You may have an amount sitting in the coffers of the Bank of Canada or Revenu Québec.
Billions of financial transactions of all kinds are carried out daily around the globe; it is normal that some transactions do not reach their destination. There are many reasons, moving, change of identification, death or others…
When a transaction cannot be completed, mechanisms are in place to administer these assets. In fact, if you don’t use certain financial products for 10 years, federally regulated financial institutions consider your balance unclaimed. These institutions must transfer this balance to the Bank of Canada. This rule only applies to products in Canadian dollars. The Bank of Canada keeps unclaimed balances under $1,000 for 30 years. It keeps unclaimed balances over $1,000 for over 100 years.
In Quebec, more than 500 million dollars are waiting to be returned to their owner. If you have rights to an unclaimed estate, you have 30 years from the date of death. Regarding financial products left inactive in a Quebec financial institution or other property, you have 10 years from the date of remitting the amounts to the Minister of Finance, when they are less than $500 and indefinitely, when these amounts are equal to or greater than $500.
Fees are often charged by government authorities for the management and safekeeping of these amounts, so it is to your advantage to recover these amounts as quickly as possible.
Our team has already assisted several clients in the search and recovery of large sums belonging to them. This analysis is often one of the elements that we check in our optimization mandates.
Do not hesitate to contact us for our assistance.
