Almost $9.9 million in unclaimed money owed to thousands of West Australians has been reported to the Department of Treasury in 2014-15, Treasurer Mike Nahan said today.
Dr Nahan said there was no time limit on claims and anyone who could clearly establish a rightful claim would be paid their money regardless of how long it had been held.
"Millions of dollars owed to thousands of West Australians is lying unclaimed within the Department of Treasury's Register of Unclaimed Money database," the Treasurer said.
"In the past 12 months, 3,500 amounts worth more than $1.6 million have been claimed from the database. I encourage everyone to check the register to see if they are entitled to any of the funds."
Last financial year, Treasury received unclaimed money notifications relating to more than 35,000 amounts, including share dividends and real estate transactions, which totalled almost $9.9 million.
In 2014-15, more than $1.6 million was also paid out from the Department of Treasury's Register of Unclaimed Money database.
Treasury receives unclaimed monies from Western Australian-based organisations in accordance with the Unclaimed Money Act 1990. The purpose of the Act is to protect the interests of people due monies that they may not be aware of or may have forgotten about.
The Public Trustee may also bring to account monies for deceased estates where the beneficiaries are unknown or cannot be located.
In the past 12 months, the largest individual unclaimed amounts of $421,783 and $210,000 have been added to the Unclaimed Money database.
Wesfarmers Ltd reported unclaimed money totalling $2.3 million, Woodside Petroleum Ltd reported $800,000 and another seven organisations reported amounts of between $400,000
and $600,000.
Fact File
The full register contains 485,000 unclaimed amounts and is available at http://www.treasury.wa.gov.au/unclaimedmoney
People interested in claiming money will require documents to help Treasury verify claims including an original, signed and witnessed statutory declaration together with a form of identification, such as a driver's licence, passport or health care card
Treasurer's office - 6552 5700
