More than 700 million euro is lying forgotten about on dormant accounts in Belgium. Tuesday's edition of the daily ‘Het Belang van Limburg’ writes this includes money on that had been deposited in bank accounts, insurance polices and in bank safety deposit boxes. The amount of cash lying dormant has increased during the past year.
If funds that have remained untouched (no deposits, payments, withdrawals, ) on a bank account for at least five years the bank has to make efforts to trace the account holder through a legally defined procedure.
If the account holder fails to come forward the money is passed on to the Federal Finance Department that keeps the money for 30 years (if it is more than 60 euro) and waits for the rightful owner to come forward. If they don’t come forward after 30 years, the money is transferred to the state coffers.
How can you get your money back?
But how can it be that 716 million euro is lying dormant? VRT News’ financial expert Michaël Van Droogenbroeck says that "This is often due to carelessness. Letters from the bank that have remained unopened. Or people that moved abroad without informing their bank or insurance company. Or people that have died and had opened an account for their grandchildren while they were still alive".
How can you find out if you have a dormant account? Log on to the Federal Finance Department website MyMinFin . Click on the “Mijn betalingen” tab (the website is in Dutch, French and German). If you see that there is a sum of money listed there you can of course request it be paid to you. In that case you will receive the money within 30 days.