Fund, from which over €20 million has been reclaimed to date.

"You'll never be able to return all of it. But you could have a good shot at 20-40 per cent of it," says Marshall.

The IBF and the IIF both publish annual advertisements notifying the public of the fate of their unclaimed assets. According to a spokeswoman for the IBF, this does prompt a few inquiries from consumers who think there might be money due to them.

But the advertisements can't catch everybody, such as those who live overseas. And as Marshall notes: "Dead people don't get the papers."